Steve McQueen Car Stunt

I grew up in Chicago and this is the Dearborn Street Bridge. In the background are the Marina Towers.

In the 1980 movie, The Hunter, Steve McQueen plays a bounty hunter who chases a fugitive up the spiral parking ramp on the west tower before the bad guy loses control and drives off into the Chicago River.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97wB0DzVWY

The stunt was performed on a Friday afternoon in 1979. McQueen kept mostly to the parking ramp that day, venturing out a couple times to mingle with the crowd. About 1,500 people gathered on the bridge to watch the stunt. The car was a green 1980 Grand Prix Pontiac. With a dummy and a movie camera in the front seat, the car moved at 40 miles per hour. The car crashed through a cable barrier on the 17th floor of the ramp and dived hood-first into the Chicago River, landing halfway across. When it landed, it sounded like a cannon blast. The car floated for a few seconds and then disappeared into the dark river. Six camera crews filmed the stunt, including one from a helicopter hovering over the Bridge.

In the script, the driver was supposed to survive the crash. But the impact was so severe that they changed the story.

McQueen said he was glad the stunt at Marina Towers was over and he was relieved that no one was injured. It was McQueen's last film. He died a year later from mesothelioma.