I want to nominate Gone in 60 Seconds (Bruckheimer, 2000) as an egregious, $100M insult to all things car-related.
This weekend, with great glee, I received the complete H.B. Hallicki collection, showcased by the original (1974) Gone in 60 Seconds -- an indie masterpiece written, produced, directed, and distributed by Hallicki, who starred and did all his own stunt driving. The original is almost existentially stripped-down, with Hallicki ad-libbing his lines as car thief Maindrian Pace, who has to steal a series of cars under a ludicrously tight deadline
The last 40 minutes is one extended car chase in a '73 Mustang (billed as the star of the movie in the opening credits). Hallicki demolishes something like 100 cars and manages a 128-foot jump that resulted in 10 compressed vertebrae and a chase climax that hasn't been equaled since. (Hallicki died making a sequel.)
Contrast the 2000 Nicolas Cage remake, in which the car jump is exceptionally lame CGI, the chases are filmed in cut-cut-cut sequence so they amount to little more than the same shot of Cage's face, a gear shift, and maybe 100 feet of road total. The remake adds a bunch of motivation and dialogue (Hallicki's original didn't have an actual script) which come across as cliched and trite, and it beings in Robert Duvall, Angelina Jolie, and Vinnie Jones whose cameo roles seem forced and don't really add anything.
Bruckheimer tragically failed to understand that people who watch movies about classic muscle cars in big chase scenes actually want to see classic muscle cars in big chase scenes, not a bunch of poor cut-paste and CGI. For all its mind-killing banal dialogue, Tarantino's Death Proof (2007) actually delivers the goods.
For people into this stuff, other classics include: Bullitt (1968), Vanishing Point (1971), Two Lane Blacktop (1971), The French Connection (1971), The Seven Ups (1973), Electra Glide in Blue (1973), Dirty Larry, Crazy Mary (1974), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Ronin (1998).
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Actually, my favorite car chase scene is the mall chase in Blues Brothers, but that's just me.
There is also a decent web only one that is all of the incarnations of James Bond in the same chase.
I'm always amazed at how few people, outside of Hallicki, made car chase movies what they were.
Bill Hickman did stunt driving in The Wild One, Bullitt (driving the villains' '68 Charger), The French Connection (doubling for Gene Hackman in the '71 LeMans), The Seven Ups (driving the villains' '73 Grand Ville; he also coordinated that chase). He also coordinated the motorcycle chase in Electra Glide in Blue.
Carey Loftin drove the truck in Spielberg's Duel, the '51 custom Ford (for Robert Mitchum) in Thunder Road, the '68 Mustang (for McQueen, part of the time) in Bullitt, the motorcycle (again for for McQueen) in The Great Escape, the '70 Challenger (for Barry Newman) in Vanishing Point, the Ferrari (for James Woods) in Against All Odds (at the age of 68!), and so on; other driving credits include It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Point Blank, Grand Prix, the (original) Love Bug, Diamonds are Forever, Fear is the Key, the (original) Taking of Pelham One Two Three, White Line Fever, Smokey and the Bandit, The Rockford Files, etc. He also coordinated the driving stunts for Vanishing Point, Fear is the Key, Sugarland Express, White Line Fever, etc.
Correction: Bud Ekins did the driving for McQueen in Great Escape and Bullitt. Other film credits include the above-mentioned Blues Brothers, and he was the stunt coordinator for Sorcerer, one of the most suspenseful driving movies of all time. He shares stunt coordination credits with Bill Hickman (above) for Electra Glide in Blue.