The 1955 Chevy from Two-Lane Blacktop. Photos courtesy Barrett-Jackson.
Is Monte Hellmen’s 1971 ode to street racing, Two-Lane Blacktop, a time-capsule road movie or celluloid pablum lacking actors, dialogue, or even much of a plot?
Opinions on the film seem to fall exclusively along these two lines, but over four decades after Hellmen’s look into “the far out world of the high-speed scene,” it still spurs discussion among enthusiasts. Love the film or hate it, most will agree that the real star of the movie is a primer-gray 1955 Chevy two-door sedan, and next January one of three cars originally built for the movie heads to auction in Scottsdale.
The plot of Two-Lane Blacktop is simple, at least on the surface: Drifters “The Driver” (played by singer James Taylor) and “The Mechanic” (played by Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson) travel the Southwest looking to arrange street races for cash. Along the way, “The Girl” (played by Laurie Bird) joins the pair, and the trio ultimately embarks on a cross-country race for pink slips with “GTO” (played by Warren Oates), a middle-ager in a new 1970 Pontiac GTO who clearly represents “the establishment.” Neither car makes it to Washington D.C., but that’s beside the point, since the plot of the movie is only superficially about racing, or even driving cross-country.
In preparing for production, Richard Ruth was contracted by Universal Studios to build a trio of 1955 Chevys for filming. Chassis VC550041466, to be sold in Scottsdale at no reserve, was equipped with a camera rig and used to film the bulk of the car’s interior shots; hence, it was the car driven most often by Taylor. A second car (with the now-famous primer gray finish) was used for the exterior shots, while a third car was built for planned stunts.
When production wrapped, VC550041466 was sold to a studio mechanic, while the other two cars were later used in the filming of American Graffiti. Of these, the stunt car was destroyed and later sold for scrap, while the black ’55 survives.
Chassis VC550041466 passed through a string of owners over the years, before being rediscovered by Two-Lane Blacktop historian Walt Bailey in Canada in 2000. The car was authenticated by Richard Ruth, and the two men began a process of preservation where possible and restoration where necessary; today, the primered ’55 Chevy is the only surviving Two Lane Blacktop movie car that looks as the hero car did during filming.
To save weight, the car sports a custom fiberglass front end, a fiberglass trunk, fiberglass doors and sliding plastic windows. Up front, the car rides on a straight axle hand-built by Ruth for the proper stance and fitted with coilover shocks. Power comes from a 454-cu.in. V-8, fitted with dual four-barrel carburetors atop a vintage Weiand manifold, and sent to a period-correct Positraction rear end through a Muncie M-22 four-speed transmission.
While output estimates aren’t available, the car was said to be capable of quarter-mile runs in the 10s, which puts horsepower at “more than enough to get the job done.”
Two Lane Blacktop was a critical success, but not a commercial one, and neither Taylor nor Wilson ever starred in a feature length film again. The movie has developed a cult following over the years, and Brock Yates even credited it as an inspiration behind the original Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. How much this will influence the car’s value remains to be seen, and Barrett-Jackson isn’t putting a pre-auction estimate on the no-reserve lot.
For more details on the 2015 Scottsdale sale, visit Barrett-Jackson.com.
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