The cars of Speed Racer: Type P

The Type P is another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it vehicle from Speed Racer, even though it is possibly the most repeated design of car used in the Casa Cristo race. The two-seated roadster is very similar to both the Type O and Type L street cars, but has a broad grill behind the cockpit instead of a jet-engine airbox.While the best example is the Juicy Drop Pop car, over a half dozen versions of this design can be seen in the opening moments of the race, weaving among the archways of the Muqranna*— including one that tries to take out Speed and explodes** against a pillar. *This is what the race announcers call the vast hall of pillars, according to closed caption subtitles. Not sure if this is correct or not — does anyone have the official movie script paperback? It could just be muqranna is a word they coined for the movie, one that’s based on a real word. Considering “muqrana” is Maltese slang for “a woman who cheats on her man,” and muqarna is a “decorative device in Islamic architecture” used to create ceiling patterns in archways, I’m going to go with the later, in spite of the difference in spelling.**Amusingly enough, even though the above car is soon destroyed, it shows up in a later portion of the race when it is seen cruising in front of the “Aqueducts of Sassicaia” for a split second. Whoops, somebody in Continuity is gonna get fired!As for the Type P, after a few sightings as the race heads out into the desert, the car unfortunately disappears from the movie.

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