On a dark August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch reportedly mounted a still-camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a professional Formula 1 driver race the car at high-speed through the streets of Paris, France. No streets were closed as Lelouch had not obtained a permit for the shoot, as the footage reveals, the driver narrowly missed pedestrians, blasts through red lights and is documented driving the opposite way up one-way streets. Shortly after showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was immediately arrested, but refused to reveal the name of the driver. There are some disagreements with Lelouch’s story however, there are rumors that Lelouch himself was the driver, piloting his own Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 (a somewhat-rare performance-enhanced Mercedes sedan from 1978) in the film, with engine-audio from a Ferrari dubbed over. The driver was also reported to have reached 140 MPH during the film, which was later disputed by several independent groups who found that the driver never reaches more than 140 KM/H (85 MPH), but Lelouch’s claims could have easily been a translation error, in my opinion.

Regardless, watch the original film to digital transfer from 1978 after the jump..