I believed the 150k$ budget after watching five minutes of this movie. The director's line of thinking must have been: "let's see how many cars we can destroy for that amount of money". And my classic car heart is bleeding but in '74 those were "just" cars.

Of course I watched this because I knew the remake. While I would not consider that one a great movie the original is something else entirely. It almost has a documentary feel at times. The story is thin (like the remake) and there is no acting to speak off. Steeling cars looks like a walk in the park which is pretty much what it was back then I guess. The one reason to watch this is the chase scene. But that is one of the best ever brought to film. I will make the bold statement it is better than the one from _Bullit_. Shame (or actual luckily) that the Mustang isn't a Mach 1.