According to Verneuil, he designed his film like a real western. He said that he had no cow boys, but he had thousand of horses, horsepower inside the truck engines, and these trucks are the real stars.
About the title's choice, at first Michel Audiard came to Verneuil with the title "60 000 dollars au soleil". But Verneuil thought it was a bit greedy, and that it could as well be "100 000 dollars au soleil".
The trucks are by Berliet, a those days prominent French truck manufacturer. The stolen semi is model TLM10M2 and the pursuing truck is a GBC8 "Gazelle".
No. 7 grossing movie of the year in France.
The film was presented in Cannes Film Festival in 1964 for the Palme D'Or besides "intellectual" films directed by François Truffaut or Jacques Demy, which provoked wrath of many people, who declared that the Henri Verneuil's film was a shame, because of a colonialist movie. But it was a great success in France.