Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is one of my older son's "desert island movies," and having had a 1997 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS when he was very young, when I happened upon this Monte festooned in hand-painted Ricky Bobby regalia, I took these photos and texted them to him.
He thought it was the greatest thing since Dr Pepper, Fig Newtons, Wonder Bread and Shake 'N Bake.
He also added, "Who the hell would do that to their car?"
That's a good question, son.
What makes this thing even funnier—or maybe not so funny—is that they have it for sale with an asking price of $4,800.
As much of an automobile enthusiast as I am, and despite having owned a 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS for years, I have little interest in NASCAR; and I know a lot of people who are really into NASCAR who couldn't care less about cars. Interest in automobiles and NASCAR are mutually exclusive.
I have mixed feelings about Will Ferrell as well. Depending on the movie, I find him best taken in small doses, as his shtick tends to get old with me. The exception is Elf. That's a desert island movie for me regardless of the time of year.
Combine NASCAR and Will Ferrell as they were in the 2006 sports comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and what do you get?
In spite of itself, a very funny and memorable movie—again, best taken in small, YouTube-sized chunks rather than all at once.
I watch it in longer stretches and I lose the joke or the film's slant. I feel the same way about Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, a film that flat-out skewers the broadcast industry as a whole, but after about twenty minutes, I get overwhelmed and lose my grip on the "joke."
What's really remarkable is how well the movie seems to work with people who know NASCAR as well as those who don't. It walks that fine line between satire and mockery, which isn't an easy thing to do. NASCAR itself was willing to be in on the joke, and the filmmakers made the racing look considerably more authentic than the absurdity of the story might suggest. NASCAR provided extensive assistance with the production, and the film was partially shot at Talladega Superspeedway, with additional racing scenes filmed at Charlotte Motor Speedway and the former North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham.
At first glance, you may think this car is pretty well done, but the closer you get to it, the more you realize that while the artist does have some talent, these are indeed hand-painted, as was the entire car. You can't see the brush strokes in the black paint underneath the, umm, graphics.
It seems the artist's ego may have written a check his talent can't cash.
The kicker is that the Chevrolet Monte Carlo used as Ricky Bobby's Wonder Bread NASCAR in Talladega Nights wasn't one of these 1995-to-1999 models. The Wonder Bread car is identified as a 2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo NASCAR. The movie also used a 1995-to-1999-generation Monte Carlo NASCAR for the Laughing Clown scheme, so there were actually multiple generations of Monte Carlo race cars represented in the film.
And, honestly, those early-2000s Monte Carlo race cars had very little in common mechanically with a street-legal Monte Carlo. They may have worn Monte Carlo bodywork and carried the name, but underneath they were purpose-built NASCAR stock cars—not something you could simply drive off the track and onto the highway.
No comments:
Post a Comment