The Official "Rendezvous" (C'était un rendez-vous) Thread

damn this video rules, i saw ads for it in a car and drive mag one day, you could buy it for 20 bucks or somthing but this way suits me way more, thanks for the post...

 

My 2 Cents.....I have owned 5 different dino's in the past 20 years, not one of them gained RPM's as fast as is dipicted in this Video...I hesitate to confirm it is a 246/ Dino...It does however sound like the Michelin XWX loosing contact and squirreling on the turns.
ME LIKE THIS VIDEO!!!!!!

Also, Do you really think a dino could downshift as fast as that one sounded..If nothing else you would hear the shift column slapping the gates..I do not hear that!

 

Great video, thanks. I think it is mostly real. I thought there were places where they may have held up traffic, but the towards the end the route seemed to be pretty spontaneous. That is initiating a turn to the right and suddenly changing to a left turn as an example.

That said there were times where the sound track was indicating fifth gear and the speed differential of cars being overtaken was not that great. Perhaps some doctoring there.

The car was definitely not a twelve cylinder Ferrari. Had a couple, and driven many, definitely not a twelve.

Amazing footage that covers a lot of Paris. That sudden jog into the oncoming traffic in front of the Opera House was pretty real for the driver I would bet. - George

 

Heres some links giving more info on the video, says its a fcar...but they dont really know which one, well i havent read thru them all so...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A997815

http://www.chasecam.com/rendezvous/

http://www.neonrebel.com/movies/rendezvous.html

 

If this is a repost, I have never seen it and so I bet many others have not either. Totally insane breaking dawn run around Paris, 1977, purportedly in a 275. Glorious sound no matter and completely insane run, to say nothing of completely dangerous. But the adrenalin rush and the sound........what a high!!
http://www.hardscience.net/rendezvous20_04.mov

I never know about setting up these links, hope this works.

 

John, is this your first time seeing Rendezvous...? It's a cult classic...!

 

entirely undeserving of the term "repost", this one really is a classic!!

 

No, I have never seen that. I just watched it for the third time, after arriving home from a dusk high speed run of my own, albeit, not through city streets or by any houses at all.
That guy is nuts. Can you imagine how many people were yelling out their windows and shaking their fists at him?? What a sound, do you know if it was indeed a 275?

 

John...

There is much speculation about that movie... Claude Lelouch, the filmmaker, apparently found success with a previous film and used some or all of the profit to buy a 275... What the movie conveys is that a camera was somewhere mounted on the car and Claude drove like mad through Paris...

Alternative theories suggest someone else drove the car, some people think it wasn't a car at all, but rather a motorcycle, some people say they've run that same route themselves and if the film is accurate, the original car and driver never went above 45-60 mph...! Who knows what's real and what's not... i think that's part of the reason this film has such a cult following... The original millimeter film of the movie was for sale in the Market Letter last year... $300 if i recall correctly... i should've bought it...

 

No way that the top speed was only 60. The car was wound out in 5th gear for long periods of time. Surely sounded like a Ferrari to me, certainly a car for sure. How about the pigeons, sure seemed like they were madly trying to save themselves, when the streets are full of cars going 60 all day.
Wow, what a job he did. One story I heard was that he was arrested shortly after the film was released. That story would not suprise me!!

 

The first time for me seeing it as well...

It was incredible real or otherwise.

Since people are saying/speculating...

1.) At times the speed did not seem as fast as what the sound lead you to believe by the passing of the trees, cars, etc. If I remember the speed around the arch, etc. is around 35mph (US).

2.) How does he run about 10 red lights without being t-boned? Maybe observers with a 2 way radio... The way the intersections (most) were constructed - it was a blind entry - meaning the driver could have had no sight of what was coming through the interestion.

3.) The sound matched pretty well - but when he shifted the camera had no movement up or down as you might see in hard shifting (in 1977 technology) - might have been a motorcycle with sound dubbing over.

4.) If it was real - had to be a professional driver that knew the streets very very well.

