Wildest Car Stunts in Film History

Doubling Burt Reynolds as he often did, stunt icon Hal Needham performed one of his greatest car stunts on the set of White Lightning, jumping a 1971 Ford LTD sedan from land to a moving river barge. But things didn’t go as planned. Despite Needham hitting the ramp at 80 mph, the Ford only landed half on the barge. "That river was so muddy and swift," he said, "if I hadn't gotten brave on the way to the ramp, I'd have ended up in Louisiana. We were shooting in Arkansas."

This gritty New York City cop drama starring Roy Scheider was produced and directed by Philip D'Antoni, the producer of Bullitt and The French Connection. Its incredible 10-minute car chase took four months to film, with cameras mounted inside, on, and outside the cars. Bill Hickman co-starred and served as stunt coordinator, but it was Jerry Summers at the wheel for the film's greatest moment, when a Pontiac Ventura violently plows into the back of a parked semi.

There are 19 stunt performers listed in the credits of this car-theft cult classic, but the only one that really matters is H.B. Halicki. The wealthy junkyard owner from Long Beach, California, not only financed, wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the film, he also did his own stunt driving. That’s him in Eleanor, the famous 1971 Ford Mustang, when it slams into the pole on the freeway, an unplanned mishap, and when it jumps over the car on 190th street in Redondo Beach.

Conversations about this John Wayne drama usually surround its Brewster Green 1973 Trans Am and chase sequence, but the cop flick also contains the debut of the McQ Cannon, as it has become known. Created by Hal Needham and still in use today, it allows a car to be barrel rolled without a ramp by basically fitting explosives to its undercarriage. The test run on a dry lake almost killed Needham, so the film's spectacular beach rollover was performed by Gary McLarty.

This one is often argued to be the greatest car stunt ever captured on film. What is without question is that it is the best car stunt ever featured in a James Bond movie. According to 007.com, stuntman Loren "Bumps" Willert performed the spectacular spiral jump in the AMC Hornet X at 48 mph with two dummies aboard. Launching the hatchback from one curved ramp to another, it barrel-rolled 360 degrees over a canal in Klong Rangsit, Thailand, before landing safely on the other side.

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In the White Lightning sequel, Hal Needham once again doubled for Burt Reynolds and performed his famous pickup-truck roll. With the Ford speeding toward the ramp at 60 mph, Needham hung from its side, leaping clear as it begins to roll. But he nearly collided with the truck in midair. "That fender only missed me by 18 inches," he told Popular Mechanics. "Had the truck gone straight and not turned over, it would have landed right on top me."

Directed by Hal Needham and starring his buddy Burt with that black Trans Am, Smokey is basically a 93-minute chase scene. Its most spectacular moment is when stuntman Alan Gibbs jumps the Pontiac 70 feet over Georgia's Jonesboro River. Although the car was mostly unmodified, Needham says the Trans Am did have a souped-up engine so Gibbs could achieve the speed needed to jump the 3500-pound car, which was destroyed by the stunt. He even did it with the T-tops out.

Immediately after Smokey and the Bandit lit up the box office, Hal Needham directed his second film, a pseudo-autobiographical action comedy about an aging stuntman. Many great stunt performers appear in Hooper, both on camera and off, and there are many astounding car stunts in the film. But it was the prolific Glenn Wilder who performed its most spectacular trick. In an incredible feat of timing and courage, he drove a red Trans Am beneath a collapsing smokestack in the climatic and chaotic final sequence.

The long list of stuntmen that put in time on the Blues Brothers includes such industry legends as Bobby Bass, Bud Ekins, and Tommy J. Huff, and the movie is packed with incredible scenes. Its shopping-mall scene still sets a standard 40 years later, and wrecking 103 cars in the film's final cut was a record at the time. The crew also burned through 13 Bluesmobiles, which works out to 52 cop shocks and 52 cop tires.

When a film is directed by Hal Needham and Bobby Bass is the stunt coordinator, you know there's going to be some great car action. This car-guy classic comedy, written by C/D's own Brock Yates, is full of them. Unfortunately, it's unclear which of the film's dozens of performers were behind the wheel during its most spectacular stunt, when a 1981 GMC C-35 dually jumps over a train. Remember, if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly.

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James Bond trades in the Aston for a big rig in this one. When the Kenworth does the wheelie, it's sure to peg your bullshit meter, but you gotta see Remy Julienne ski the tanker on nine of its 18 wheels and bring it down on top of a Jeep. Some say it was faked, that the truck was propped up on its side, but watch the sequence closely. It's the real deal. Incredible.

It's often referred to as "the motorcycle chase," but the best stunt in this sequence involves the Freightliner tow truck chasing the two wheelers. There's no CGI here. Gene Hartline actually drove the big rig through a wall and down into the Los Angeles Drainage Canal System with spectacular results. Although a ramp was placed behind the false wall, the following drop and violent landing on the concrete surface below are real.

Also known as Dead Heat, this Jackie Chan good guy/bad guy classic is packed with car action and Japan's best performance cars of the time. Some say it's the original tuner-car flick, beating The Fast and the Furious to screen by six years. It's set in Hong Kong, and Chan plays a part-time race-car driver. He also served as stunt coordinator on the film. Co-coordinator Frankie Chan handled the car stuff, however, with Yat-Sun Chan and Yamson Domingo doing most of the driving. The action includes a race car jumping through a tower in spectacular fashion and what is undoubtedly the greatest parking job of a Mitsubishi Evo III ever caught on film.

Tim Trella was behind the wheel of the 1970 Dodge Charger in the final scene of this classic. Doubling Vin Diesel, he smashes the muscle car into a big rig and jumps it upside down over the Toyota Supra driven by Christopher J. Tuck. The incredible timing of their maneuvers is apparent when the director cuts to the camera mounted inside the Supra and you see the Charger flying inverted over the sports car.

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To barrel roll 007's Aston Martin DBS, the stunt team employed none other than a McQ Cannon. According to Esquire magazine, to flip the Aston onto its roof it was fitted with a gas cannon that used pressurized nitrogen to punch a metal ram out of the bottom of the car. The unknown stuntman swerved the car to the left, hit the metal ram, and set a Guinness World Record for most intentional barrel rolls in a car.

This sequel starts with one of the greatest car jumps ever caught on film. According to the film's stunt coordinator, star Keanu Reeves drove the 1968 Mustang for much of the action, but the sideways jump in the wet through the warehouse door was performed by a stuntman. More than 100 worked on the film. To get the drift jump perfect required eight takes, and one Mustang was destroyed when the unidentified stunt driver hit the steel door frame.