San Francisco Car Race Bullitt Style: Fred’s Weekend Video (amazing)

Auto technology is hot. We’re always talking about building in smart gadgets for cars — or smart cars — but this is something amazingly different from anything we’ve shown you before.

This is a real race car speeding around vacant streets all over San Francisco — doing tricks, donuts around trolley cars, so precise and raw. Just watch and see if the word “Bullitt” doesn’t come into your head.

This car is pure race car — it’s got a racing shifter, breaks, suspension, tires, 650 HP and the whole enchilada. This lets you see it up close. It will blow you away. And give you an outrageously beautiful and speedy view of our San Francisco.

Notice driver Ken Block doing such loooong burnouts around curves and 360 degree turns in some crazy tight spaces. The car, speeding along our up and down corridors, flies quite literally. It nails corners while doing so and lands on target. No slowing down. Block is incredible. This thing looks choreographed.

In vidcompare.com, writer

In a guestpost at VidCompare.com, car enthusiast Alex Polonsky does a great job of explaining whats going on here with Ken Block, long known for hi DC Shoes race car and amazing stunts. Full piece here. Excerpt:

Ken Block is long known for his incredible driving abilities using highly modified cars creating incredible stunt action videos. In his latest Gymkhana video, Ken Block is back in the DC Shoes race car and he again tackles the streets of San Francisco. Many high traffic San Francisco streets were closed down for awhile in order to allow the crew to film the event – even the San Francisco Bay Bridge, as you can see from the video.

I love the long sliding shots from the videographer and the close-ups of the tires and suspension. And check out the point-of-view video from the driver’s seat. What he sees out his front window isn’t always the road. You’ve got to see the video to believe it.

While you do, notice there’s an cameo of stunt dirt biker Travis Pastrana doing wheelies while the car does burnouts — under the wheel of the bike.

I live in San Francisco, which is probably why this is my video pick of the week. These are my streets. I know these neighborhoods, those wild hills and the corkscrew turns. I drive them everyday. But not like this. Unfortunately.

How these guys managed to clear traffic and film this right under my nose boggles my mind.
And it makes me go out hunting for skid marks or an immmediate showing of Bullit, the 1968 action thriller featuring racing through some of the same city streets. With Steve McQueen! Enjoy the excerpt below and hang on to your hat.