Diamonds Are Forever - James Bond Mach1

[cudak888]

I hope Bo won't be upset at me for breaking the news here first, but I have positively ID'ed the Dezer car - 1F05M160938 - as the vehicle used by the French stunt crew to retake the alleyway exit scene (on the wrong side).

First - examine this screenshot Bo extracted from the Bluray disc. Notice the dent in the rocker panel area about 6" forward of the rear door jamb. If you watch the film, you'll see the light reflect off of it:

The same dent is on the Dezer car, along with the carpet cuts from the rollcage (which is visible when the car comes down in the film). The rest of the underbody (including the C6 transmission) corrrelates.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

FYI, though it's not Mustang related, there's an original General Lee kicking about the museum too - war wounds and all:



-Kurt

 

[vamach1]

It's funny how many Batmobile replicas there are out there. There is one in Northern Virginia I see once in a while.

BTW - I have no idea who the woman is in the picture - I found this image on Google. I can assure you it's not my wife or girlfriend.

I guess the Virginia car is an original replica according to this source.

http://www.1966batmobile.com/replicanum2.htm

 

[Bill73Ragtop]

Is it my imagination or is the passenger side wheel (on the ramp) REALLY skewed ?

 

[Don65Stang]

I hope Bo won't be upset at me for breaking the news here first, but I have positively ID'ed the Dezer car - 1F05M160938 - as the vehicle used by the French stunt crew to retake the alleyway exit scene (on the wrong side).

First - examine this screenshot Bo extracted from the Bluray disc. Notice the dent in the rocker panel area about 6" forward of the rear door jamb. If you watch the film, you'll see the light reflect off of it:

The same dent is on the Dezer car, along with the carpet cuts from the rollcage (which is visible when the car comes down in the film). The rest of the underbody (including the C6 transmission) corrrelates.

-Kurt

I lightened the overall pic to show the detail in the shadow areas.



Next is the image on the film just after the one above.

 

[cudak888]

I lightened the overall pic to show the detail in the shadow areas.

Next is the image on the film just after the one above.

Bo found even worse on the Blu-Ray. Three dents:

I can account for the long one under the door, but what about the other two? It's not as if the bodyshop bothered enough with the others, though the steel does appear flat on the Dezer car in that spot.

Any theories?

-Kurt

 

[Don65Stang]

Could you forward me a copy when it arrives? That might just convince them that I'm serious about the authentication of the car.

Sure, I'll send you a copy.

- Bo

Did either of you get a copy of the Marti for 1F05M160938?

 

[cudak888]

Did either of you get a copy of the Marti for 1F05M160938?

Yep. Adds up to the same car, though there isn't anything specific about the Bond presence on the report.

Can send it to you if you wish, Don.

-Kurt

 

[JimNiki]

I'm not surprised that the marti report is ordinary...

I'd imagine that "Q" would have done all the good mods! Hehe

RIP "Q"...

 

[JamesS]

Any further info on some of the DAF cars being fastbacks rather than Machs?

It makes you wonder whether they simply painted up cars they had in stock at the time?

 

[cudak888]

Right now, all we have confirmation on is this car - and I still have to schedule a more thorough meeting to examine the rocker dents and pull the rear seat bottom to photograph the additional rollbar mounting holes. This may require coordination with one of Bo's trips down to Florida.

At least one was a genuine 429 Mach, but neither of the cars that claim to be so are genuine - they're simply Las Vegas press cars.

No data exists on the 302 cars. Only two scenes utilized such a car - the Mach that is seen when the '70 Ford Custom police car slams into the building wall - and the parking lot ramp jump. It is either the same car or two; at any rate, both are single-exhaust.

-Kurt

 

[Don65Stang]

I rearranged Bo's photos and put them in chronological order.

These two were taken around 04/13/71 in Las Vegas

These 3 were taken on 05/25/71 in Los Angeles

This last one was taken on 06/04/71 in Las Vegas

- Bo

I just noticed 14" white wall tires in most of the photos but black sidewalls in the last photo.

White walls came on the 14" rims. Raised white letter tires came on 15" rims. Photo #4 also looks like it has the 15" trim rings. This leads me to believe the car in the last photo tires were swapped for black wall tires. Could you get white wall tires in 15" tires of that tire width back then?

Also, one one more thing to ponder. If last photo car has 15" (and I strongly think it does) could that be the 429 car? Could you get 14" tires on a 429 equipped car? Some research is needed.

 

[cudak888]

I just noticed 14" white wall tires in most of the photos but black sidewalls in the last photo.

