Autoblog: Jay Leno recreates C'etait un Rendez-Vous on LA's "N?rburgring"

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http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/29/video-jay-leno-recreates-cetait-un-rendez-vous-on-las/

"Every major city must have a great race track hidden in it somewhere." So starts Jay Leno's first car mini-film, The Fast and the Famous. The conceit is this: like all car guys (and gals), Leno acknowledges that the greatest car movie ever made is Claude Lelouch's C'etait un Rendez-Vous. With that in mind, Jay gets half-a-dozen cameras mounted up to the same red SLS AMG he had in his garage and goes semi-hooning through the streets of Los Angeles in a fun homage to Lelouch's Seventies masterpiece.

Of course, not just any streets. Leno comes up with the hypothesis that LA's hidden circuit is Mulholland east to Laurel Canyon south to Sunset Boulevard west to Coldwater Canyon north back to Mulholland. Interestingly, not only is this route about 13 miles long ? similar in length to Germany's famed N?rburgring Nordschleife ? but it's also somewhat shaped like the Nordschleife. A very cool coincidence if you ask us.

Is he right? As a near-lifelong Angleno this particular writer agrees, sorta. If there was a way to magically ban all traffic from Laurel and Coldwater Canyons then yeah, totally. Especially as Sunset and Mulholland are usually alright if you pick the right time of day. But as you'll see in the making of, this ten minute clip took three days to shoot. However, we think we know of a hidden race track laying just outside the city of angels, but we'll save that for another day. Until then, jump to watch both videos.

[YOUTUBE]xG8nQIBl7ig[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]dJIy0GTOROg[/YOUTUBE]

I doubt the hippies would allow it to become a Le Mans like event.
 
Need new pants.

imo.
 
Nissan's recreation of it through Prague was better, IMHO. If you click-through, watch it in HQ.

[youtube]p87SA_OSl-4[/youtube]

I have that on DVD; on it you can watch each angle as one long unedited take, which they couldn't do here.

Dear Top Gear - go rent the city of Prague and do this in your own personal cars. This would be a lot less rubbish than 14x01-05.
 
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Dear Leno: Shut up, you're spoiling the awesome.

Also, not nearly enough driving illegally. Seriously, I did that same lap - in a U-Haul F-150 longbed (U-Haul: Actually a respectable rental car agency when you're 18 and nobody else will give you the time of day) - WITH TRAFFIC, never having seen it before and made a better show about it. And Leno can afford traffic tickets - 18 year old me totally couldn't.
 
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Dear Leno: Shut up, you're spoiling the awesome.

Also, not nearly enough driving illegally. Seriously, I did that same lap - in a U-Haul F-150 longbed (U-Haul: Actually a respectable rental car agency when you're 18 and nobody else will give you the time of day) - WITH TRAFFIC, never having seen it before and made a better show about it. And Leno can afford traffic tickets - 18 year old me totally couldn't.

If you're going to do that lap, a motorcycle is best, IMHO.
 
Well yeah, but I was 18 years old, and had gotten off an airplane and had come to the conclusion after about 20 minutes of futzing around at a bus stop that public transport sucks even in places that do have it - so I needed something - and the only rental agency that would rent to an 18 year old AT ALL was U-Haul. Which I find absolutely hilarious, because I can't be trusted with a 1.5L Suzuki runabout, but I can totally have a 30ft long box van.
 
UHaul has since stopped that at most of their locations. :p
 
I'm also old enough to rent from proper car agencies now (for an extra fee). Hell, another year and I'll be able to rent from the Hertz Awesome Shit Collection or that place on the Las Vegas strip with the supercars.
 
Mullholland is an excellent stretch, i've done a similar run at night many times, sometimes it can be quite perilous.
 
The awesome sound of the SLS has made me reconsider my initial dislike of that car. It's like rivers of pure awesome pouring out the exhaust pipes.

Steve
 
Long Beach Grand Prix.

Yeah, but that's only because it's preexisting and Long Beach doesn't have much else of a source of income.

LA would never give approval for a new road race circuit, even a temporary one.

There is also talk that IndyCar may drop the event soon due to increasing political pressure and ever heightening demands. One of which (apparently, per scuttlebutt) is that they should race special electric-only versions of the cars there due to complaints about the noise.
 
Yeah, but that's only because it's preexisting and Long Beach doesn't have much else of a source of income.

LA would never give approval for a new road race circuit, even a temporary one.

There is also talk that IndyCar may drop the event soon due to increasing political pressure and ever heightening demands. One of which (apparently, per scuttlebutt) is that they should race special electric-only versions of the cars there due to complaints about the noise.

:blink::blink::blink: WHAT?

Idea to beat that: get Audi to round up all their R10s and R15s and Peugeot all their 908s and let them run around the track for a few days on end. Let's see if they actually complain about any noise. Eco-loonies might even think they're electric.
 
Yeah, the real complaint (as in, what they're complaining about as a matter of law and regulation) is the noise, though they also cite 'earth-destroying carbon emissions' and 'the need to reflect the sensibilities of the host community.' Friend of mine who still lives there went to a City Council meeting and saw people complaining about the event. He said that it seemed to be getting some small amount of traction - especially the suggestion that non-complying teams could be fined big bucks by the city.
 
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I'd prefer to see their brains explode when they can't comprehend why those big race cars make so little noise. :lol: For eco-loonies, race car = EVIL POLLUTING NOISY THREAT TO MOTHER EARTH... and when they hear an Audi R15 whooshing by in near silence...
 
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I would prefer to just see their brains explode period. The ecomentalists won't be happy until we're all huddled together for warmth, slowly freezing to death in the dark.
 
^ One thing though: if you nuke California, make sure Laguna Seca Raceway remains intact. :)

Neutron bombs only, I promise. :D

Edit: Well, that or zombies. I find immense amusement in the thought of ecomentalists being killed and eaten by 100% recycled post-consumer humans.

336187504v6_480x480_Front.jpg
 
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