I am now going to watch it again - regardless of what it really is - that was fantasticly dangerous/exciting... Got my heart pounding for sure!

Thanks for the repost!

Rich

 

I don't think he was doing over 50-60, the buildings are not passing by fast enough for any higher than that. The camera was mounted near the ground to make it look like he was going faster. The car sound may have been added later.

 

It's been remastered and the sound doesn't match up perfectly - and the "tire screech" sound is basically the same the whole time, even over various surfaces. It's dubbed over audio. The sound of redlining doesn't match the speed, either - even an old V12 would be doing 140mph+.

Still a cool video.

John, you REALLY need to see the Getaway in Stockholm series (various cars) and the Ghostrider videos (bikes). They are faster and 10x crazier. And in the Stockholm ones, they actually are being chased by cops.

 

Some details go like this, allegedly
He got arrested.
Shot in august (august is holiday month in France) at 5:30am
Hit speeds of 180km/h (110mph)
Had one spotter around the Louvres for the blind corner. No word on the radio, goes in flat out. Later learns that the radio wasn't working after all ... yikes!
Car is a 275GTB and driver is Jacques Lafitte.

No try to figure out what's true and what's not.

 

They only hit somewhere between 60-70mph. This was calculated by identifying various landmarks in the video and the times at which they were reached, thereby plotting a distance/time graph. The derivative of that graph was then taken, yielding a velocity/time graph.

The sound was clearly edited, and there is no real evidence that the car used was a Ferrari at all.

 

I thought there was considerable evidence that the car used was a Mercedes sedan.

I read that he had this cool, stabilized camera from another project, along with some left over film. He had a couple of days before he had to return the camera, so he put it on his Mercedes, set things up, and made Rendezvous!

Supposedly, the girl at the end is Lelouch's wife.

 

well even if it is edited, it still is cool

 

No, the average speed was not calculated to be 60 something. I think it was a little under 40. The maximum speed is some where between 60 and 70 based on the analysis I mention.

 

Spicy and I walked part of the route when we were in Paris last January. Even if it was "faked", its still a fun film.

I used it to weed out potential girlfriends in college, said it was a "love story". Was very effective in finding the gear heads...

 

LMAO !!! that must have been a fun test for you !

 

windows media player wont play the movie? do i need real player or quicktime? ( i dont have either on my pc)

i have ALWAYS wanted to see this. it downloaded fine but i cant play it !!!!!
HELP !!!!!!

 

It was.

 

Claude Lelouch drove a 275GTB/2 in "C'était un rendez-vous".
The passenger was Lelouch's chief operator.
The owner of the car was Mr Albert Prost. A well known cars and planes collector (nothing to do with Alain Prost as I have read elsewhere). Prost died later in the crash of an old Caudron (a speed record plane from the 50's).
Max speed reached was 180kmh on the clock. (112MPH).
French director Elie Chouraqui who was younger at this time worked as the assistant of Mr Lelouch had the role to block some intersections with a few friends. They all had walkie talkies. The story of the out of order walkie-talkies is true, I read it in a recent interview of Mr Chouraqui.

The camera was a cinema gyroscopic mounted film camera (used in several movies for horses pursuits or cars pursuits). The sound was taken appart.
The film used was the last nine minutes and thirty seconds of film not used at the end of the shooting of the movie "Et si c'était à refaire".

Taken from Mr Lelouch memories book.

The rumor of the mercedes came from that Mr Lelouch at this time was the owner of a 190SL roadster (not sure of the model) and the car was inspected by the police after Mr Lelouch had to meet the "prefet" of Paris (chief of police) to explain himself about the video. In his memories, Lelouch explains that the chief of police was pretty cool and he didn't took his driving license (mostly because the police haven't been able to proove who really was the driver and because they haven't found the Ferrari at Mr Lelouch's home).

The girl seen at the end of the movie was Mr Lelouch's girlfriend (don't know if they ever get married) and the mother of his daughter Sarah (who is now a cutie and the co-presenter of a famous TV show, a sort of light Fear Factor called "Fort Boyard").

 

you need Quicktime.