Death Race 2000 - Cars

Cars

The cars in the Transcontinental Road Race each have a specific theme.

  • Nero the Hero - Roman. The car, a Fiat 850 Spider resembles a lion (the historical Nero threw his enemies to the lions). Nero is the first destroyed when he runs over a booby-trapped doll planted by the Resistance, which he mistakes for a real baby. His Navigator is named Cleopatra.
  • Matilda the Hun - Nazi. The car, "The Buzz-Bomb" (a modified VW Karmann-Ghia) resembles a V-1 flying bomb. She drives off a cliff while obeying a fake detour set up by the Resistance. Her navigator is 'Herman the German' Boch.
  • Calamity Jane - Cowgirl. The car resembles a bull and runs over a matador. Her navigator is named Pete, who is run over by Matilda while fixing Calamity's car. Later she fights off a half-hearted attack by the resistance which is meant to drive her to a car wrecking lot where they have a landmine set to blow her up. Initially thwarting the attack and missing the landmine, Jane drives over it while escaping the area.
  • Machine Gun Joe Viterbo - Gangster. The car has a mounted knife and machine guns on his car. He is the last racer to die (killed by Frankenstein's "hand grenade").
  • Frankenstein - His car (a Shala Vette by Dick Dean, known as "Gator's Car") resembles a monster with red eyes, scales and teeth. He is the sole survivor of the race.

Many of the cars were re-bodied VWs and a few were sold after the film to museums for more than it cost to make them, according to Roger Corman.

The car seen in the epilogue is a Sterling Nova.

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Famous quotes containing the word cars:

    “What our children have to fear is not the cars on the highways of tomorrow but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths.”
    —J.G. (James Graham)

    “The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
    —Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)

    “Billboards, billboards, drink this, eat that, use all manner of things, everyone, the best, the cheapest, the purest and most satisfying of all their available counterparts. Red lights flicker on every horizon, airplanes beware; cars flash by, more lights. Workers repair the gas main. Signs, signs, lights, lights, streets, streets.”
    —Neal Cassady (1926–1968)