On visiting 1971 France

Many of you are aware that I'm a complete gearhead: I've long had a love for anything with an internal combustion engine, and most activities that involve them. Go-karts when I was very young, then minibikes, cars, motorcycles, airplanes.

I have the first car magazines that I bought with my allowance at Katz Drug Co., from 1965, and used to save all of them (before the internet). I devoured all such cover-to-cover, knew most cars & models by sight. I participated in my first autocross 4 months after turning 16, and in my first drag-strip bracket race a couple of months later.

The movie "Grand Prix" was a revelation to me, and my auto-loving friends, when released in 1966. A major Hollywood film, with billboard-relevant actors (for the time), and a huge budget for all the on-location filming and CGI-free racing action. But on subsequent viewings (at the drive-in, and years later on TV), it did/does suffer some from a few quirky technical novelties (multi-screen splitting, where double/quadruple/and more images are presented at once) and a too-drippy love story trying to be woven in. Still though: for me, those 66-67 Formula One cars were the zenith of that series (combining the 3.0 litre engine in cigar-shaped bodies devoid of all the later aero add-ons) and it was/is nice to be able to view them in motion, not just in period photographs.

And all this brings me to 1971, and Steve McQueen's movie, "Le Mans".

So many enthusiasts were waiting for this film, having read snips of pre-release info while it was being made, and with the motoring world just coming off the epic Ford/Ferrari battle for prototype-racing supremacy. McQueen had never been more popular; "Bullitt" was so recent, and indeed its success led to McQueen having the financial wherewithal to get "Le Mans" into production. And, upon release...we were all just blown away. Not a lot of sappy plot for distractions, the stars of the movies were the *cars*, just a we'd have wanted it. The Ferrari 512, and Porsche 917, in their early iterations, howling and dicing on this ultimate circuit for prototype sports cars. 200+ mph straights, incredible soundtrack.

Last winter, Amazon announced pre-orders for "Le Mans" on blu-ray, and I signed up. But what would this be like? Here's a 40-year-old film, now getting recorded on blu-ray with it's ability for incredible detail rendered on modern HD televisions. This film shipped recently, and I got a chance to look at it last night.

"What's it like" is: being transported back in time.

To 1971 France, at Le Mans. And it dawned on me I'd never seen this movie with this clarity of presentation. Not at the box office (how well-focused was the projector?), not at the drive-in (seriously?) and certainly not on TV up to this point. Now, watching on a 1080P fast-scan TV and blu-ray, everything is so sharp. They *did* know how to focus the camera(s) back then; the scenery, cars, people are so sharp, literally "just like being there". Count the rivets in the car bodies, blades of grass, bricks/mortar in the buildings. Astounding.

What does this pose for the future, for folks wondering what it was like "back then"? It appears now we can look back in HD quality, perfectly.