Just saw Brannigan on TCM. Not a great movie. I was wondering about the odd pinstripes on the E-Type. Was this a “thing” at some point? I’ve never seen anything quite like it:
1 Like
Von Dutch would NOT approve…
3 Likes
Is that a Simca in front of it ?
Renault Gordini, perhaps?
The red outlining reminds me of the TV series Batmobile (Futura show car base) by George Barris.
That series though was 9 years before Brannigan. Maybe Barris prepped the cars for that movie? Or the owner was a Batman fan…
Dave
2 Likes
Pretty sure it’s a Renault.
You win the prize Paul. It is indeed a Renault 8.
I don’t remember pin striping being too much a thing in the 60’s but it sure was in the '70s at least in the USA. My father got the bug in the mid-70’s and over a few weeks our cars all got them. He was even asking the neighbors if he could stripe their cars much to the embarrassment of his teenage son. If that movie was made in the '70s maybe it was part of that same type craze ?
David
68 E-type FHC
1 Like
I had a plain Jane ‘76 Chevy half ton pickup, silver grey. It was pretty basic so I spruced it up with a double red pinstripe down the side. Made all the difference. Drove better too. And got better gas mileage.
I have never seen a pinstriped E-type but do recall seeing the picture of one back in the late 70s visually enhanced with large flame decals down the sides and bonnet.
2 Likes
I remember it mostly from the 70s as well. But it’s still out there to this day, to some degree.
I’ve always believed in the “It’s your car. Do as you please” philosophy. May it ever be thus. Honestly, though, there are swaths of people who have very gaudy tastes!
Cheers
DD
1 Like
Which reminds me of the old joke, “how do you hide an elephant in a jar of jellybeans?”
1 Like
Sure, a stripe down the side or maybe around the trunk. The screen shots are poor, but if you look closely, the pin striping is around all the opening edges…doors, hatch, bonnet, the license plates, and along the character lines…roof line, bonnet crest, sides. That’s a LOT of stipes, even by '70s standards. And of course, there’s the movie illogic of the bad guy driving a car that would be conspicuous even without the striping. Naturally, it’s destroyed at the end of the movie.
My '75 Cosworth Vega is kinda the poster child (along with the Trans Am) for '70s striping. I love the styling but if I ever re-paint it I most likely will leave off all the stripes and just go with the COSWORTH TWIN CAM decals on the sides and back.
David
68 E-type FHC
I first saw that movie in the theater, long before I owned an E-Type and thought the pinstriping was rather ugly, I still do. Since the car was to be totaled in the end, I assumed the production company had bought the cheapest thing they could find, which happened to be that tarted up example.
Right. No discussion of excessive decals, stripes, and graphics is complete without the Trans Am !
Cheers
DD
Saw listing for that movie and opted to pass, “not a great movie”. It had an E in it, but if it got trashed at the end, I would have felt sick. Kinda like how early mahogany powerboats were burned for their metal… sad, sad, sad.
We Camaro owners used to curl our upper lip and call that a ThunderChicken - even if they were upscale from what we were driving. Just a little too much “Look At ME I’m Cool!” perhaps, but some accuse others, say for example E-type owners, of the same conceit. 
1 Like
Like my mom? Me??
There are somewhat credible treatises on what your car says about you … one example Googled at random here. It grossly simplifies it down to six types, but a hybrid of the two may apply here:
Fair enough, if you drive an XJ6, but what if you’re also into E-types?
Of course, it’a a ‘Vette in the picture. Other studies have suggested the main message the Corvette projects is “I’ve got a very small penis”.
Allegedly.