1968

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=27446703708274274&set=gm.2326872391173302&idorvanity=804065043454052

the BBC had a Citroen they used for a camera car!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/804065043454052/permalink/2338892989971242

good idea for a low budget camera car

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1969289213782606&set=gm.2366001157260425&idorvanity=804065043454052

very early Hollywood camera car, 1920-1923 Packard third series twin-six, 12-cylinder, 90-horsepower, 136-inch wheelbase, special MGM camera car, filming "wind stuff" in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "The Wind.""

 https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/257

Cool camera rig!

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/300

I don't think I've ever seen a camera car that was new, and not banged up from being on set

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/502/

For some really cool ones from when movies were made in Hollywood, see https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/502/

Chrysler built a pair of custom "camera car" trucks in 1951 for Hollywood, but they didn't catch on with Hollywood-based studios. Too expensive, no spare parts for repairs, and instead any truck could get modded cheaply for camera truck duty

This one, which went to RKO Studios, is owned by the Petersen Museum, though it was no where around when I took the tour

one of the two was used by Desilou Studios, Lucy and Desi Arnez's company

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/that-time-chrysler-built-a-quirky-convertible-truck-for-hollywood-193351.html#

Many companies now refer to their cranes as "Russian Arms," but the generic name for the equipment (like Kleenex for facial tissue or Xerox for copies) traces back to two things; the Cold War and Filmotechnic engineer Anatoliy Kokush.

Anatoliy Kokush is a Soviet/Ukrainian film engineer, businessman, and inventor. He was born in Kersh, which was in the soviet union USSR at the time.

In 2007, he was awarded two Oscars. The awards were in the Scientific and Engineering Award category: one was awarded "for the concept and development of the Russian Arm gyro-stabilized camera crane and the Flight Head"; the other was awarded "for the concept and development of the Cascade series of motion picture cranes". Kokush has also been recognized by Ukraine's then–First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko for his contributions to Ukrainian cinema and around the world.

 

Kokush graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Film Engineers in 1974. He then started working for Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kyiv.

 

In the 1980s Kokush founded the Soviet film and television company Filmotechnic. He explained that the machine known as the "Russian Arm" and "U-crane" is actually called Autorobot, and was given the nickname as a joke in the early nineties when Americans in Hollywood joked that "the Russian Arm is back in America again".

Filmotechnic provided Travelling Cascade Cranes, Flight Heads and Russian arms to major Hollywood pictures such as Titanic, War of the Worlds, The Italian Job, Ocean's Twelve, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven, Bean: The Movie, Transformers, Iron Man 2, and many other huge box office hits.

 

https://www.facebook.com/stagehandinstitute/posts/5143040505758080

https://www.shootonline.com/spw/filmotechnic%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98russian-arm-takes-its-name-history

1924 Rolls Silver Ghost... that the 2nd owner bought for only £99 when it was 25 years old and worn out

The body had been converted some years previously to that of a 'shooting brake' with a platform on the roof, another folding down at the rear, with fittings for a third at the front, all for the mounting of movie cameras.

The conversion was carried out for a film company, and '101EM' may possibly have been one of two such camera cars. Indeed, '101EM' is known to have appeared in the 1951 motion picture 'The Man in the White Suite' starring Sir Alec Guinness.

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22685/lot/422/

check out the camera truck used in the movie That Thing You Do (thanks 80 Griiip!)

its a Titan made by Chapman Leonard in Hollywood https://www.chapman-leonard.com/details.php?products_id=16

https://www.facebook.com/chapmanleonard/

largely built out of repurposed materials from World War II, including parts from retired military vehicles and even a landing gear from a WWII military plane

the cab is from a 1958 Bel Air

"a Titan was no mere crane, but a moving camera platform able to cruise along the road while a camera operator and assistant did their work way out at the end of the long crane arm. The wheels of a Titan could even “crab” like a dolly (all the wheels turning in the same direction), enabling the driver to put the camera and lens exactly where the director wanted it. With the weight balance adjusted by pumps moving liquid mercury within the arm rather than manually-loading lead weights, the Chapman Titan was a top-shelf item -- other than the camera itself, probably the biggest and most sophisticated piece of film equipment available at the time."

http://hollywoodjuicer.blogspot.com/2008/12/adventures-in-grip-land-cranes.html

https://www.facebook.com/chapmanleonard/photos/the-titan-mobile-crane-has-served-up-some-of-the-most-iconic-shots-for-the-motio/2416599615022695/

As Samuelson tells it, “After World War II, Ralph Chapman, a special effects technician with an engineering bent, produced the first studio crane that was more than a one-off in 1945.” The Chapman line of equipment began with small, medium and large stage cranes developed between 1946 and 1947. Of the large cranes, the biggest of them were able to get the camera mount up to forty feet off the stage floor.

About 1950, Chapman developed a crane than could travel independently. The cranes were equipped with gasoline engines so they could be taken to the location under their own power. The unit was mounted on a chassis that could also run on a silent electric motor drive for use on sets using recording takes using sensitive sound equipment.

On gasoline, it could travel anywhere. No longer confined to the sound stage, it could travel with the production and shoot exteriors from city streets to deserts and mountains. And wherever the set was they could be set up to do all the things they had been doing on the stage or backlot including a six-wheel crab ability.

After graduating from UCLA’s school of engineering in 1956,  his son Leonard formed his own company, Leonard’s Studio Equipment, and, in 1965, merged with his father’s company to create Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/camera-cranes-years/

https://www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org/inductees/leonard-chapman/

https://grip-rigs.tumblr.com/post/159760500272/leonard-and-ralph-chapman-riding-the-first-mobile

The company began life in 1945 as the Studio Equipment Company, where Leonard Chapman's father, Ralph, was one of the partners. Not only were they not "Chapman/Leonard" at that point, they weren't even "Chapman." Ralph was Ralph Terkanian, and his bride-to-be, Mabel Mahakian, sold some of her personal properties so that Ralph could buy out his partners.

Leonard was 11 when that happened, and a few years later, found himself at Los Angeles City College, using that engineering talent to modify a 1951 Studebaker for more power. A slew of scholarship offers followed upon graduation - including to MIT and Cal Tech - but Leonard stayed local and finished at UCLA. The newly-minted Bruin graduated in 1956, with honours in mechanical engineering, and then promptly went to work for his dad. Before the Eisenhower era was over, Ralph had changed his name to Ralph T. Chapman and Leonard followed suit, and thus Chapman Studio Equipment was born.

In that same 1956, director Cecil B. DeMille needed a crane that could deliver some of the epic shots he was envisioning for The Ten Commandments (DP Loyal Griggs). Ralph was flown to Egypt, and the result was cinema history - along with the company now having "C.B.'s" imprimatur.

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/chapman-leonard/

a 1920-1923 Packard third series twin-six, 12-cylinder, 90-horsepower, 136-inch wheelbase, special MGM camera car, filming "wind stuff" in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "The Wind.""

I am surprised to come across movie studio camera cars, and horse racing pacing cars... 2 unusual but legit forms of vehicles that have one function that they been adapted to

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A152433

1928 Lincoln that was made into a film studio camera truck, originally owned by RKO

it was used in the 80s in a couple movies

like this Bruce Willis movie Sunset

http://www.lonepinefilmhistorymuseum.org/articles-with-out-menu-items/camera-car-acquisition

a different movie camera truck filming the 1st Ben Hur
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1603842176345372&set=gm.1310549559091657&type=3&permPage=1&ifg=1