Tuesday 8th January 2013

Panamera smiles for the camera

How to film fast cars? From a specially customised ... fast car!

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Harris has been won over by the Panamera and, fuelled from the black pump or not, mightily impressed with its talents. It'll do more than just hammer up and down the M4 though, as demonstrated by this spot over on Jalopnik for a super evil Panamera camera car spied on the streets of LA.

Apparently run by a company known as Pursuit Systems , the Panamera has been wrapped in matt black to avoid unintentional reflected cameos and includes a custom rear hatch and, as Jalopnik puts it, 'tailgunner' camera window. Oh, and a sodding great boom on the roof too! Check out some of the other vehicles in the Pursuit Systems fleet too - very cool.

GT40 camera car sold recently [NY Daily News]

And an update on the slightly more precarious set-up used by John Frankenheimer for the car chases in Ronin, which basically involved a hapless camera operator sitting on a rig bolted to the front of a Mercedes E500, the V8 Merc chosen for its speed and stability much like the 450SEL 6.9 used for the filming of C'etait un Rendezvous. And because Frankenheimer was a bit of a fast Merc fan, hooning round LA in a supercharged SEC back in the day. He had previous too, bolting cameras to contemporary F1 cars for the filming of Grand Prix. GT40s were also used for both Grand Prix and Le Mans. Which is also pretty cool.

Looks like things have got a lot more sophisticated these days though. With or without the boom the matt black Panamera thing works for us too.

[Sources: Jalopnik, NY Daily News]

 

 

[umRacing]

Pistonheads absolutely loves the Panamera and guess what, so do I.

[Fire99]

Well it's certainly big enough to mount a crane on.

[RedAndy]

looks like the Honda CR-Z thingy. I like it.

i assume its matt grey all over for those just-in-case it gets in a reflection moments?

[sisu]

Jack Damon does some cool stuff as well. The Cayenne is quite popular in California
http://www.cameracarsystems.com/pages/ferrari.html

[DavidY]

But men in a shed can do it as well, with a car from Blackpool, used in quite a few movies.



http://www.tvrwedgepages.co.uk/wedge_specs_special...

[dapearson]

They should all be matt black, at least until someone produces some sort of invisibility paint.

[SiH]

Is that the new Panamera 'shooting brake'?

[WCZ]

sisu said:

Jack Damon does some cool stuff as well. The Cayenne is quite popular in California
http://www.cameracarsystems.com/pages/ferrari.html

wonder how it affects the handling of that 360 :O

[ZesPak]

dapearson said:

They should all be matt black, at least until someone produces some sort of invisibility paint.

JC: I like the look of it now
Hammond: It's behind that building
JC: Exactly


Iirc, a couple of years ago they were using pimped out fast ML's as a favourite fast camera car.

Let's be honest, what will be the difference in speed between a big powerful SUV (ML, Cayenne) and a more sports-oriented car like that ferrari when you load it up with gear like that? Hard to see why you'd take a panamera over a more practical Cayenne, you don't even need to do that ridiculous "window" mod at the back.







the first one is a ML63 AMG btw.

[Agoogy]

Whichever way you cut it, a Panemera will have a lower CoG than a Cayenne, I guess that's why...

[ZesPak]

Agoogy said:

Whichever way you cut it, a Panemera will have a lower CoG than a Cayenne, I guess that's why...

That big crane might affect COG a bit though

[rtz62]

I'm sorry, why have you pictured a Ssangyong Rodius????

[Agoogy]

ZesPak said:

Agoogy said:

Whichever way you cut it, a Panemera will have a lower CoG than a Cayenne, I guess that's why...

That big crane might affect COG a bit though

It'll affect a Cayenne/M-Class even more though !

[dinkel]

[DavidY]

I'll raise you

[Streetrod]

So what would be the home made version of one of these, is it just a matter of sticking a bunch of GoPro's all over your car?

[Boobonman]

WCZ said:

wonder how it affects the handling of that 360 :O

The last film I worked on, one of the camera cars was a 2006 RS4, and whoever placed the batteries got it pretty wrong because it was riding round sat on its rear bumpstops for a few nights shooting.

On the same film they were also using a supercharged Escallade, and a Cayenne. 4x4's are just more useful for getting a steady shot over rough terrain I suppose...

[loose cannon]

WCZ said:

wonder how it affects the handling of that 360 :O

i bet it goes wheelie well

[V8 FOU]

I would have thought a Citroen CX or DS would be ideal with its suspension......

[Otispunkmeyer]

Pursuit systems have a mini cooper with a crane on the roof.... surely a poor choice of car for filming given how solid the suspension is. Though perhaps they have binned the standard setup.

They need a C6 in matte black. Ultimate camera dolly.