Car guy movies: Baby Driver

24 July, 2017

We’re drawn to any movie featuring fast cars and a good chase scene. When it’s matched to a soundtrack like that of Baby Driver, we’re sold.

Relative newcomer and opposite of Vin Diesel, Ansel Elgort, plays Baby, a hearing impaired getaway driver gradually paying off a debt to a Kevin Spacey’s character, Doc.

Cast alongside Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Lily James and Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the story itself ticks along nicely and keeps the audience guessing, but of course we’re in it for the driving scenes. And for that reason alone, it’s worth a watch. 

Baby Driver is in cinemas now and we’d suggest getting out to see it.

You can check out the trailer here:

And full opening scene here:

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup