I always think of this as one of my "stoner classics"..as in getting high whilst watching. (early eighties for me)..putting it in a portfolio along with "Escape from NewYork", "Assault on Precinct 13","Stir Crazy" and "The Warriors"...Years later ,re-watching reveals that the images remain Iconic,without the altered state of brain chemistry. What you thought was enhancing your appreciation of things was really just taking the edges off.
Interest in "Vanishing Point" was of course revived big time by "Primal Scream" in 1997..Not sure if the same happened for "Petrocelli",the sub-Perry mason/Rockford files, tv series ,that is the only other thing i can remember Barry Newman in.