1955 Chevrolet Custom “Two-Lane Blacktop”

This car, Lot 7003, sold at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale, AZ, auction for $159,500, including buyer’s premium, on January 17, 2015.

In 1970, director Monte Hellman filmed “Two-Lane Blacktop” — a street racing movie shot on the road from California to Tennessee. James Taylor starred as The Driver, backed up by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys as his Mechanic, Laurie Bird as The Girl, and Warren Oates as the driver of the GTO.

A cult classic

“Two-Lane Blacktop” isn’t what you might call a great film, but it is a great car film. It has become a cult classic, and I think it’s one of the all-time best car movies ever made. It was recently selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,” and Brock Yates cites it as partial inspiration in his creation of the first Cannonball Baker trophy dash across the U.S. — better known as the Cannonball Run.

If you’ve never seen it, the basic rundown is this: James Taylor and Dennis Wilson drift across the country on money they make street racing their ’55 Chevy. At one point they pick up a hitchhiker — The Girl — and they end up in a long-distance race for pinks with the driver of a ’70 GTO (Oates). Wilson doesn’t talk much, but when he does it’s usually about changing the jets in the carburetors, and Taylor, when not banging gears, sits around brooding most of the time. Why? Because of life? Women? It’s not really clear. The race with the GTO fizzles out when The Girl takes off with some guy on a motorcycle. There’s another race with a big-block El Camino on an airstrip, then the film melts. Roll credits.

On the plus side, the film is beautifully shot, and it shows a lot of old Route 66 before the interstate system killed it off. Throughout the movie, the characters are completely immersed in their obsession — specifically Taylor and Wilson — without trivial stuff like dialogue or even names to cloud things up. For those of us unapologetically obsessed with cars — the kind of guys who’ve caused themselves domestic strife by spending an entire weekend under the hood, oblivious to the hours passed or dates missed, the world this film depicts is a distraction-free dream. It’s a place I’d like to live sometimes — where all that matters is how the carbs are running.

Above all, the biggest star of the show here is the primer-gray 454-powered ’55 Chevy with its tunnel ram, flip front end, sliding side windows, and whiny M22. That’s the car that sold here at Barrett-Jackson for a buck sixty.

From “Two-Lane” to “Graffiti”

Originally, Richard Ruth of Competition Engineering in California built three cars for the film. Special components included tube-axle front ends, fiberglass doors, trunks, and tilt noses, sliding Plexi side windows, and more. One of the three cars got a crate L88 427, while the other two cars were fitted with then-new 454s. By its VIN, our subject car was originally a Bel Air with a V8 — although it, like the others, appeared to be more like a basic 150 sedan in the film. The three cars were all business — reportedly seriously capable of the part they were playing. James Taylor, in a reunion with our subject car, discussed how well the cars’ rear suspension hooked up, and talked about launching at 6,000 rpm.

Our subject car was used for most of the interior shots, and it had special brackets welded to the chassis to support the camera equipment and operators. It survived the movie in the best condition of the three, and after spending some time on the studio back lot, it sold to a studio mechanic, who in turn gave it to his kid to drive to high school. Reportedly, it later lent its engine sounds to Burt Reynolds’ Trans Am in “Smokey and the Bandit.”

The other two cars? They were eventually painted black, fitted with front bumpers, different hood scoops, and chrome smoothie wheels in preparation for their next role as Bob Falfa’s Chevy in “American Graffiti” — if you’ve ever wondered why Falfa never opens his hood in “Graffiti,” it’s because there was a monster big block in there which couldn’t have existed on the streets of Modesto in 1962. One of these two cars was crushed in the late 1970s, while the other remains, today restored to its “Graffiti” appearance.

Movie star value

So this is a legit survivor from the movie — in fact, it’s the only one, since the other is now better known as a “Graffiti” car. So what’s it worth?

The market for movie cars can be tough to nail down — just look at this sale price compared with a screen-used Eleanor from 2000’s “Gone in 60 Seconds” which sold for more than $1m at a Mecum auction just a few years ago (ACC# 216486). “Two-Lane Blacktop” may not be an Oscar winner, but is the Nicolas Cage CGI remake of H.B. Halicki’s classic really that much better?

Sure, the market for something like this ’55 is smaller than what you might expect for an Eleanor or the “Graffiti” car — it’s just not as glossy and fewer guys have seen it in action, even if it left a huge imprint on those of us who recognize or remember it. Now, if the “Graffiti” ’55 ever came to auction, I think we’d be seeing a much bigger result than this — likely several multiples of this money — but it’s a bigger car-guy icon with double the film credit.

I’d suggest this price was right on the market for what the car was, and here’s why. Just a few dozen feet away from where this car lurked was a red and white ’58 Plymouth — you might remember it as “Christine” from the John Carpenter film — being sold out of the Pratte Collection. I spent some time talking with the new owner of that car, who was beaming over his purchase at $198k. Again, that car was one of several made for filming, and again, it had a great impact on a certain subset of car guys — although probably a slightly larger selection of the population than the “Two-Lane” ’55 Chevy. On that day, $198k was the reasonable market price for Christine, and it seemed like the buyer felt it was a great buy.

So, considering that car and its result, I’d say $159,500 was a market price for this ’55 in Scottsdale, but I still think it was also a fantastic deal at that money. The new owner now has title to a piece of American film history and a legitimate car-guy icon, and it’s hard to pin a number on that.

(Introductory description courtesy of Barrett-Jackson.