Daily Mail

Survivor of a deadly duel

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QUESTION What type of truck was used in Steven Spielberg’s 1971 film Duel?

DUEL was made in 14 days as an ABC Movie of the Week by a then unknown Steven Spielberg. It was so popular that Universal Studios asked Spielberg to film additional scenes for a cinema release.

The starring role was played by a menacing Peterbilt truck that harassed travelling salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) as he drove his red 1971 Plymouth Valiant through the California desert.

Peterbilt was a heavy duty truck maker founded in 1939 by T. A. Peterman and registered as Peterbilt Motors Inc, Denton, Texas.

The truck was chosen for its menacing ‘face’. Make-up artists enhanced its appearance as the film went on, adding oil, grease and fake dead insects.

The multiple number plates on the bonnet suggested the truck had killed before. Shots of it were composed in such a way as to make it seem ‘alive’ as it menaced Mann. Much of the film was filmed in Southern California’s Canyon Country, around Agua Dulce and Acton.

Three trucks were used in the film, only one of which survives.

Truck 1: The star of the show was a 1956 Peterbilt 281 with a 1674 270hp I- 6 Caterpilla­r engine. These engines didn’t come out until the mid-Sixties, so it had to be retrofitte­d. The truck had a ten-speed transmissi­on and a fuel tanker trailer built by Freuhauf. It famously plunged over a cliff in the final scene of the film.

Truck 2: The back- up was a 1960 Peterbilt 281 with a 262 Cummins diesel engine. It later appeared in David Lee Roth’s She’s My Machine video, shot in Malibu.

Truck 3: A 1964 Peterbilt 351 was used to film a few scenes and was later scrapped.

Brad Wike, who collects and restores classic trucks, owns the haulage company BPW Transport and hosts the big truck show Brad Wike’s Southern Classic in Lincolnton, North Carolina.

He bought the 1960 Peterbilt in 2009. Unlike the other sparkling trucks in his collection, the Duel rig is as weathered, dusty and menacing as in the film.

Aaron Finch, London SW11.

QUESTION Is there any significan­ce to the comma in the title of The Rolling Stones record Paint It, Black?

THERE has been ambiguity and confusion regarding the comma since the song’s release. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and recorded at RCA Studios, Hollywood, California, between March 6 and 10, 1966, during a U.S. tour by the band in sessions that led to many of the songs featured on the Aftermath album.

It is notable for the aggressive playing of the sitar by Brian Jones.

Paint It, Black — with comma — was released by Decca in the UK on Friday May 13, 1966, with Long, Long While as the B- side. It was included on the Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) compilatio­n album released on November 4, 1966, with the comma on the album sleeve track listing and the record label.

Paint It Black — without the comma — was reissued as a UK single in the early Seventies. The ambiguity in the use of the comma is demonstrat­ed in the U.S. album Hot Rocks 1964-71 on the London label (the U.S. brand of Decca), which has the comma on the inner sleeve track listing, but omits it on the outer sleeve and the record label.

The song is about a young man who is depressed after losing the love of his life who has died or, at best, he feels her love for him has gone.

He wants everything from red doors to the sun to be black to match his mood. Some suggested the Paint It, Black title was a command to a person of colour to do the painting, implying subjugatio­n or even slavery. But the comma is probably a simple clerical error. Perhaps the last word should go to the song’s co- author Keith Richards: ‘Don’t ask me what the comma is in the title; that’s Decca. I suppose they could have put “black” in brackets.’ Malcolm Charles, Wallasey, Merseyside.

QUESTION In the late Fifties or early Sixties, I had a moped/scooter. It was 50cc with pedals to assist the engine, a belt on a V-shaped drive, but no gears. Has anyone seen or heard of something similar?

FURTHER to earlier answers, in the late Sixties, I was a rural constable in the east of England with a beat consisting of five villages and a large area of Forestry Commission woodland.

To enable me to get about my patch, I had a 49cc Raleigh Mobylette moped (pictured). It had metal leg shields, a tall clear plastic wind visor and canvas panniers either side of the rear wheel.

My helmet was padded with a chin strap. To start the moped, you had to pedal hard for a short distance, let out the clutch, then the engine cut in and off you went, pop, pop, pop, down the road.

It ran on a mixture of low-grade petrol and oil called Petroil. There was no fuel gauge, so you had to ‘dip’ the tank to check the level. The two-star petrol went in first, then the oil, and you had to give the machine a firm shake to ensure the two had mixed. Though my moped was not speedy (30mph with a back wind), it was reliable and carried me along roads, country lanes and woodland tracks in all weathers. Robin Fletcher,

Doncaster.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspond­ents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT; fax them to 01952 780111 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspond­ence.

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Menacing: The Peterbilt 281
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