This week's Top Ten list is something that's been kicking around inside my head for a while now: Top Ten Hollywood cars. These are cars that were either the "star" of a TV show or movie or figured prominently in a movie or TV show. With that in mind, here goes!
1. 1969 Dodge Charger, The Dukes of Hazzard. Dixie horn. Confederate flag on roof. Ability to jump large gorges, land so hard the fenders bow outward, and yet appear spotless in the next scene. The General Lee has got to be one of, if not the most recognizable TV cars out there.
2. 1982 Delorean, Back to the Future. Everyone knows that when it hits 88 miles per hour the flux capacitor kicks in and Marty McFly travels back to 1955. "You built a time machine? Out of a Delorean???"
3. 1974 Dodge Monaco, The Blues Brothers. "Its got a cop moter of 440 cubic inch plan, its got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks ... the model made before catalytic converters so it will run good on regular gas..." "What happened to the Bluesmobile? The Cadillac? "I traded it." "You traded the Bluesmobile for THIS?" "No, a microphone." "I can see that"...
4. 1958 Plymouth Grand Fury, Christine. Ah, for the days when cars had tailfins, chrome accents, and were possessed by jealous spirits with murderous intent... I do have to admit, though, the self-fixing fenders would come in handy for Boston driving...
5. 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, Knight Rider. In these days of Google, anyone can find out that KITT stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand, but who remembers KITT's evil automotive doppelganger's name? Voiced by Dr. Mark Craig, err, William Daniels, KITT was the brainy, sophisticated partner to David Hasselhoff's chest hair.
6. 1968 Mustang GT, Bullitt. You've got to love a car so popular that, nearly 30 years later, it spawned a re-make on the (at the time) new Mustang body. The chase between McQueen's 'Stang and the Dodge Charger R/T is one of Hollywood legend.
7. 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, Smokey & the Bandit. Burt Reynolds. Sally Field. Jerry Reed. And Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Portague County, Texas. Singlehandedly responsible for selling more "Phoenix" decals than anything GM could have dreamed up for a marketing campaign.
8. 1932 Ford Coupe, American Graffiti. Ah, the "Piss Yellow" '32 Ford coupe driven by John Milner. Some claim it singlehandedly brought back the whole "hot rod" craze. While Milner may have morphed into "Fonzie" for "Happy Days", the bright yellow Ford coupe remains a uniquely American icon.
9. 1959 Cadillac Ambulance, Ghostbusters. Gotta leave a slot on the list for Ecto 1, if for no other reason than it's my favorite year for Caddies, and the ambulance/hearse body style is one of the rarest - and oddest - styles out there. Add in the proton pack racks and the Ghostbusters symbol and voila! Instant classic.
10. 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie, the Love Bug. You don't have to be possessed to make the list of top ten movie cars, but it helps... Only in Hollywood would a VW Bug be a "race car". It's amazing that it took over 20 years for Hollywood to capitalize on the Beetle's inherent "cute" factor.
So there's my list of top ten Hollywood TV and movie cars. This list is highly subjective, and I fully realize that the newest car on the list is over 25 years old... I know I've eschewed the "Fast N Furious" crowd, mainly because seeing a Mitsubishi with a 5' tall spoiler makes my eyes bleed...
What other famous TV and movie cars did I miss?
That is all.
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26 comments:
KITT's nemesis was KARR, but I have no clue what that stands for. Being as KITT and I were born in the same year, that's trivia that I had to earn somewhere in my misspent youth.
Knight Automated Roving Robot. and then therer was Goliath, the semi. Lord help me, I am such a geek.
Not even one Bond car ?
The 1959 Peugeot 403 convertible as driven by the great Lt. Columbo.
"Phoenix"? Please. ThunderChicken if you don't mind. :P
This list owns.
Though the omissions are legion - Blade's '68 Charger, the Damnation Alley's Landmaster, Mad Max's Ford Falcon XB Coupe(Last of the V-8 Interceptors!) etc..
