It's hard to imagine Clint Eastwood acting in another movie after this performance.
I'll have to agree that the car is a Metaphor, only disagree with the reviewer in the initial post about it's symbolism. I my view the car represents all that was and is good about America and the American dream, Patriotism and the way of life that defending your country and working hard all your life delivers.
I would have to agree. I think Clint wanted to make a statement about values and principles and all the noble things that America stands for, even though it may some times lose it's way.
I was sort of surprised at how "old" Clint looked. I know he is 78 and in good shape for his age but I guess his Dirty Harry appearance is the one that always comes first to mind for me. That being said, his character is basically an old retired Dirty Harry doing what Dirty Harry would do to make things right.
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Hillar
1970 LS4 (eventually an LS5) Laurentian 2dr hdtp -and a bunch of other muscle cars...
I would certainly recommend the movie, not to everyone's liking though, lots of swearing and racist remarks.
Yeah but it's still pretty mild compared to most movies these days, certainly no worse than something like the Sopranos and certainly what you would expect from a crotchety old Korean war vet.
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Hillar
1970 LS4 (eventually an LS5) Laurentian 2dr hdtp -and a bunch of other muscle cars...
I would certainly recommend the movie, not to everyone's liking though, lots of swearing and racist remarks.
Yeah but it's still pretty mild compared to most movies these days, certainly no worse than something like the Sopranos and certainly what you would expect from a crotchety old Korean war vet.
Sort gives me a glimpse of me 20 years from now! Really though there are a lot of lessons to learn in this one, especially for those of us with family. I sure hope my kids never treat me like that and vise versa.
We just got home from seeing it. I really enjoyed it. Classic Clint Eastwood. I hear ya Ray when it makes you look at yourself in 20 years. If my kid ends up like his kids then NO LAURENTIAN FOR HIM!
We just got home from seeing it. I really enjoyed it. Classic Clint Eastwood. I hear ya Ray when it makes you look at yourself in 20 years. If my kid ends up like his kids then NO LAURENTIAN FOR HIM!
Careful Todd, you are already working at one of the "rice-burner" stores like Wally's son was....
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Hillar
1970 LS4 (eventually an LS5) Laurentian 2dr hdtp -and a bunch of other muscle cars...
Now that enough of us have seen this movie and we now know the car gets about 2 minutes screen time in total how about a little bit about the car in the form of TRIVIA.
1. When the gang is standing at the end of Walt's driveweay starring at the 72 Gran Torino I am sure one of them says "It's got a 429 Cobra Jet Engine", but 65Camino says no that he says"351 Cobra Jet Engine". I am not concerned with what the car may or may not have just what the gang member says.
What does he actually say? 429 Cobra Jet or 351 Cobra Jet?
2. Walt's granddaughter is sneaking a smoke and few text messages in the garage at the Grandmothers wake and she says" Grandpa when did you get that cool old car?" to which Walt replies "1972" then he goes on to say"I put the steering column in that car and every other Gran Torino that came down the line." Walt we are told lives in the Detroit area and has done so for 50+ years.
Is it actaully possible that he could have installed that steering column living where he does? In otherwords, were 1972 Gran Torino's made in the Detroit area? (I was told by a Ford guy they were made in Oakville)
BTW - I have researched both questions and have the answers.
Now that enough of us have seen this movie and we now know the car gets about 2 minutes screen time in total how about a little bit about the car in the form of TRIVIA.
1. When the gang is standing at the end of Walt's driveweay starring at the 72 Gran Torino I am sure one of them says "It's got a 429 Cobra Jet Engine", but 65Camino says no that he says"351 Cobra Jet Engine". I am not concerned with what the car may or may not have just what the gang member says.
What does he actually say? 429 Cobra Jet or 351 Cobra Jet?
2. Walt's granddaughter is sneaking a smoke and few text messages in the garage at the Grandmothers wake and she says" Grandpa when did you get that cool old car?" to which Walt replies "1972" then he goes on to say"I put the steering column in that car and every other Gran Torino that came down the line." Walt we are told lives in the Detroit area and has done so for 50+ years.
Is it actaully possible that he could have installed that steering column living where he does? In otherwords, were 1972 Gran Torino's made in the Detroit area? (I was told by a Ford guy they were made in Oakville)
BTW - I have researched both questions and have the answers.
-- Edited by 73SC at 21:05, 2009-01-11
I think they said 428 Cobra Jet but what did those head bangers know? I think the only Cobra Jet engine available in 72 was a 351. Darryl is our blue oval expert, he should know.
I thought they made just about every model of Ford within the general Detroit area at that time. BTW, I checked and there was a Ford plant in Highland Park, Michigan where the story takes place but it closed in the late 50's so Walt would have to travel a little farther than the other side of his home town to get to work. I've actually been to Highland Park, it is right on Woodward Ave. and is only about 3 square miles in size. It is completely surrounded by the city of Detroit and is located not far north of the former GM headquarters building on West Grand Blvd.
