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Behind-the-Scenes Production Secrets and Car Sourcing

1:55
23:58
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At 1:55 in

Abandoned Days of Thunder Cars Reunited with Original Crew Member! (Special Effects Evidence)

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What happens here

Randy Willingham, an original body shop crew member for 'Days of Thunder,' joins the discussion. He explains that several different car bodies were used and constantly repainted to represent various sponsor cars throughout filming. He reveals that for scenes requiring a 'dirty' look after a race, brown hair dye was sprayed onto the cars. He also clarifies that while some cars were real race cars provided by Hendrick Motorsports, many were older, repurposed stock car chassis fitted with Lumina bodies, often with less-than-perfect engines, depending on their role in specific scenes.

Goal: Learn about the production methods and car sourcing for the movie

Tools and materials

  • Brown hair dye Unspecified — To simulate dirt and grime on the cars for 'after-race' scenes
  • Days of Thunder 'Hardee's' car — Serving as an example during the discussion of movie car production
  • Days of Thunder 'Mello Yello' car — Serving as an example during the discussion of movie car production
  • House of Color Neon paint House of Color — Painting the cars for the movie, known for its rapid fading
  • Spray gun Unspecified — Applying brown hair dye to cars

What they say

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they're very very hastily cut out. And in the scene where in the scene where they come across the start finish line, like in the movie, there's a bunch of smoke coming out of it, but when you watch the B-roll footage, like I mean, there was sparks and fire and all kinds of stuff. And in the driver's compartment, right by the clutch pedal, there's a whole bunch of extra like fire padding stuff that's been added to it, which kind of would make you think they're trying to keep someone from getting burned up. There were three of us doing that. We was all on the same crew, but there was only three of us doing paint and body work and decals. Pretty safety cautious, especially the stunt driver. He was really cautious. He want He wanted everything exactly the way he wanted it and he wanted it perfect. Mhm. It was going to be the way he wanted or he wasn't going to do it. Yeah. This thing's been absolutely destroyed the front. They kind of very hastily just crammed. them FX guys, they know how to make something do something, but sometimes they wouldn't the neatest at Was there a a scene where the front end got smashed in one of these things? If you Well, if you look real close, like when they're in the Daytona 500 in the movie and they have the wreck, if you watch real close, there's a Miller yellow car that just gets clobbered in the front hard and it just kind of skirts down off the track. I guess they thought you weren't going to see it when you were to watch the movie. But when we first went to Daytona, they flew in a whole bunch of stunt drivers. I don't know where they got them. Some of them couldn't drive a straight drive. Two of them were motorcycle stunt drivers. Never been in a car. There was a lot of cars that got tore up, but they wasn't meant to get tore up. I stayed up a lot of nights putting cars back because they done something foolish on the track that they weren't supposed to be doing. And we had to have it back at 6:00 the next morning. And it got a lot of that stuff got tore up, but it wasn't intentional. It was just accident, you know, experience. People were not paying attention and all kinds of stuff. It looks like this hood has that Superflow pink on it. It's green, too. Some of them cars got painted different cars three or four times. It might have been a Superflow car. Next week it might have been a mellow yellow car. Next week it might have been city Chevrolet car. It just whatever they wanted and what they needed for whatever they was…

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