Fireball 500 (1966) on Netflix
Dave Owens drives stock cars and heads to Spartanburg to face local champion Sonny Leander Fox. Martha Brian, a wealthy woman there, talks him into a cross country night race.
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- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb5.1/10704 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Dave Owens, a stock car racer from California who goes by the nickname Fireball, drives a customized Plymouth Barracuda known as the Fireball 500. He travels to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to race the local champion, Sonny Leander Fox, and beats him. The win draws the attention of Leander's girlfriend, Jane Harris, and of Martha Brian, a wealthy woman in town. Martha talks Dave into driving a night race across the country, and he agrees without knowing that whiskey runners are using him. A friendly rivalry over Jane grows between Dave and Sonny, while Charlie Bigg, Martha's partner, follows Dave's results.
Cast
- Sandy Reedas The Announcer
- Patti Chandleras Leander Fan
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fireball 500 (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The hero car, the "Fireball 500", was a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda customised by George Barris with a 273 cubic inch V-8 engine developing 275 h.p.; Barris also built the Batmobile for the Batman television series, and the film's joke about the car being a Batmobile drew Frankie Avalon's quip, "I had mine first."
- To get its racing footage, AIP hired a race car driver and mounted cameras in the front and rear of his car.
- Shots of the 4B car (Jim Douglas' car) toppling over onto its roof in Fireball 500 later turned up in the demolition derby scenes at the beginning of The Love Bug.
- Director William Asher said Fireball 500 was the first of these pictures to show a love affair consummated, and before marriage, and Frankie Avalon's character got to have sex.
