I Spotted A Very Unusual Car In That Scene From ‘The Jerk’ With The Cans: Cold Start

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The internet is certainly a very, very mixed blessing. On the down side, every idiot you’ve ever met now has access to a global-scale megaphone, but on the plus side you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Tatras while pantsless, if you’d like. Also, periodically some clip from Steve Martin’s 1979 classic The Jerk will randomly pop up on one of the many screens that are in your line of sight nearly nonstop, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The can-shooting scene at the gas station appeared on some feed or other of mine, and I remembered there was a Baja Beetle in the scene I wanted to inspect more. But, instead, I happened to notice a really unusual car in the scene, and that’s what I want to show you.

First, if you’re recently awoken from a 50 year coma or are an Amish kid on rumspringa or are David, here’s the clip I’m talking about:

And, yes, we do have Jackie Mason working on a nice Baja Bug with a nice set of chrome headers and a stinger exhaust:

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When the shot pans out, we can see more of the Baja, which lets me identify the year as a 1968, and note that it has a purposeful-looking external oil cooler. This looks like a really usable Baja!

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By the way, I can tell it’s a ’68 because it has those seats with the huge headrests and lacks the rear window defogger wires, which came in ’69.

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There’s also this great butterscotch-colored 1974-1976 Dodge Dart Swinger that drives around on its tire-less steelies for a while, which is always a treat. But the car I was most excited to see shows up blurry and in the background; blink and you’ll miss it. Luckily, I didn’t blink:

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See that blurry beige car, behind the blurry beige dog? That looked oddly familiar to me, and somehow its clean-lined simplicity triggered something in my brain: that’s an Audi 100!

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The Audi 100 LS was launched in 1968, just three years after Volkswagen bought Auto Union, and was an all-new design, no longer an adaptation of the old Auto Union former two-strokes. These came to America in 1970, and were really the first taste of Audi that Americans got. These weren’t huge sellers at first, but they steadily grew in popularity. Still, I don’t think they were ever a common sight, which is why I was so excited to see one in the background of The Jerk.

Man, that dude hates cans.

 

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84 thoughts on “I Spotted A Very Unusual Car In That Scene From ‘The Jerk’ With The Cans: Cold Start”

  1. While living in Germany in the early 70’s I owned an Audi 75 Variant (station wagon). Same basic vehicle. It was quite the autobahn cruiser. Would hold 130-140 kmph all day while getting better than 28 mpg. Not luxurious like later Audi’s but a nice sensible family car. My wife learned to drive its 4 on the tree transmission on the hills around Bamberg Germany which was built on 7 hills just like Rome. She loved that car!

  4. “You can start by wiping that [edit] dumb-[edit] smile off your rosey, [edit], cheeks! Then you can give me a [edit] automobile… a [edit] Datsun, a [edit] Toyota, a [edit] Mustang, a [edit] Buick! Four [edit] wheels and a seat! And I really don’t care for the way your company left me in the middle of [edit] nowhere with [edit] keys to a [edit] car that isn’t [edit] there. And I really didn’t care to [edit] walk down a [edit] highway and across a [edit] runway to get back here to have you smile at my [edit] face. I want a [edit] car RIGHT [EDIT] NOW!”

    These movies where different when I was a kid.

  6. My uncle had a 100LS. It was a very nice car for it’s time. It helped that the inside didn’t smell like melting cheap vinyl, exhaust and unburnt fuel like so many American cars of the time did. He lived in the rust belt and drove a lot of miles, yet he still got a lot of years out of that car, which is pretty damn good for that era. I seem to recall that it felt pretty quick too.

  7. On that note I just saw Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3 over the weekend and there’s a scene set in an “alternate” 1980s earth where there are plenty of 70s/80s American market cars in driveways, but prominently featured in the foreground is some Eastern Bloc car. I couldn’t ID it quickly enough – I think it might have been a Skoda 100? – but it was definitely out of place. Part of the movie was filmed in the UK so I’m guessing they found it as part of a casting call for LHD cars from the era and nobody bothered to check whether said car was ever sold in the US?

      1. For the record I didn’t say anything about it, just kept it to myself.

        However this scene did elicit an audible chuckle from me since they actually had to go to the effort to convert the lift up door handles which came on the Dodge Diplomat to press in style. Why they chose to do that instead of using any number of ’80s GM cars which already had those handles is a mystery to me.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkbNqAi3QrA

    2. That happens in animation a lot, too, where animators just pick from a stock library of pre-rendered car designs, F is for Family had some 1940s Opels and Moskvitches showing up on the streets of what was supposed to be a small town in western Pennsylvania in ’40s/’50s flashback scenes

  9. Confession: I have never fully watched The Jerk. All the other Steve Martin movies, yes, multiple times, but this one, no. For some reason almost every joke in it falls flat for me.

  10. Definitely a rare one. would be interesting to see a road test of one from that time. the 100 HP 4 seems small for what appears to be an intermediate if not full size car by today’s standards.

  11. Check out “The Mysterious Benedict Society” on Disney Plus. It blows every other tv show/movie out of the water for cool/quirky cars.

  12. “…on the plus side you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Tatras while pantsless, if you’d like.”

    That seems… Oddly specific…

  13. I have to watch old movies by myself now. My wife got tired of me hitting the pause button so I could identify the old cars. Old tv shows are great too. Check out Dragnet and Perry Mason.

    1. My spouse and I watch different shows in different rooms. I get called in to check out a car that is spotted on the show I’m not watching! Great spouse. Finds great cars.

    3. Perry Mason definitely! The film quality is excellent, so the cars look great. All those top of the line Fords from the sponsor.

  15. Is that a Bronco behind the pole in the freezeframe or is it just an F100? It kind of looks too long to be a Bronco but that could be because of the pole and angle that it looks that way. Also those sweet sweet vans just hanging out in the background.

  16. Jason, there is ANOTHER blurry car in ALSO in brown that is actually rarer arguably.. maybe..

    It’s a Ford Capri – probably a ’73 or ’74 but really hard to tell.

    1. Ah, the Sexy European! My mom had one of these but called it a Mercury Capri since Lincoln-Mercury handled the sales here in the states. The pictured one is pre-76 facelift.

  19. Only the tip of the iceberg!

    Jason could do a whole series — which I’d really enjoy — picking out strange and wonderful cars from obscure movies. It would glue him to his video monitor for months, but might be as rewarding as, well, Taillight Porn.

    Just a look at the rides in “Repo Man,” or “Motorama” (speaking of obscure movies)!

    2. Good thinking! We’ve all seen the kind of things Jason does when he gets bored (like turning his backyard into a superfund site), scouring 70’s movies for obscure/rare cars would be a great way to keep him out of trouble…

    4. I watched “the Americans” which takes place in the 80’s and my wife hated me watching it with her. I would notice when the same car was used twice. For example, there was a blue Thunderbird used as the neighbors car and used as a consulate vehicle. But, I do this stuff all the time. Like in the movie “the debt” one scene takes place in 1966 but they have a 1980 Delta 88. So much car stuff going in such a small mind.

      1. I do the same. And my favorite part of the show was when he got the Camaro and was walking about “385HP” in a car that came with, at most, 140. It was fun spotting the same cars in different scenes, different places over and over and over.

        And my wife got tired of me pointing it out.

      2. The first season was really bad – their budget was too low to completely close streets for filming, so there were all kinds of 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s cars street parked at curbs or driving around in the background – they made some effort to cut around them, but it wasn’t close to entirely successful.

  20. Also, “Oh, that’s where you keep it.” (when the circus stuntwoman takes her helmet and just blindly tosses it behind her in her trailer). Perfect for when your kid just leaves crap all over the place…

  22. For most of my life, I had only ever seen the censored for TV version of that movie. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I realized Navin’s dog was named “Shithead”, not “Stupid”.
    It was like watching The Jerk for the first time all over again, and it was glorious.

  25. He hates these cans! The new phone books are here! All I need is this chair, tennis racquet, etc. Steve is the best, let’s all get small.

      3. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid:
        Rachel Ward: “What are you doing?”
        Martin: “I’m adjusting your breasts. They got all outta whack when you fainted.”

        1. Found the fan, was just gonna suggest this but looked first.
          “I’m a butler, not a catcher” Legendary cast, Edith Head costumes, everyone must see it.

          1. “I’m gonna make you a cup of my famous java.”

            I still love this movie today, holds up well due to the way it was made. Would love to see someone talented try something similar with 70’s crime movies.

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