Carey Loftin: Hollywood's Legendary Stunt Driver Behind Iconic Car Chases

If you’ve ever watched a movie with some jaw-dropping car stunts, chances are, Carey Loftin was the man behind the wheel. This guy turned driving into an art form and made Hollywood’s wildest car chases look easy.

Back in the day, Carey Loftin, affectionately nicknamed “Old Vapor Lock,” was the go-to stunt driver in Tinseltown. Steven Spielberg himself praised Loftin’s skills during an interview for the DVD release of his movie Duel. Spielberg shared how Loftin’s precision and safety behind the wheel made all those terrifying truck chase scenes possible without a hitch.

Loftin’s journey to becoming a stunt legend is like something out of a movie. Born in 1914 in Florida, he grew up in Mississippi and joined a traveling vaudeville show as a teen to pull off motorcycle stunts. After serving in the Marines, he landed in Southern California in the mid-1930s to visit his brother and ended up getting pulled into the movie biz because of his knack for daring driving.

By 1963, Loftin had been in over 1100 films, and he wasn’t even close to hitting the brakes. He orchestrated the car-flipping madness in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and gathered all of Southern California’s sports-car racers for The Love Bug. He even designed the iconic chase in Bullitt. And in the same year he drove that menacing truck in Duel, he was also the guy pushing a white Dodge Challenger to its limits in Vanishing Point and choreographing the heart-pounding action in The French Connection.

Gary Davis, a fellow stunt coordinator who looked up to Loftin, recalls his mentor’s almost magical ability to pull off stunts that were both wild and precise—what Loftin liked to call a “scientific wild-ass guess.” If Loftin was driving, you knew the stunt was going to be spectacular and safe.

Even when Loftin was nearing 70, his skills were so trusted that Davis brought him on for the movie Against All Odds, where Loftin, doubling for James Woods, drove a black Ferrari in a high-speed chase against a red Porsche along Sunset Boulevard. Loftin’s driving was so spot-on that he never seemed out of control, not even for a second.

But Loftin wasn’t all serious business. Edie Adams, who worked with him on It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, remembered him as a bit of a prankster—starting food fights, unexpectedly soaking everyone with a hose on set, and zipping her around in a sidecar that was way more dangerous than she realized. He was a madman, but in the most entertaining way.

Loftin’s talent wasn’t just recognized by those behind the scenes; he even out-earned some of the stars he doubled for! He famously quipped to Barry Newman during Vanishing Point that he deserved the bigger paycheck because, well, he did all the heavy lifting—or in this case, the high-speed driving.

Carey Loftin left an indelible mark on Hollywood and on every movie fan who loves a good car chase. He passed away in 1997, but the legacy of his work—those breathtaking moments of automotive ballet on the big screen—will keep his memory speeding along for generations to come.