What Are Your Favorite Movie, TV, and Anime Cars That Aren’t The Usual Suspects?

Movie Cars Aa Ts
ADVERTISEMENT

Make no mistake, we absolutely love Back to the Future‘s DeLorean time machine, KITT from Knight Rider, The Munsters‘ Koach and Dragula, and all the Batmobiles minus the Joel Schumacher ones. But for this round of cool-cars from the screens both small and silver, we want to hear about your favorites that aren’t the all-time greats. Not the usual suspects, as beloved as they may be. Give us your deep pulls. You know, stuff like this:

Hollywood Cars Collage

From the top, that’s the AMC Hornet James Bond corkscrew-jumps in To Live and Let Die, the Porsche 911 from Death Race (2008), Jim Rockford’s Firebird (performer of TV’s finest J-turns), and the hot-rod Fiat 500 from Lupin III–the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki. He’s done a few things.

So watcha got? Whether your picks are over the top (like the Damnation Alley Landmaster included in the top shot), super obscure (like the Italdesign Aztec from Frankenstein Unbound, also in the top shot) or just regular cars that are well-cast, we want to hear about ’em. And throw in some stinkers too, why not. There’s no rules.

See you in the comments!

About the Author

View All My Posts

312 thoughts on “What Are Your Favorite Movie, TV, and Anime Cars That Aren’t The Usual Suspects?”

  1. Both the Sedan DeVille and the Fox Body Mustang from the movie Twins. The rest might sound crazy but: the Oldsmobile from Turner and Hooch (a clone of my first car), The Plymouth Acclaim rental car they get in Oregon in the movie Kindergarten Cop, the Cadillac from the movie License To Drive, the Grand Wagoneer from The Great Outdoors, or hell the white one from Funny Farm!

  3. The brown 1977 GMC K-1500 Sierra Classic (step side) that ended up in the lake in “Every Which Way But Loose“1977 International Harvester Scout SS II from “Hooper”Brubaker ARK II from the TV show… “Ark II”1954 Dodge Town Panel van from “Chico and the Man”

  9. Obscure, eh?

    How about the beige Porsche 928 from the sci-fi/horror movie The Hidden?

    Lt. Hanna’s dark blue detective spec Crown Vic Interceptor from Heat.

    The impossibly supercharged GTO from My Science Project (second best fake supercharger to the Last Of The V8 Interceptors).

    I’ll add a video games category: the dune buggy from Half Life 2.

  13. The Citroen DS driven by lead character Patrick Jane in “The Mentalist”. It kind of fit his character – elegant but hardly known or well understood by most. I also like the ’59 Peugeot that “Columbo” drove – it really reflected the lead character as well. It was funny in the episodes where the car was actually a topic of conversation and Columbo would go on about how you couldn’t find a car like that just anywhere and others would nod and agree . . . but for different reasons! 🙂

    For pure coolness – the car of the coolest (former) spy, the Lotus Seven S (KAR120C) used by Patrick McGoohan’s “The Prisoner”. That looks like it would be a blast to drive even (especially?) today.

  14. The blue rental 2CV in Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown. For a children’s movie that wasn’t about cars at all, the accuracy of the depiction and it’s incorporation into the story was incredible. From the engine note to the bouncy suspension and the way all the characters leaned into any turn to the violent grinding as Snoopy attempts to find first gear, this 2CV was a central character. There’s even a whole scene where they break down in front of a boulangerie (of course) and Snoopy has to wrench and the rendering of the engine bay is surprisingly accurate – right down to the baguette that gets decapitated when Snoopy closes the hood.

    1. Also from Miyazaki — The little pink hatchback Lisa drives in Ponyo. Her crazy driving outruns what seems to be a magical tsunami!

    1. The car casting in BCS in just generally really good. Ernesto’s EVO, Jimmy’s Esteem, The Blazer Gus’s guys drive, Nacho’s Javelin, Howie’s Jag, Gus’s V70, and on and on. The cars in BSC are almost as good as the cars in Archer.

      1. I 99% agree with you in the Breaking Bad universe – but I feel like they over did it with Walt’s Aztek and Jimmy’s Esteem. Those feel a little too extreme. Jimmy’s Esteem stands out like a sore thumb because of the damage they gave it and that it actually is kind of a rare car. I think a mid 90’s Corolla or Civic would have been more realistic for Jimmy to better show that he’s an invisible nobody.

        Then they just tried way too hard with the Aztek. First, when Walt would have bought that car he was very pragmatic and boring and the Aztek is anything but that. Then they gave it that weird color that it never came with and then tried to pass it off as some rare paint color from the factory when he sells it to the collision repair guy. Realistically, Walt would have bought something like a CRV or Forester – but if he’s an American-made guy, which is kind of shown in all the other cars he buys, he probably would have ended up in a Trailblazer, Explorer, or Grand Cherokee.

        Skylar’s Grand Wagoneer is also a weird choice because those have never been cheap, and the Whites were never flush with cash until the meth.

  20. Sheriff Carter’s Jeep Cherokee from Eureka. If you’ve never watched the show, Jack Carter is the everyman character in a town full of supergeniuses. His patrol vehicle is a grungy old XJ that gets humerously destroyed every few episodes, but is either revived or replaced every time. The show really pushed Subaru hard in later seasons, but its effect on me was for me to get my first Cherokee and another, older one to replace it when it was totaled.

    https://eureka.fandom.com/wiki/Jack_Carter%27s_Jeep

  23. A couple of things…

    The yellow Citroën 2CV in James Bond’s For Your Eyes Only. It does show that the grossly underpowered, dynamically underwhelming car could escape the villain during the car chase and lived to tell a story…

    And all of vehicles used in the first Mad Max film. The first time I saw this film, my head was in the spin cycle, trying to identify the alternative universe “American vehicles” (Ford and Holden). That was long before the Internet search engines. Not to mention lot of American cars with right-hand-drive (1974 Buick Riviera driven by Fifi, 1973 Lincoln Continental Town Car used by the lawyer and his minion, 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air mercilessly destroyed by the bikers, etc.). The honorary mention is Mazda Bongo getting squashed up and twirled round during the opening scene.

  24. Hart to Hart Mercedes R107. That show was utter shite but the cars were primo.

    Also Starsky’s red car. Whatever that was.

      1. Yup. Hutch kept calling it a Tomato. On one episode they were jump starting another car (Hutch’s?) that had been rigged with a bomb in the battery. When it blew up and the camera switched to a wide angle the “Tomato” was suddenly an early 60’s chevy. I think a ’63.

        I can’t remember if I need mustard at the supermarket, but I have this little tidbit floating around.

  25. Here’s one for Torch: the yellow 1957 Beetle who climbs out of the junkyard and gamely joins the swarm to battle Alonzo Hawk in Herbie Rides Again. LOOK AT HIM. LOOK AT HOW HARD HE IS TRYING. As a little kid, seeing him trying his best brought a tear to my eye. It might still.

    http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_644296-Volkswagen-Sedan-Typ-1-1957.html

    But wait! There’s more!

    See, that specific car used for filming? It was one of the stunt cars used for filming the first movie and got pretty beat up in the process. It was repainted and used for the climactic scene of the sequel. But that car didn’t just get crushed, or rust away. It sat for years in a dusty warehouse in Pennsylvania, until an enthusiast struck a deal for it, and restored it to its original Love Bug paint job.

    https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=546247

    A car that played a sentient junkyard jalopy trying his best, now given a second chance at life. Albeit banged up and bruised, he’s out there soldiering on.

Leave a Reply