White walls came on the 14" rims. Raised white letter tires came on 15" rims. Photo #4 also looks like it has the 15" trim rings. This leads me to believe the car in the last photo tires were swapped for black wall tires. Could you get white wall tires in 15" tires of that tire width back then?

Also, one one more thing to ponder. If last photo car has 15" (and I strongly think it does) could that be the 429 car? Could you get 14" tires on a 429 equipped car? Some research is needed.

I've looked at the photos and the 15" base trim rings and caps. Every car has the 14" rims.

The 429 car could have had 15" rims ordered optional, though 14" rims were standard. As the car used in the city streets - said to be the 429 car - wears whitewalls, the 15" theory isn't too important to begin with. They're 14" rims.

-Kurt

 

[Don65Stang]

I just noticed 14" white wall tires in most of the photos but black sidewalls in the last photo.

White walls came on the 14" rims. Raised white letter tires came on 15" rims. Photo #4 also looks like it has the 15" trim rings. This leads me to believe the car in the last photo tires were swapped for black wall tires. Could you get white wall tires in 15" tires of that tire width back then?

Also, one one more thing to ponder. If last photo car has 15" (and I strongly think it does) could that be the 429 car? Could you get 14" tires on a 429 equipped car? Some research is needed.

I've looked at the photos and the 15" base trim rings and caps. Every car has the 14" rims.

The 429 car could have had 15" rims ordered optional, though 14" rims were standard. As the car used in the city streets - said to be the 429 car - wears whitewalls, the 15" theory isn't too important to begin with. They're 14" rims.

-Kurt

Kurt, the inner flat edge looks pretty wide to me in the below pic. The 15" trim rings had a 1/2" flat edge. See second pic below of one of my 15" trim rings showing the flat area.

The 14" trim rings have a much narrower flat inner edge.

 

[cudak888]

Let me go through some of Bo's additional screencaps. I'd been looking at the street scenes so much, I ignored examining this car.

-Kurt

 

[Don65Stang]

You may be completely right in that the 15" wheels (if they are 15") means nothing. The black sidewalls however are the bigger find to me in that it singles out at least one of the cars, namely the Las Vegas car car from the 6/4/71 filming day.

 

[cudak888]

You may be completely right in that the 15" wheels (if they are 15") means nothing. The black sidewalls however are the bigger find to me in that it singles out at least one of the cars, namely the Las Vegas car from the 6/4/71 filming day.

Not quite. If these are 15" wheels, we'd have confirmation that a 429 car (not necessarily the street car) was used in the alleyway.

-Kurt

 

[Don65Stang]

You may be completely right in that the 15" wheels (if they are 15") means nothing. The black sidewalls however are the bigger find to me in that it singles out at least one of the cars, namely the Las Vegas car from the 6/4/71 filming day.

Not quite. If these are 15" wheels, we'd have confirmation that a 429 car (not necessarily the street car) was used in the alleyway.

-Kurt

Hmm, interesting. I (or you if you have time, I don't at this moment) can scale the photo of the black sidewall tire car by measuring a known dimension on the car then measure the diameter of the ring. Convert to get the right scale and see if that matches the measurement of the known diameter for a 15" trim ring like the one below.

 

[Don65Stang]

Ok, I scaled the photo. I assumed a 26.1-inch tire diameter which is the diameter of a modern equivalent tire (P235/60r15). I made a 26.1" circle and up sized the photo of the car until the tire fit into the known sized circle.

Next I made a second circle that corresponds to the 15" trim ring outer diameter which is 16.25". I placed that circle around the trim ring and it looks like a perfect fit to me.

I feel reasonably confident that that those are 15" wheels on that particular DAF car. They both look like 15" trim rings (see above post about the flat inner edge) and they seem to measure correctly via photo scaling. To be 100% certain I would need to preform the same procedure using a 14" tire diameter and 14" trim ring diameter. However, I don't know either of those dimensions. If someone does let me know and I'll run the analysis again to compare the results of each.

 

[cudak888]

I feel satisfied that that those are 15" wheels on that particular DAF car. To be 100% certain I would need to preform the same experiment using 14" tire diameter and 14" trim ring diameter. However, I don't know either of those dimensions. If someone does let me know and I'll run the analysis again to compare the results of each.

Since I'm running P205x75R14's, my OD may be smaller than the E or F-series tires originally equipped on these cars, but...

Trim rings: 15.25"

Tire diameter (at tread edge): 24.75"

Come to think of it, Boss 351's had 15's by default, right? Granted, no sense in a complete redress and reskin (not to mention the addition of moldings!) only to leave such an important detail such as the whitewalls out by virtue of a rim size.

-Kurt