Classic Film: C'était un rendez-vous

In 1976, French director Claude Lelouch released C'était un rendez-vous, an eight-minute short film that has become one of the most influential car videos of all time. That's also despite the car that's central to it not visibly featuring, and itself being a point of contention.

Shot as a single take using a 1000-foot reel of 35mm film, there is no dialogue but plenty of noise. Filmed in the early hours of an August morning in Paris, a car races through the city past its many iconic landmarks.

All that can be heard is the roar of a high-revving engine and the squealing of tyres as the driver ignores red lights, drives the wrong direction on one-way streets, and even avoids a rubbish truck by mounting the footpath.

Finally, the driver arrives at the top of Montmarte, getting out and embracing a young blonde woman who runs up to meet him. After all, the film's title translates to It Was a Date.

While the camera car isn't visible in the clip, it's believed to have been a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 which was driven my Lelouch himself. However, the soundtrack certainly doesn't match.

That's because the director dubbed it with the exhaust note of his own V12-powered Ferrari 275GTB driven along the same 10.6km route. Given how good it sounds, dubbing the exhaust note was clearly the right decision.

In 2003, the film was remastered from the original 35mm negative and released on DVD by Spirit Level Film. The sleeve for this rerelease goes to show the film's impact with the quotes emblazoned on the front – the late Carroll Shelby described the film as "outstanding", while Jeremy Clarkson claimed that "it makes Bullitt look like a cartoon".

The 2003 DVD release features glowing praise from Carroll Shelby and Jeremy Clarkson on the cover

This film's impact has been seen even more widely than that. It was cited as an inspiration for the video game series Burnout, while companies including Nissan and Ford have produced homages to it for their own advertising. Clarkson also did his own tribute using a Bugatti Chiron in an episode of The Grand Tour.

However, there's only one occasion on which Lelouch permitted the original footage to be used. The band Snow Patrol used it as the music video for their hit single "Open Your Eyes", and while it's not a bad tune, I'll leave you to decide whether this song or the original audio is better.