BLUES BROTHERS ON A MISSION

We couldn’t let the year-end (technically this issue goes on sale mid-December!) without celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Blues Brothers, because it’s not every day you get to drive a Dodge Monaco through a shopping mall…

- Mike Renaut

You might be wondering why we’ve parked an old police car inside a shopping centre. If so, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with the cult 1980 musical comedy movie The Blues Brothers for any of this to make sense. Dan Aykroyd wrote the script and plays Elwood Blues, who with brother Jake (John Belushi) needs to raise $5000 to pay the annual taxes on the orphanage where they grew up. So they reassemble their estranged rhythm and blues band for a concert and in the process upset two police forces, some cowboys and even the Illinois Nazi party.

Throughout the film, Elwood drives The Bluesmobile, a six-year-old 1974 Dodge Monaco police car that’s retired from service. Early on, when the Illinois State police are chasing the Bluesmobile, Elwood escapes by driving right through the centre of a crowded shopping mall with two 1977 Dodge Royal Monaco cop cars close behind. Hence, why we really wanted to take our Bluesmobile shopping.

In the opening scenes, Elwood upsets Jake by collecting him on the day of his release from prison in the police car. Elwood explains he had to swap their previous Bluesmobile, a black 1968 Cadillac Fleetwood, for a microphone. The Monaco was ‘a bargain’ from a Mount Prospect City Police auction. Elwood paid $800 for the Dodge, and he’s no fool; the Bluesmobile is a 440cu in V8 car with uprated police suspension and, being a pre-catalytic converter car, faster than the newer police Dodges. He’s beating them at their own game.