I was watching Hot Rods To Hell (an old 60s cult flick) recently and theres a sequence that QT mustve seen before he wrote the car crash sequence in Death Proof.
Two hot rod punks terrorize the main family in the movie by playing chicken: driving past their car, turning around and driving full speed at them on the wrong side of the road AT NIGHT until the other car runs off the road (the headlights are on, not off of course) The first thing I thought of while watching it was Death Proof. These guys actually do it THREE times, the last time the dad (one of the victims) parks the family car in the road with the headlights on and the two punks drive towards it only to find its not going to move and they crash their car on the side of the road.
What QT did was take that basic idea and stretch it out and heighten it to make it an even more cinematic thrill. THAT is what QT does when he steals ideas from older movies. Thats great filmmaking. 
