This is the original Gone In Sixty Seconds. It’s a case study of a director putting himself on the line by starring in his own film and doing his own stunts. According to Ron Moore the film was financed with money made from stolen cars, at a budget of $150,000. When you see the video, you’ll wonder how the hell this was possible. Ron Moore tells us more:

He was a maniac. He was like an uber-guerrilla filmmaker. He would literally do things like take a bunch of cones and a bunch of cars and go down to Long Beach and block 0ff the road and do a stunt, and then pick up all the cones and get away before the police showed up.

I don’t recommend doing this kind of thing today, but it gives you an idea of what “indie” meant in 1974. Gone In Sixty Seconds is basically a well-documented coup against the Los Angeles permitting system that brought financial success to Halicki. However, Halicki was killed while filming the sequel in 1989. Halicki may have been a head case and a flagrant outlaw, but unlike the garbage that was spawned later on with the same name, Halicki’s contribution to action filmmaking won’t soon be forgotten.

I recommend skipping everything and just going straight to the 50-minute mark where the chase starts, which lasts a full 35 minutes.

And I recommend watching the documentary linked above, embedded here: