Charles Leclerc drives Monaco in recreation of infamous short film Rendezvous

Ferrari is recreating one of motoring’s most celebrated short films, which also happens to be one of the world’s most infamous, C'était un rendez-vous, usually just called Rendezvous.

The original film is less than eight minutes of high-speed driving through Paris in the early hours of the morning during August, 1976. It was filmed in one take, breaking many traffic laws along the way, with no permit and barely a crew.

Rendezvous is loved for its simplicity and the daring nature of its shoot, but criticised by many for its recklessness.

But now, the director of that classic short film, Claude Lelouch, is working with Ferrari F1 star Charles Leclerc and Ferarri to create a modern version in Monaco, at the time the GP would have run there. The sequel will be called Le Grand Rendez-vous.

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“This should have been the Qualifying day of my home GP,” the young driver tweeted.

“Due to the situation, the GP has been cancelled but thanks to Ferrari, I will be able to drive around the track tomorrow for a short movie produced by Claude Lelouch.”

The team has somewhat been beaten to the punch, however, as a recent film by Simon Kidston called C'était une urgence replicated the original but is set in Rome. It’s also attached to a GoFundMe campaign to assist the Italian Red Cross.

For Le Grand Rendez-vous, Ferrari has revealed an SF90 will be the star car, and behind the scenes clips show many on set wearing masks and filming from outside the car.

It appears then, that this ‘sequel’ may not exactly resemble the original, which was filmed with a single camera mounted on (reportedly) a 6.9-litre V8-powered Mercedes 450SEL, with a Ferrari V12’s engine note dubbed over the top.

At least when the film comes out on June 13, there will be a Ferrari behind the car for real.