It’s a hilarious movie that couldn’t be made in today’s environment. Actually, it’s an illegal race across the U.S.
The story of Dan Gurney and the first Cannonball run is interesting. Dan had been approached by the editor of Car and Driver to drive in the race but turned him down. Fortunately Dan’s wife was in Europe at the time to visit her father who was terminally ill. She told her dad about the race and her father thought it was a great idea, a once in a life time type opportunity. After all, Dan had already competed in just about every other kind of race, why not an unsanctioned, no-rules race. She called Dan and told him to do it. As the story goes, Dan decided to do it and took a red-eye from California to New York to team up with Brock Yates and drive a Ferrari cross country in 35 hours. I think Dan was the only driver to get a ticket in that race.
Dan came from an interesting family. His grandfather had invented some kind of ball bearing and his father and all of his uncles were engineers. His father was also an accomplished opera singer at the Met. One of his uncles sons is the Gurney who is the World of Dinosaurs artist.