Ron Howard's Twitter Feed Goes Behind the Scenes of New Formula One Movie

NURBURG, Germany — It's no secret that former Opie Cunningham and Oscar-winning director Ron Howard is making a movie entitled Rush about the 1976 Formula One season and the epic battle between James Hunt and Niki Lauda for the title. But information has been scarce. Unless, that is, you've been following Howard's Twitter feed.

Howard, who turns 58 next Thursday, has taken to Twitter like a 17-year-old who just got an iPhone. He has been posting up a storm of photos from the set of Rush, showing everything from Olivia Wilde's wardrobe (vintage Gucci) and hospital sets to, yes, the cars that will be used to portray the machinery piloted back when drivers were real men.

You know, when the Formula One cars were still built around mild steel monocoque chassis and transmissions that needed to be shifted with some muscle. The McLaren M23 replica being used in the filming looks pretty sweet and accurate at first glance. And the engine looks like a genuine Ford-Cosworth DFV 3.0-liter V8.

But don't expect a lot of automotive tech details from Howard's posts. After all, he's a movie guy, not a car guy. So he's not going to say much about what's actually powering the movie cars or how they've been built. The movie company has, however, shot on the Nürburgring, where Lauda famously almost lost his life in '76.

In compensation, however, Howard's feed does offer a few glimpses of some of the camera rigs they'll be using to film Rush. It's all pretty slick stuff compared to the massive mounts used by John Frankenheimer to film Grand Prix back in '66 or during the filming of Steve McQueen's Le Mans in '70.

Inside Line says: If you're a car movie obsessive who can't afford to fly to Europe and tail the production company as it films, Howard's Twitter feed is about as close as you can get.