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Hillar
1970 LS4 (eventually an LS5) Laurentian 2dr hdtp -and a bunch of other muscle cars...
My sister told me that the owners of the house used in the movie got a free "home makeover" and the owner of the barber shop got 2 grand for allowing the production company to use it for a couple of scenes.
We had a 72 Corolla and I hate to admit it, it was actually my first car. 1600 with Toyota's version of the 2 speed glide.
Hey thats the first import I ever rode in ! My older brother's friend had one-jacked up with shackles and aluminum slots on the rear-man you could chase a moose through the body almost anywhere ! Believe it or not theres one in the garage across the street from me-the owner got it for fixing his friend's dad's bicycle ! anyway he says he can't find parts for it.
Don't fully agree on his opinion of the car, but it's interesting to read.
I had a 73 Gran Torino Sport. 351 Clevland 4spd. Medium blue on black. Pretty much exactly as below.
The title star of 'Gran Torino' is a metal hulk that illustrates what went bad in Motor City. By DAN NEIL, Automotive Critic December 24, 2008 The title character in Clint Eastwood's Motor City morality tale is, by the reaching light of history, a fairly negligible hunk of machinery: a green 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport, with a sleek "SportsRoof" and a gold "Laser Stripe," one of many million overfed, undersprung and largely unlamented muscle cars that poured out of Ford, GM and Chrysler factories in the early 1970s. Why not something heroic, a Chevrolet Camaro or Corvette? Why not a Dodge Challenger or even a boattail Buick Riviera? Why did the director (Eastwood again) go with a Gran Torino as the motorized MacGuffin? Car guys get it.
You could prowl vintage car shows for years and not find an automobile that, in its malign typicality, better summarizes Detroit's fall than the 1972 Gran Torino. Let's begin with the thing itself: The car was tubby and it was awkward. It handled like a block of ice with a steering wheel. It lacked even minimum corrosion proofing and so rusted with relish in northern climates. That this oaf of a car should be given the sporty-sounding but nonsensical Italian name Gran Torino -- meaning "great Turin" -- is a bleak joke. (This isn't the car's first brush with pop-culture fame: A mid-'70s Gran Torino, with white hockey-stick paint scheme, starred in the TV series "Starsky and Hutch" and the 2004 retread movie.)
The 1972 Gran Torino was one of no less than nine largely redundant iterations of the Torino nameplate, part of a classic Detroit product strategy that attempted to fill every cranny of the segment at the lowest possible investment. That year's Torino -- "Gran" or otherwise -- also represented a significant retreat in terms of engineering. The previous model-year car was built on a unitized steel chassis, or monocoque, like modern cars. For 1972, the Torino returned to a virtually obsolete and inferior body-on-frame design, which lowered the costs of putting multiple body styles on the chassis.
You could blame Ford's penny-chiseling management for the Torino's mediocrity, but you would also have to indict the assembly line. In 1972, Detroit's unionized workforce was in the full flower of its indifference. Shop foremen battled against even the most common-sense efforts at accountability and quality control. Drug use, absenteeism and even sabotage were endemic. Managers were afraid to walk the factory floors alone.
And 1972 was in many ways an inflection point for the U.S. automakers, the year that Detroit's mighty cylinders began to seize. The Big Three would never again be as comfortable, and arrogant, and solipsistic, as they were then. The following year's OPEC oil embargo sent them reeling. It was this generation of cars, which almost seemed to radiate contempt for their buyers, that drove Americans into the embrace of Japanese automakers when they came. It was this generation of carmakers, and indeed the one that came after, that failed to answer the challenges of an increasingly competitive global market. That failure took Detroit -- a once-beautiful city of broad avenues and majestic public spaces -- straight to hell.
So to say Walt Kowalski's Gran Torino is a cinematic metaphor doesn't really do it justice. The car -- to whatever extent it is fractionally responsible for Detroit's undoing -- is an agent of the film's action, a prime mover, an original sin. And Walt, a retired Ford autoworker, is an original sinner. One day in 1972 Walt is wrenching away on a Ford assembly line, stuffing a steering box into a shiny Gran Torino before going home to a comfortable middle-class home on a quiet street in Highland Park. Thirty-six years later, he raises the blinds of that same house to discover the world he knew is gone. The jobs have vanished, the factories closed, the prosperity replaced with desperation. How did he get here?
Heres the problem the North American public are influenced by these guys ! I've never been a fan of these but I must say they far and away have more to offer than any import of the era ! These were a great car, great family sedan, and great performance car if ordered properly.
It's long but I got through it. I think he's right, a lot of parallels with the movie. BTW, I found the same thing at the end, people stayed quietly and watch the credits roll by.
Really though there are a lot of lessons to learn in this one, especially for those of us with family. I sure hope my kids never treat me like that and vise versa.
1600 with Toyota's version of the 2 speed glide.
