Technical question: Can someone tell me (seriously) why video reproduced On the web is of such poor quality? Moral Question: If it's OK to run down pidgeons, is it also OK to run down French pedestrians? Observation: Even though it looked like 5 AM, I bet there were a few Frenchies (pedestrians) who didn't need expresso to wake up that morning!

Oh yeah, FIRST!

That's an awesome video. Shame the rioting Mugwumps overturned and burned that Ferrari.

I remember seeing that video a while back, and there was some doubt as to whether the whole back story was true. I don't remember the particulars or where I read it though.

The title of this post should have been "Grudgingly Admitting That for one brief moment in the late 70's the French Weren't Completely Useless"

Awesome!!! That boy can flat drive! I particularly liked the total disregard for the red lights! The four wheel drifts where spectacular! Hard to imagine that this guy is really French, however! Wonder how PepeLePue would go about chasing him down?

OMFG. I needed some "alone time" after watching that.

Did you see the guy accelerate through red lights? And when that bus was making the turn? Oh, my.....

Oh my.

They should make this an IMAX or wide-screen production. Or use it as a French tourism promo. This video is awesome!

I wonder if this can be done in the 21st century. A challenge, perhaps?

That was amazing. It reminds me of a promo that Nissan did in 2004 called "The Run". In fact, I think it was modeled on that very footage from '78.

...Just thought I'd share...

Haven’t you seen the race scene in ‘French Connection’. The French filmmakers saw crazy Gene Hackman racing down the streets of New York chasing after the L-train, and felt their manhood challenged. One of the rare occasions when the French would actually be up to defending their manhood. Of course no one ever let them do anything that stupid ever again. Those times are gone.

Dude, the way that Ferrari growled when he downshifted gave me goosebumps.

Muslihoon: You get me a new Ferrari with a camera mounted on it, and I'll do that in my hometown. I ain't going to Paris.

Technical Answer:

Video on the web need not be of poor quality, any more than any digital video need be of poor quality. It's just constrained by bandwidth and download times. I mean, really, would you be willing to devote an hour (or more) to downloading a full-quality DV movie of this thing? Or even just a half an hour [speculative] for DVD-quality?

But really, nowadays our compression standards are much better than they used to be so video quality is improving.

For some really truly great quality, check out the trailers section at Apple's site, and behold the high-def trailers there, but notice the file size and download time. These are huge files, which is exactly why most people don't want to host them on their sites just yet.

Oh, and: H.264 ROCKS!!!!

It reminds me of the BMW films that I can't find anymore.

AussieCasper,

Although I'm the proud owner of a new Z car, I had NEVER seen "The Run" before. Awsome. I can relate. Thanks for the post. Unfortunately most of my "runs" take place on the 405 at rush hour. sigh. But the ramps are fun. And my left leg is getting pretty buff.

Just try driving a heavy transport truck around like that through the crowded streets of Kabul. No good camera footage of the ride though. Just the riot afterwords.

Ouch. That's impressive.

Well, for anyone wondering "could it be done today"... I've been around the Champs Elysees 'round 8 o'clock on a July Sunday just two years ago, and they are nearly deserted... ;-)

I think it this film is poor quality because its actually from the WW2 era and was actually taken by the first german tank to enter paris. They just sped it up to double time (didn't it actually take the germans about 20 mins to take all of france??) and added some cool sound effects. It would explain the abscense of any frenchmen on the streets. The only ones to put up any resistance at all were the pigeons. Shame on you all for thinking that the french were anything more than uesless.

no in real the germans need 19min and 59 sec to rule france cause the froggs couldn't get out a white flag earlier

AussieCasper - The Run is also a good clip, although Nissan notes that theirs was done on a closed course and that effects were added.