This really is the best road movie I have ever seen. I can almost see the folks in the drive-in waiting for the explosions and wondering what they sat through. This film is so much more than just a fun car movie. It is better than Easy Rider because it is not encumbered by all the hippie platitudes that really didn't age well and because Easy Rider is constantly telling you what it is about while Two Lane Blacktop shows you rather than telling you. It is, on the one hand, a meditation on freedom and its drawbacks. The Driver and The Mechanic are free but they are not happy. That is the price of their freedom. They trade comfort and human connection for freedom. On the other hand is the value of truth. The Driver and Mechanic know nothing but truth. They find a sort of comfort in the fact that their lives are simple and true. GTO, however, lies to everyone. His whole persona and his car are all a lie. The only time he seems to be telling the truth is when he is with the driver and in the '55 and that is the one time someone tells him to shut up. He goes on with his lies even incorporating the realest truth he ever came in contact with into his lies in the end. I guess I love this movie because it tells me a story in a way that only film can. It shows me things rather than telling me and that can truly be said of so few films.