The mythology of the Cannonball Run is one of the mythologies of the automotive enthusiast that still seems to be way too unreal to have ever happened in real life. If it wasn't for the fact that the exploits of the original Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash were immortalized in Car and Driver Magazine thanks to the writing talents of event creator...and racer...and journalist Brock Yates. It wasn't so much that the event actually happened. Protests against the 55-MPH national speed limit were nothing new. It wasn't like there wasn't a huge spread of vehicles that could've handled the task...right? Between 1971 and 1979 (the official event years), there were stories that somehow made the whole "blast across the United States at extra-legal speeds, coast-to-coast" part of the Cannonball Run the most sane part of the entire thing. Want proof? Let's play a little game. Can you determine what was real and what was in the movies?

• The biggest problem that involved a 27-foot-long motorhome wasn't the speeds over 100 MPH. It was the fact that someone spilled lasagna on the floor, turning the inside into an Italian-scented hellscape.
• The dude in the cape pretending to be a superhero.
• The driver of a Chevrolet dually truck who might have threatened a car full of kids with after they hucked a beer bottle at him...in front of the cop who pulled both of them over.
• Drivers who actually dressed like Catholic priests who were driving a press car.
• A race car that had competed at the 1979 24 Hours of Daytona showed up at the final official event, dressed up as a street-going "Fire-Am" Firebird.

Actually, you know what? Forget the game...ALL of that happened in real life. You want to know why the Cannonball Run movies are as popular as they are? Because no amount of comedy can cover for what really happened. If anything, what Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and a field full of A-list talent did was create the kind of legendary BS stories that you would've expected the racers themselves to tell at the Portofino Inn after the trip was over. While the machines smoldered and belched out nuclear-hot coolant, inside the road tales would be swapped about how a bunch of mental patients managed to bypass everyone on their westward trip, chasing the horizon with the tach deep in the redline.

And if you're paying attention to the movie, there are two points we can come up with immediately: the Imperial limousine is one of three made by ASC, and the Dodge Daytona that Frank Sinatra is driving was his own personal car.

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