The 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000 comedy inspired a string of contemporary underground Death Race movies. But it took until 2008 to see a remake. Death Race (2008), starring Jason Statham, is about a framed dude forced into a vengeful killing spree. It was this movie that solidified the actor's action film fate. Statham's character drives just as maniacally as he does as Deckard Shaw in the Fast and Furious franchise, crushing the weak in corresponding fashion. His performance in the gruesome Death Race movie attracted a new cult following. It would spin out three more sequels, all direct-to-DVD, two of which raked in over $8 million. Death Race (2008), written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, is the only post-1975 franchise movie that made it to the box office. It netted a profit, despite being panned by top critics.
All Death Race action flicks are barbaric and brutal. The post-apocalyptic movies glorify blood sport with gladiator-like race car drivers who are coerced into the arena. The 1975 B-movie by Roger Corman and directed by Paul Bartel is a cross-country race to the death. It's a gruesome political satire with no shortage of campy quirkiness. But in two of the prequels, the bloodbath takes place in smaller NASCAR-size racetracks. The rules are simple. Kill to win. It’s like Hunger Games but with contestants behind the wheel of freakish, Mad Max style armored cars.
The modern Death Race series movies are over-the-top belligerent and a gratuitously violent ride, hitting the nail on the head for the perfect testosterone-charged rush. Check out these gnarly cars from both the original B-movie, and from the ruthless Death Race franchise series.
10 The Monster - Death Race 2000
Starring as Frankenstein, David Carradine piloted the spectacular hero car alongside his traitorous navigator. Frankenstein was named for a bionic arm implant and numerous bloody injuries as the reigning Transcontinental Road Race champion, a ‘60s-era motorsports rub. He was fine, it was dystopic state propaganda. It drove interest in the annual murder event, part of this film’s biting satire underscoring the public’s insatiable appetite for blood sport. The front end of the Monster is fierce with crocodile teeth and fake headlamps painted gory red. Frankenstein dominated the race in this over-the-top supercharged C3 Vette look-alike. What it really is will certainly amuse.
The Death Race 2000 Monster looks like a modified Dick Dean Shala-Vette, a custom curvy fiberglass body propped upon a ‘60s-era VW Beetle, otherwise known as a dune buggy. That’s what it is. Next, that old kit car was modified for the film by James Bond movie car custom team James Powers and Dean Jeffries. For fun, it had a skull shift stick and a turbo button on the handbrake. The V8 protruding from the back was fake. A Chevrolet Corvair engine was what actually powered this monstrosity. Instead of a supercharged V8, the Monster did the coast-to-coast race from New York to California with a 110-hp air cooled flat-six. The underwhelming truth is a Corvair stars as the Monster.
9 The Dust Bull - Death Race 2000
This Manta Mirage kit car mod was known as the Dust Bull. Its racer was one of the last to die in the single elimination race and one of the first to score a kill. This B-movie bull on wheels prop served as driver Calamity Jane Kelley’s racer. She plowed her beast of burden on a long and bloody path. A spectator holding a red cloth was the first to die, slain in toreador fashion. The cowgirl impaled the victim by charging at him relentlessly, just like a real bull in a raging fight. Funnily, Mary Woronov, the actress who played Calamity Jane, did not know how to drive. Race scenes required her being towed by a truck or replaced by a stunt driver.
Behind those menacing longhorns and irate eyes is an Corvair engine. For the movie, the Manta Mirage car was powered by a Chevy six-cylinder on a re-bodied 1975 Dick Dean Volkswagen. This mean machine is one of two surviving Death Race 2000 movie cars. It sold at auction, billed as the “Original Death Race Bull Car.”
8 The Buzz-Bomb - Death Race 2000
The Buzz-Bomb movie car was also created from a re-bodied VW, but this one was based on a Karmann-Ghia. It was driven by Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins) and navigated by Herman the German (Fred Grandy). This heavily militarized car was mounted with a canon and painted army camo as a Nazi parody. The name refers to the buzzbomb V-1 weapon, a jet-powered remote-controlled missile, also called a “flying torpedo,” used in terror strikes on London. Nicknamed “Swastika Sweetheart,” Matilda the Hun died a fiery death after careening down a sharp cliff. The act of sabotage was in the form of a fake detour, leading over the cliff’s edge, eliminating the Buzz-Bomb team second.
7 The Machine Gun - Death Race 2000
This militarized wheeled menace served as “Machine Gun” Joe Viterbo’s mobile weapon. Death Race 2000 would be Sylvester Stallone’s final film as an unknown actor. Rocky (1976) was released the following year. Introducing contestants in the opening sequence, Stallone’s Joe Viterbo delivers a pitch-perfect “Rambo” scene, angrily spraying machine gun fire into a crowd of Frankenstein fans. It’s one of his many displays of unabated over-the-top rage. Frankenstein is this character’s nemesis, but angry Joe is lit to kill anything in sight, even his Marilyn Monroe look-alike navigator and lover.
Stallone and David Carradine, the actor who played the Frankenstein rival, did most of their own driving stunts. The Machine Gun hotrod is strapped with a giant sword and armed with two machine guns mounted above each headlight. It is yet another of the Manta mods used in the movie. Besides the Buzz Bomb, it is the most violent in appearance. Unsurprisingly, these cars spawned an old school Death Race video game. It failed, but not before triggering a continuing endeavor, namely, the debate on video game violence. In 1976, the Death Race game maker pulled the game off shelves due to public pressure.
6 The Lion - Death Race 2000
This ferocity was built on a Fiat 850 Spider chassis. It’s driven by Nero the Hero (Martin Kove). His navigator Cleopatra has little faith in him. She mocks his complaint that she is blocking his adoring fans by quipping, “They’ve never seen a has-been before?”
