In fact, you can shoot a bullet through a gas tank and it won't blow up, while driving a car over a cliff is almost never going to result in the kind of pyrotechnics we are used to seeking on the big screen. So how does Hollywood blow up cars?
For each type of explosive effect that a director is looking for, there is a specific set up process that helps to both ensure that the resulting shot looks great, but also that no one is injured during filming. Which is certainly a consideration when you discover that in order to blow the doors off a moving van, for example, you need to remove the hinges of the door and mount mortar launchers inside the vehicle.
When the filmmakers want a car to flip during a chase, it is completed rarely not by the position of the car on the road or gravity. The effects team will cut a hole in the floor of the car, weld a hydraulic lift system into it and trigger it when over a steel plate to avoid sticking a hole in the road surface. To make the fireballs that light up the screen requires a half gallon of "˜dry fireball mix,' the ingredients of which remain a tightly guarded industry secret.
Hollywood and cars has been a long smouldering love affair. Car chases are great, but nothing beats a good old fashioned remote detonation from 50-yards to see the union consummated in flames. Seeing a car explode on screen may not often happen in real life, but there is nothing fake about the inferno that follows a blast, even in this high-tech day and age.
