Me and the General Lee

Their first test came on Bourne. ''Car chases had become too spectacular,'' says director Paul Greengrass, who recruited Bradley based on his startling Adaptation car crash. ''You were literally in the bleachers watching the spectacle unfold. I wanted a chase where we would have the sensation of being on Bourne's shoulder.''

In just eight weeks, Go built the Mobile they'd been imagining for two years, a long chassis on which they could bolt any car, after stripping off the front end and wheels. The 6-foot-5-inch Scott folded into a driver's pod, where he could take the Mobile up to 60 miles per hour, swerving it like a race car while camera operators firmly strapped in behind him shot right into Bourne star Matt Damon's face. (A towing process trailer can safely hit only 35 mph, and veering can be dangerous.) Damon, after being whipped through the Moscow streets, called the jolting ride ''NAR: No Acting Required.''

After seeing Bourne, Dukes director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers) knew he wanted that speed and intensity in his movie. The Go team arrived at the Louisiana shoot with an improved Go Mobile to tear through dirt roads, fields, and barns. With the help of the movie's effects team, they shortened the Go Mobile's chassis to three feet, left the General Lee's rear wheels on, and bolted its front end to the GM. Whereas in Bourne, the car's wheelless body sat on top of a longer GM, now you had 75 percent of the real car on the road. This allowed for even wider, wilder shots that were impossible on Bourne, when you couldn't shoot much below the door handles. With the old model, to suggest the Dukes' speed, you'd have had to cut from a close-up of the General Lee's skidding wheels (courtesy of a stunt skidder) to a shot of the boys in the car. Now, in one fluid crane shot, you could raise up from the wheels right to Bo Duke (Seann William Scott) manically steering, all while screaming along at 60 mph.

Today, while his three partners prepare for Spider-Man 3, Scott and the Go Mobile are heading for a much smaller picture, the $15 million Waist Deep, starring Tyrese Gibson. ''We want to make the Go Mobile available for all films,'' says Scott, who has also received interest from Will Ferrell's untitled NASCAR comedy. ''It can't just be a $100-million-picture piece of equipment.'' Proving its versatility will bring Go a step closer to its goal of becoming the Go-to action team, where its name on a movie poster will cue audiences to expect revolutionary fighting, driving, and destruction, just as Hong Kong wire fighter Yuen Wo-Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrixes) is a lure for martial-arts fans. ''We're every bit as ingenious and clever [as Yuen],'' says Bradley. ''And with all of our talents pushing in different areas...[we can] go higher, faster, farther, more real.''

Back at Warner Bros., it feels very real behind the wheel of the General Lee, even if it's Scott who is driving. He slams the Go Mobile into a 90-degree skid, then guns it forward, only to twist, moments later, into an extended drift — a squealing driving/skidding mix (a Dukes staple), where the car sweeps around the corner at a 45-degree angle. I want to yell ''Yee-haw!'' but can muster only an ''Eep!'' through clenched teeth until Scott stops.