the film's stunt coordinator and responsible for setting up and performing the major driving stunts. Loftin's resume at the time included work on Grand Prix (1966), Bullitt (1968), and The French Connection (1971). Barry Newman learned from Loftin and was encouraged by the stunt coordinator to do some of his own stunts. In the scene before Kowalski crashes into the bulldozer, Newman drove and performed a 180-degree turn on the road himself without the director's knowledge. The 383 car was also used as the tow vehicle in the crash scene at the end of the movie. A quarter-mile cable was attached between the Challenger and an explosives-laden 1967 Chevrolet Camaro with the motor and transmission removed. The tow vehicle was driven by Loftin, who pulled the Camaro into the blades of the bulldozers at high speed. Loftin expected the car to go end over end, but instead it stuck into the bulldozers, which he thought looked better. Ending Barry Newman offered his interpretation of the film's ending in an interview printed in the March 1986 issue of Musclecar Review, "Kowalski smiles as he rushes to his death at the end of Vanishing Point because he believes he will make it through the roadblock." The August 2006 issue of Motor Trend magazine has a sidebar with Newman, in which he explains that Kowalski sees the light glinting from between the two bulldozers. "To Kowalski, it was still a hole to escape through. It symbolized that no matter how far they push or chase you, no one can truly take away your freedom and there is always an escape." Newman also thought that the entire film was an essay on existentialism. Kowalski drives to drive, with no real purpose for doing what he's doing. He decides to give his life its definition and meaning, with complete freedom over his actions. Sarafian explained that he wanted to make Kowalski appear otherworldly and that the world within the film was a temporary existence that he was just making a stop in. At the end of the film, he was ascending from this existence into another. The lyrics of the end song underscore this interpretation: "Nobody knows, nobody sees, 'til the light of life stops burning, 'til another soul goes free." UK theatrical release The UK theatrical release of the film differs slightly from the US release in plot and running time. In the UK