I'm not sure why the filmmakers would be so keen to obey vehicle physics some of the time when they ignore it other times. The armor plating on all the "Death Race" cars would have been impractically heavy in real life.
In the case of the Mustang from the first movie, it would not even be close to feasible. That rear tombstone thingy alone would have weighed a good 1500+ lbs if it was made of steel. The rest of the armor plating would have pushed the total for additions to the whole car to well over 2000 lbs. Maybe even approaching 3000 lbs. The Mustang probably only weighed about 3500 lbs to start with.
You can bolt that much weight onto a Mustang but you can't make it practical to race around that way. It would be breaking the suspension & bending the chassis every time you hit a bump. It wouldn't be able to accelerate & corner & brake acceptably either. Cars can be modified but that kind of weight difference is way too much IMHO. You would end up basically building a whole new car from scratch just to keep it from breaking all the time, and it would still not solve the performance/handling issues very well.
I saw one of the actual prop-car Mustangs from the first "Death Race" movie on display once. The armor plating felt like fiberglass or plastic when I touched it. The stuff was actually hollow molded shapes, not really a solid thickness of any material.
---
In the case of the Mustang from the first movie, it would not even be close to feasible. That rear tombstone thingy alone would have weighed a good 1500+ lbs if it was made of steel. The rest of the armor plating would have pushed the total for additions to the whole car to well over 2000 lbs. Maybe even approaching 3000 lbs. The Mustang probably only weighed about 3500 lbs to start with.
You can bolt that much weight onto a Mustang but you can't make it practical to race around that way. It would be breaking the suspension & bending the chassis every time you hit a bump. It wouldn't be able to accelerate & corner & brake acceptably either. Cars can be modified but that kind of weight difference is way too much IMHO. You would end up basically building a whole new car from scratch just to keep it from breaking all the time, and it would still not solve the performance/handling issues very well.
I saw one of the actual prop-car Mustangs from the first "Death Race" movie on display once. The armor plating felt like fiberglass or plastic when I touched it. The stuff was actually hollow molded shapes, not really a solid thickness of any material.
---
