Published in the December 2018 issue of “Die Porsche Kassette”

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Happy Porsche'ing,

There is a handful of movies that I’m sure we each have as our favorites.

I’d guess that for most of us they’d have to be action movies with cars, car chases and racing (Porsches preferably).

Some of Tom Cruise’s early movies have Porsche content, such as 1983’s “Risky Business” (a Porsche 928S) and

1986’s “Top Gun”

(a Porsche 356).

Some don’t, such as

“Days of Thunder”

(all about NASCAR).

There’s Charlie Sheen’s 1987 “No Man’s Land” where the entire movie is about stealing Porsches. There are some other ones that have almost no Porsche content but are great nonetheless, such as ...

... “Bullit” * the greatest non-Porsche car chase with Steve McQueen staring as Lieutenant (SFPD) Frank Bullit* ...

(*)Frank Bullit’s girlfriend drives a beautiful Canary Yellow ’64 356C)

... and the cult-classic “Le Mans” which has a lot of racing Porsches AND Steve McQueen.

All of the twenty six (26) James Bond movies have car chases, but 007 has yet to drive a Porsche!

Maybe he never will. Bummer.

There have been some good racing movies, we mentioned “Le Mans” and “Days of Thunder” above, but Ron Howard’s “Rush” from 2013 about the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda

and

“Grand Prix” from 1966 with James Garner give us a great perspective of Formula One racing in the 60s and 70s.

There’s also Sylvester Stallone’s 2001 “Driven” which was supposed to be about F1 but ended up being about Champ Car because of Formula 1’s secrecy with which teams protect their racecars.

Disney’s 2006 award-winning, animated “Cars”, starring Sally Carrera (a Porsche 996), “Cars 2” and “Cars 3” are really fantastic, and if you watch them closely and really pay attention, they are full of trivia and history. They also have the voices of Paul Newman as Doc Hudson, Michael Schumacher, Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, David Hobbs, Jacques Villeneuve, Jeff Gordon, Lewis Hamilton and Richard Petty among many others.

There are funny ones, such as “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” from 2006 and serious ones such as “Senna”, a documentary about one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time, Ayrton Senna from, 2010.

Those are some of my favorites as of today, and that’s because I’m anxiously waiting next year’s (2019) release of “The Art of Racing in the Rain” which is the screen adaptation of one of my favorite books: “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein, where a very loyal, apex-loving dog named Enzo recalls the life lessons he has learned from his racecar driving owner, Denny.

Be warned that if you watch it with someone else, you may have to say: “it’s just something in my eye, I’m fine, really”.

Patrick Dempsey, who professionally races Porsche GT3 RSRs, is one of the movie’s producers. For authenticity he brought over Jeff Zwart as second-unit-director. Jeff has been an 8-time Class Champion of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, driving 10 different Porsches in a period of 14 years and a world-renowned Photographer and Cinematographer who has a deep love of dogs and Porsches old and new.

I’m sure that The At of Racing in the Rain will become one of my all-time favorites too.

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