Nero’s lion themed car is new for the event and ready to roar, only to be demolished early by a blast of TNT. Nero had not even scored one point in The Race, placing him dead last at the time of his demise. The Lion team was first to be eliminated. Nero the Hero seems weak. Cleopatra complained he missed an easy target of Boy Scouts at camp. All for naught, his car was blasted by rebels. It upended his 70-point hit attempt and destroyed his little Lion car. Game over.
5 The Monster - Death Race (2008)
This Monster hero car was so badass in pre-game design sketches that Jason Statham’s first reaction was: “When can I start?” Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat) approached him with these stunning drawings of the Mustang, a Porsche, and an XJS. He said the movie cars would have “guns, and ejector seats and napalm and smoke and oil slicks … Nitrous oxide injection, superchargers.” The formidable list of custom upgrades goes on. Most recognizable is a pair of prop M134 Miniguns mounted on the passenger side.
A modded 2006 S197 Ford Mustang GT, though loaded with armor, is clearly identifiable by the trademark double fog lights and logo. That's how the director wanted it to look. Roush Performance added a supercharger by Ford Racing Performance as well as other necessary performance parts. The Monster was conceived as a Dodge Challenger, as seen in the sketches, but much of the modified mayhem remains. The Mustang was faux armored with distinctive angled slats covering the rear and side windows, armored plates throughout, and another slatted cover over the driver side window.
In the movie, Statham is Ames, a former race car driver with a day job and a pretty wife. Framed for her murder by a dystopian state, their newborn baby, like a carrot on a stick, forces his hand into the state sponsored race, a gladiator-like reality show. Imprisoned at Terminal Island, he’s set to compete against other handpicked convicts in a race to win his freedom. In this movie, a remake of Death Race 2000, Frankenstein had been killed in a car wreck. This plot device finds Ames forced to fake the dead hero’s identity in the Death Race series. The competition is broadcast to over 70 million viewers. The show must go on.
4 The Monster - Death Race 2050 (2017)
In a special Death Race 2050 (2017) Blu-ray feature, legendary producer Roger Corman, along with directors G.J. Echternkamp and Fernando Vasquez discuss the creative process behind designing the cars. A lot of Styrofoam and papier-mache went into it. Underneath, a stripped down chassis with a rear mounted engine served as the base. Then, the frame and wheelbase were built to fit the Monster’s features.
Frankenstein’s car took on a more modern and beastly affect in Death Race 2050. It has a skull shifter and a turbo button on the handbrake, reminiscent of the cartoonish Monster. This 2017 Death Race production went with a mean, green, dragon monster with multiple beady eyes and lots of fangs and sharp teeth. Frankenstein was played by Manu Bennett with copilot Annie Sullivan. It’s campy and corny, and some would say crass. Corman’s presence helped give it its B-movie feel. Perhaps too much camp. Rotten Tomato audiences shunned it with a 33 percent score which seems to be in line with its DVD sales – considerably low, under $1 million.
3 Shelby GT500 - Death Race 2 (2010)
Director Roel Reiné said the cars were a nightmare to build and keep running, but totally worth it. In Death Race 2 there are nine cars. Six are leftover from the 2008 movie. This movie bought three new cars to convert into vehicles worthy of the Death Race franchise. They bought a black pickup, a new Dodge 300, and a new Ford Mustang, modified as the new, heavily armed Monster, looking similar to the one in the first movie.
This GT500, however, has a different story. Film production reached out to Shelby American looking for a movie car. After describing the film that was being made and what was needed, the legendary car company handed them a new Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake. Actor Luke Goss got to drive it in the opening sequence. In a 2011 Motor Trend article, this auto enthusiast whose daily was a Porsche 911 at the time, said it was a mind-blowing experience. He had never driven a Shelby Super Snake. Supercharged with 750-hp output, he said taking off ABS and traction control was a blast.
2 The Porsche 911 - Death Race (2008)
Director Paul W. S. Anderson wanted cars that would make an aggressive impression and be easily identifiable. A Mustang, a Jaguar XJS, and a Porsche 911 fit the bill. Four militarized Porsche's were made for the movie. Actor Robin Shou, as bad guy 14K, went for his prison escape in a tricked out 1980 Porsche 911.
It was strapped with dual passenger side mounted German machine guns, two four-packs of rocket launchers mounted on the grill and set distinctively on the rear window. Fully armored with thick plastic panels, it may have had more artillery than the massive Dreadnought and its fearsome flamethrowers. But it was too late when the Dreadnought rotated its cannon gun and fired into 14K's Porsche. This meant one fewer prisoner in the competition.
1 Connor's Camaro - Death Race: Beyond Anarchy (2018)
Death Race: Beyond Anarchy was far from the best movie in the series, but as the fourth and final Paul W. S. Anderson production, if not the finale, it got the cars right. These were the baddest Death Race cars yet. Red Ring Entertainment provided the concept art for the Death Race: Beyond Anarchy movie cars. With a nod of respect to automotive integrity, filmmakers included a Mustang versus Camaro rivalry. The cast of movie cars included a Mini Cooper, a Dodge Ram HEMI and of course, Frankenstein's 2006 Mustang GT mod. Starring Zach McGowan, Danny Glover, and Christine Marrzano, it was directed by Don Michael Paul.
Zach McGowan is Connor Gibson. He drove the armored orange and black Chevy Camaro to try to take out Frankenstein. It was in constant need of maintenance. Part of the story is Connor's love/hate relationship with the car. It does finally come through for him. Behind the scenes, an army of mechanics were on hand. Production required 30 movie cars to be built and faux-modded with weapons. They did the work on site in Bulgaria. A DVD bonus disk called "Cars & Drivers" describes the behind-the-scenes builds.