Skid Marxists
Smoky burnouts? A tired old movie cliché, says Jeffro:
Every car ever made can burn rubber like a dragster. All the movie cars apparently have limited slip or locking differentials, because they can fry both tires with abandon. I dunno about y’all, but in my younger days, I always had to test about any car I drove to see if it could “peel out.” The best way for an automatic was to power brake — because most cars can’t break loose just by stomping on the gas, unless you’re “cutting kitties.” At any rate, if the car in question could overcome the brakes and static friction of its weight — the right rear tire would fry. That is how standard differentials work. If it was a manual, then you could wind ‘er up and dump the clutch, but if it didn’t have the power, the tire might chirp. No long stripe on the pavement. I guess another way to break loose the rears with an auto tranny would be to pop it in neutral, wind it up and slip it into drive. For some reason, this method would shorten the life of said transmission considerably, perhaps even killing it at that particular moment. Not to mention stressed universal joints.
Actually, this seems to work better on FWD cars with lots of ponies, because they’re susceptible to torque steer, and this moves the front tires’ contact patches around quite a bit if you’re not careful; I remember having to adjust the jackrabbitude of my starts after going from a car with 130 hp to a car with 227 hp. Then again, a lot of stunt cars are not exactly stock. (I always wondered about Melina Havelock’s 2CV in For Your Eyes Only.)
They apparently have some really, really noisy tires. When the car slides through a corner, we always get to hear the tires squeal with anguish and pain. Even on gravel. “Laying rubber” on gravel makes a lot of noise in the movies.
I figure the noise is added in post-production, because I’m not hearing it in real life; if I’m hearing tire squeal through a corner, I’m usually about to roll over on the door handles. The tires I have are admittedly kinda noisy, but it’s not a squeal: it’s a grumble. Maybe even a bellow, on some of our Third World-quality freeways.
Donna B. »
17 November 2009 · 2:01 pm
My mother showed me how to “lay rubber” in a 1968 Lincoln. She was annoyed at some teenagers showing off at a series of stop lights, and decided to surprise them.
She threatened my life if I told my father (who probably wouldn’t have minded all that much, though she’d have gotten a word or two about the cost of tires) or my brother, who’d recently got a ticket for drag-racing.
She used the braking technique. I miss her.
CGHill »
17 November 2009 · 2:18 pm
That surely was something to see, simply because street racers in that era would have been mortified to have been so neatly dispatched by any female whatsoever, let alone someone’s mom.
Donna B. »
18 November 2009 · 12:35 am
It was fun. My Mom was always fun. She could have been Cyndi Lauper’s inspiration.
unimpressed »
18 November 2009 · 3:37 pm
I’ve always suspected that Hollywood puts very hard rubber tires on the cars in the chase scenes since harder rubber doesn’t grip as well laterally and make a lot more smoke once they break traction. Dubbing is always an option because how else will tires squeal on grass and gravel?
They also dub in engine noises. How else would one be able to listen to a V8 growl from a vehicle that never had one as an option? How else would you be able to hear an upshift from a standard transmission from a car you -know- is an automatic from the in-car camera shot during the shift?
I do know that one has to suspend disbelief, but come on. TRY to be realistic.