I drove nearly all of the cars - or i likely did drive all of them - including the gt40's. They were indeed kit cars, mostly from RCR (Race Car Replicas). I had some involvement in the testing of the cars for the film, although most of the input was sought from the professional (ex)racers who were involved.
They were apparently a nightmare at first, before I came on board. Some major attention was given to suspension geometry and a lot of work went into re-designing some control arms and alignments. It netted cars that worked adequately.
I understand that the chassis was the same for the ferrari and the gt40 but just elongated a little for the italian cars. for whatever reason, the ferrari cars drove better. Maybe the prancing horse emblem does more for a car than just look good.
The little bubble porsches (forgive me, I cannot recall the designation) were amazingly incredibly tiny and tight. knees-up-against-the-dashboard tiny. All custom-made chassis and bodies. In fact, they scanned toy cars of the Porsches and built the bodies off of that.
We did get to drive a bevvy of cool cars, for sure. The Willow Springs race was fun, with the cobras and corvettes making up most of the field.
As far as what I drove and got to do, we rotated into whatever car we were needed in at the time. I did have some specific cars to drive, and did most of the crashes and spinouts you see. That's the easiest way to point out the cars I was driving. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I will say that I am very proud of the ferrari crash as i couldn't rehearse it in situ and hit exactly my mark after "losing it" and cracking the whip avoiding a crashed and burning car.
Funny note: the driver standing on the side waving his hands as I went around the burned out car is Derek Hill, son of Phil Hill and who has become a good friend of mine. He is a wonderful guy and I could (and did!) listen to his stories for hours.
A lot of when we shot was blazing hot in the socal desert and we were provided with Cool Suits and there were two guys whose job it was to wheel a cart around with fresh ice boxes and swap out our warm, used ones.
anyway, I could go on, but i'll summarize by saying it was a fun and difficult job that I am very glad to have been part of.
