Do you get the thrill down your spine when you see horror movies? Then you should have heard of the 1983 blockbuster film ‘Christine’ and all about the famous car. But if not, sit back as we reveal to you what kind of car was Christine in the movie.
The undeniable fact about Christine was that it required twenty-four Plymouth Fury cars to complete the movie. Out of the twenty-four cars, only seventeen were featured in the film with the other seven as back up vehicles.
Surely, what will undoubtedly arouse your interest is that this junk car revived itself after it was left untouched. Well, read on let’s tell you more about the type of car Christine was in the movie.
Some Facts about the Christine Car
The particular car that was the main character in the movie was a 1958 model of the Plymouth Fury. This car was in pursuit of Moochie and cordoned him off in a loading port cavity. The vehicle received numerous damages to get to where Moochie was hiding, but a trailer in the end eventually nudged it.
The vehicle was bought some time ago (18 years) in 1984 behind a studio lot in Los Angeles originally for the Cars eye Movie. However, they opted for a better one, a bright and rosy belvedere, and left out the Plymouth. This period was when Al Newman called me in to salvage her from the scraps.
The challenges that come with marketing cars to individual buyers made the study to consider junking the vehicle. The producer purchased the car for almost a thousand dollars and towed her home. The state of it at the time was pitiable as it only had one rubber seat, five-point saddle, and no internal parts
The glasses all covered in tint safe for a small section where the stunt man works. The owner had to set up the radiator in the boot to avoid spilling liquid in wreck events. The car has a wooden plank that separates the firewall and the primary support in front with rubber chrome. The buyer had to gather components from other cars to make Christine a beauty.
And after two decades that I salvage the car from the claws of destruction, it’s still glittering and functional. I never meant to construct a fancy car, just one to drive around, and she has not failed me ever since.
Things You Should Know About the Christine Car
1. It Doesn’t Have a Controller
There wasn’t any controller that was used to navigate the Christine cars used in the movie. The reason is that they all had a stunt driver in all twenty-four of them. The only times they were not driven was if a trailer nudged, and then they use a chord to pull them forward. Apart from that, there was a driver in all the cars during the stunts.
2. How the 24 Cars Were Used
As earlier stated, seventeen of the twenty-four Plymouths were what made up the active Christine car models. There was no way it would have been one car going through all those damages, so the producers requested that Plymouth owners who wanted to sell should alert them.
The supply didn’t match the demand, though, as they were only 23 of the desired Plymouth 1958 fury and one 1957 to make up the 24. The producers also had to transform a few Savoy and belvederes to resemble a Plymouth fury. They used seventeen of them in the car wrecking scenes with the remaining supplying the reserve components
3. Replicating the Christine “Recreation” Scene
The false impression of the Christine car recreating itself was due to the hydraulic propellers installed in the vehicle. They were placed beside the trunk of a second car. The propellers pull in the car body to show a wreck interpretation of the first car and the movie rewound itself, showing the vehicle repairing itself.
At the end of the shoot, the director ran effects on the video to change Christine from wrecked cars to glittering cars. However, due to the lack of advanced video impacts, the scene was off-screen.
4. Invisible Stunts
Not only did the Christine car create issues for the characters in the movie, but it was also a handful for those outside the whole production scene. The film portrays Christine is very destructive whenever she’s angry, and the windows become more tinted. It performs another task of hiding the stunt driver that is inside the car and completing the stunts.
Another fact about the invisibility was that the stunts scenes were created in the dark to conceal the driver further. These windows made the drivers’ vision very blurred, and it affected the stunt one time. We’ll talk about it later.
5. The Engine’s Sound wasn’t from a Plymouth
The voicing of the car engine used in the movie surprisingly wasn’t that of any of the Plymouths, Fury, Savoy, or belvedere. It was from a Ford car. The entire sounds of an engine used in the Christine movie were recorded from a mustang 428 super jet 1970 model.
The filmmakers felt it had the aggressive tone needed to match Christine’s fury scenes. They were specifications in the Mustang that suited it for the scene, like the large 428-cubic-inch, 335 bhp engine. The 4 barrel mechanism is superior to the 290 bhp of the Plymouths.
6. Just Three Christine Cars Escaped Undamaged
When the shooting of the film ended, only three Christine cars were left Undamaged. These three cars still had the glitter of the dealership on them to show that no wreck cane to it.
The three Plymouth Fury cars were later on sale and the vintage car collectors purchased them all.
Although before that, they use the car to promote the movie. They drive them around the city, much to the delight of the movie fans. There was an undisclosed fourth Christine that was purchased by a private collector who pleaded anonymity. But the other ones still pulled people to the theatre for the premier.
It was a partial commercial success grossing $21 million from a budget of $10 million and received mixed reviews from the critics.
7. Two Auctioned Christine Cars
There was no need to junk the remaining cars when they could place it on auction. The latter was the case as one of the Christine was sold for $167,000 in 2004. The amount caused uproar publicly as at the time, considering that a clean Plymouth Fury was sold for just $47,000 then.
As that was not surprising enough, they auction the second Christine off in 2015 for a high price of $198,000. As at then, it was the most expensive Plymouth Fury, which many described it later as ‘truly one of a kind,’ I can’t help but believe it.
8. One Christine Car Was Enraged In Reality
As hard as it sounds, it revived itself, but this made even the production crew afraid. The director explained later that one Christine car was enraged in Reality and wrecked itself. But what happened was that they didn’t start up the car with a manual transmission.
They tried to start the ignition impromptu, and it jerked forward straight to a camera and completely wrecked it, had it been a human being, I guess there won’t have been a Christine movie.
Wrap Up On What Kind of Car Was Christine
The Christine car movie came into the scene in the1980s. It featured cars that were controlled by stunt drivers. None of the vehicles uses a remote controller.
All vehicle used all had double attachments with a pump that sucked it in to make it look like a wreck car. The Christine’s fierceness was derived from the sound of a Ford car. The Christine car gave the movie cast some challenges while the production was on.
Well, with everything revealed in this piece, this goes to show you what kind of car Christine was in the movie.