This is the Hannibal 8, driven by Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) in the 1965 Blake Edwards movie "The Great Race" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHv9aw9CN4g. The movie was a comedy about a 22,000 mile race from New York to Paris, a loose interpretation of the actual Great Race of 1908, commencing Feb 12th in New York and ending in Paris on July 18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mADMfKU5-Gw.
It also starred Peter Falk as his hapless sidekick, Natalie Wood (who I have been in love with since before I was born) and Tony Curtis as the good guy. (The movie also featured the largest pie fight ever staged http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23AvbQz9Ee8)
Warner Brothers built 5 of these cars at a cost of $150,000 each (the equivalent of over $1 million today). Tracking down information as to how many survive and where they are proved to be impossible. I know that one was just recently sold at the Volo Car Museum in Volo, Illinois, for $350,000. Had I been quicker I could have ordered a DVD from them that would have included detailed video of the car from top to bottom, inside and out. I called but the car had already been sold and therefore no further DVD's were being sold. That DVD would have been invaluable to me during this project, because finding reference photos of this car has been the most difficult and frustrating task so far. The only photos available are from it's appearance in various car shows and museums over the years, and they are mostly pretty small and yield few useable details. Plus, like many movie and TV cars from that time frame many parts have been lost/damaged/replaced and/or modified over the years. I did find an obscure mention of an article about the construction of the cars in an April 1965 issue of "Rod & Custom", so I found a copy on Ebay but it wasn't much help.
Some of the "special effects" include a cannon that emerges and retracts from the bonnet, a smoke screen system that billows black smoke from a rear nozzle, and it's distinctive "nosecone" which as it turns out, while looking ominous, simply heats up (for some reason). But it's most recognizable feature was, of course, it's ability to raise the body vertically on a scissors-type mechanism (which was constantly breaking down during the making of the movie).
All hand-constructed, they were powered by a Corvair 6 cylinder engine and, variously, either a standard Powerglide transmission or a three speed manual transmission, and one even had a hydraulic transmission. All four rear wheels are powered and chain driven. The scissors mechanism (installed on three of the cars and sometimes referred to as a "lazy tong" mechanism) was designed because they foresaw a need for a car that could straddle obstructions (which makes no sense to me because there was still the frame and axles between the wheels) and cross streams. Because the Corvair engine would stall out when submerged, it raised with the body, and the wheels, steering and brakes were all powered by three powerful hydraulic pumps driven by the Corvair engine above. Thus the car was completely drivable from the raised position
When in it's raised position it was very impressive, but I would imagine also very top-heavy and tricky to safely corner
The interior was somewhat spartan, but the dash featured all the bells and whistles you would expect from a bad-guy vehicle (most of which were undoubtedly just for show). The windshield wiper was hand operated by the lever in the center.
Publicity shot. Leslie Galant III (Tony Curtis) drives the good-guy-white car, the "Leslie Special". Four of these were built, and were loosely based on the 1907 Thomas Flyer that won the real race back in 1908.
(although it looks like the Hannibal 8 has four headlamps, one of them is in fact on the Leslie Special, it's a bit shorter than those on the Professor's car)
A shot from one of the car's appearance at the Peterson Automotive Museum in L.A. Different headlamps, tail lamp, cannon, horn, top, tires, rear wheels, door decals, nosecone either replaced or painted, etc. They were never completely raised when displayed, probably due to lack of ceiling space.
I should note that I did take some liberties with the appearance of this vehicle. In the movie the car is almost completely black, there is no gold trim on the fenders or body, all the straps and belts are black, things like that. But when I did make it accurate it sort of looked like an ink blob on wheels, really ugly. Possibly if I could have rendered it it might have been acceptable, but since rendering is completely beyond my capabilities I had to settle for a "dressed-up" version.
Another shot, different car, cannot remember where this is. Note the Blues Brothers car behind it.
There are still things that should be done to this car, but won't be. A lot of textures to add, some textures need tweaked, or replaced. Some details missing, things like that. The umbrella sucks (didn't think it would be that difficult to model an umbrella, I was wrong). But it was fun and a learning experience, I wanted to learn something about modeling belts and straps, hoses and wires, chains.
Hope you enjoy.
Now all I gotta do is figure out how to use it. I'm not too hopeful, but I'm gonna give it my best shot. Thanks, happy holidays!
