I was down there when they shot that chase scene and the reason all that happened was that San Francisco would only shut the hill down for them to make one try at it. So they had 7 cameras at different places and used all of the film which is why so many wheel covers and such flew off. Also Steve McQueen was in a funk as he had tried and couldn't make the turns so they had a stunt driver do the driving.
Also count the time he shifted that 4 speed Mustang and look close at the right hand end of the Mustangs bumper and you will see a small thing there. That is the latch that held the Charger that they released when it was supposed to hit the gas pumps and explode. That gas station was 4 pieces of plywood and wooden pumps out toward the airport. The Charger missed the pumps but that had to blow it up anyway as they only had a permit for a one time shot at that also. But over all, being it was the first real chase scene, I thought they did a good job. They were going to use a Ford Fairlane for the jumps but the engineers told them that the Fairlane frame would bend after the first one so they used the Charger. Also they had to have the Charger slow down as it was faster than the Mustang.
Ron