Top of the Chain beat me. Also, you've never heard heard Knight Rider overdubbed in Spanish, you're missing one of the more hilarious phenomena on television (it matters not if you don't actually speak Spanish, in fact, it's probably better if you don't)
Also, +1 vote for Mad Max's interceptor. The red wagon he drove was nice, too
What about the Ferrari that Magnum drove around? Or Rockford's Pontiac?
Where is the Batmobile??? :-)
Hmmm. I'm thinking I should have split this into one list for TV and one list for movies...
James Bond's Aston Martin deserves a slot.
Mad Max's Interceptor as well.
Magnum's Ferrari I'm not so sure - while it is a recognizable icon, it's not something that played a central role in the show.
And omitting the Batmobile is a cardinal sin...
Was gonna say the Batmobile before ONFO beat me to it. Of course there was Bond's Astin Martin. But what about the Saint's Volvo P1800? Or Vanishing Point ('70 Challenger). Of course, who could forget Cobra ('50 Mercury)?
The Green Hornet's 66 Imperial
Jim Rockford's 77 Pontiac Firebird (but I liked his Dad's truck better)
The Walton's Ford Model A pickup
The A-Team's 1983 GMC G-15 Van
The 1960-1964 Corvette convertibles that George and Buzz drove across America in the series "Route 66". I guess my age is showing on this one.
Screw Bond's Aston Martin...never was there a better 007 vehicle than the Lotus Esprit submarine!!
The Third Generation (1970-1974) Plymouth Barracudas in the Phantasm horror movies. Special gun mention goes to Reggie Bannister's triple-barreled 12-gauge shotgun.
The Starsky and Hutch Torino - I had one that was white with a green stripe (and, it was 11 years old when I got it).
First, screw the Dukes of Hazzard.
Bastids destroyed one fine, irreplaceable 69 Charger after another.
I hope they burn in hot rod hell, changing spark plugs on 6-cyl Fieros for all eternity.
As for the rest, I too am utterly surprised you didn't mention the Batmobile.
I would have included the 71 Lincoln Continental Mark from the movie The Car.
And the Morgan in Silent Movie, I love that car.
David beat me to it, but you forgot a 1966 Chrysler Imperial - the Black Beauty.
Actually, there were two... and some fan owns one of them and is doing a FULL restoration on it.
The Lincoln Continental a.k.a. Deathmobile from Animal House takes the cake for me.
Heh, heh.
Apart from the omission of Max's Interceptor and the paltry ranking of the Bullitt, I have no significant complaints... but remember, if it were not for Bullitt, there never would have been repeated Charger crashes in Dukes :).
Uh, John Milner didn't morph into Fonzie. He traded the bucket T in for something that could make the Kessel run in under twelve parsecs.
Bat Mobile.
The Mystery Van from Scooby Doo.
Fred Flintstone's car. That show was #1 in the ratings for years.
Homer Simpson's car.
The 1914 Stutz Bearcat in the T.V. movie Powderkeg which turned into the TV series Bearcats! way back in 1971.
http://www.fanfromfla.net/rodtaylor/bearcats.shtml
And from even earlier, 1964 The Munster's Koach as well as Grampa Munster's Dragula Dragster made of a coffin. Both these vehicles (as well as the Stutz Bearcat came from the creative genius George Barris.
http://www.classictvhits.com/munsters/koach.html
The Ford Coupe ('33) was further immortalized when ZZ Top paired one up with a slew of hot chicks.
I think you're right Jay, you should have split between movie and TV cars though some cross over today. Since others have already mentioned the Starsky and Hutch Gran Torino, the only other cars I can think of are Maxwell Smart's Sunbeam and maybe the Olds Cutlass 442 from Demolition Man.
How 'bout the Gulf-Porsche 917K from Le Mans? Sure, it's more like an hour and a half of synthetic race footage than it is an actual movie, but still....
Paul LeMat played Milner in AG.
Henry Winkler played Fonzie in Happy Days.
No connection there.
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