Back in 1984 my friend bought a fiendishly fast KZ 1100 cc bike in Paris. Our association was drugs. Cocaine and Heroin. While sitting at an African transvestite after-hour bar in Les Halles, le Savanne, he asked, “How you like to take it for a ride?”
My survival instinct had been rendered to zero and I took his keys. The pre-dawn streets were slick with winter rain. As high as I was my death wish was low and I drove the bike underneath Les Halles maze of parking garages. It’s been in plenty of films since then. I got the bike up to 200 kph on a straight-away. Blood sizzling with the desire to live I returned to the bar and my friend asked with a junkie smile, “Fast?”
“Very.”
It was a good effort, however nothing in comparison to the time that the French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB.
August 1978.
According to http://www.jerrykindall.com/2005/11/07_cetait_un_rendezvous.asp
“He had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine through the Louvre to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.
No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.
The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.
Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.”
I remember seeing the short film in Paris.
Damn they were fast.
But few people drive as fast as drunk Thai boys on their little scooters. No helmets. No lights. Death wish 2010.
To view C’ETAIT UNE RENDEZVOUS go to this URL