NSW Police block Ken's Gymkhana 9 from Sydney

Prohibitive restrictions and bureaucratic red tape denies Sydney the chance to host latest Ken Block stunt driving epic

Ken Block’s latest Gymkhana video could have been shot with Sydney as a backdrop, but NSW government bureaucracy and a reluctant police force foiled the rallycross star’s plans.

Block, the founder of a sneaker company and former rally driver whose viral stunt driving vids have been viewed more than 390 million times since Gymkhana 1 dropped in 2009, had planned to film the latest instalment in Australia to coincide with the release of a sponsor’s video game that is set in and around Sydney.

However, the NSW Police Force intervened, with production house Hoonigan told that the project would be “bad” for Australia.

“The police down there started to make things difficult with the permitting process for the locations we were trying to secure, both public and private,” Hoonigan’s senior director of brand and marketing Matt Tuccillo told US website Jalopnik.

“Apparently we were going to be ‘bad’ for Australia, and as we got closer and closer to filming we started to lose more and more locations that we had secured, ultimately forcing us to abandon the concept.”

It’s not the first time that such restrictions have been levied on motoring spectacles.

NSW Police responded by suggesting the team apply to use Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour, but under strict speed conditions.

The island was too small to build a video around, according to Tuccillo, so filming was shifting to Buffalo, New York.

Tuccillo told CarsGuide.com.au that he wanted to anchor the vid with scenes shot around Sydney's most iconic spots.

"We were basically looking at a handful of spots across the harbour from the Opera House, as well as down by the Opera House itself, as well as the big bridge into the city," he said. 

"Standard stuff that's iconic and easily recognisable. The bridge would have been the "biggest" in terms of logistics, but everything else would have been fairly easy and simple."

Block debuted his latest motorkhana car, a Ford Focus RS with 372kW and 745Nm of torque, in the vid, which was watched 600,000 times in the 12 hours after its release.

Other Gymkhana vids have been shot in city central locations like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Abu Dhabi, where roads were closed in some of those city’s busiest areas.

It’s not the first time that such restrictions have been levied on motoring spectacles. Mark Webber drove his Williams Formula One car over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 2007, but was told to keep the speed below 90km/h.

The run reached an estimated 300 million TV viewers around the world.

Regulations aren’t quite as restrictive in other states; Brisbane allowed Triple Eight Supercar star Craig Lowndes to perform a mock pitstop in the centre of the city in 2011, while Webber crossed Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge in 2011.

Should Ken Block have been allowed permission to film a Gymkhana vid in Sydney? Tell us what you think in the comments below.