Car Movies - What's Your Favorite?

[BradHemphill]

This should be easy. There are tons of great car movies to choose from - Fast and Furious, Death Race, Smokey and the Bandit, Christine. I'm going to go for an obscure, GenX horror flick a la Spielberg's Dual. The name of the movie, fittingly, is simply "The Car." James Brolin starred as a Western sheriff tasked with protecting his community from a possessed, driverless car. Very cool flick.

What's your favorite?

[J Reinhardt]

Gone in 60 Seconds (2000 version). The star of this movie is Eleanor. one of my favorite quotes: "See ya tomorrow night, Eleanor, with your fine ass."

Ronin. It has one of the greatest chase scenes ever filmed.

[Drew Dowdell]

Blues Brothers

[Robert Hall]

Bullitt, Vanishing Point, Duel, Blues Brothers, The Driver, Ronin are all favorites of mine.

Films that had a great chase but weren't really 'car films' that I like include French Connection, The Seven Ups, and To Live and Die in LA.

Racing-themed films that I love are Grand Prix, Le Mans, Winning...looking forward to Rush.

[jwbouch]

Maybe not what you were going for, but the Disney movie Cars. It is such a creative movie and is one of my favorites!

[Z-06]

Two Lane Blacktop

[David]

Have to go with B rate movie, Mad Max series for me, those are just pure awesome for their time especially the very first one with his Pinto Station wagon tricked out.

[GMTruckGuy74]

Tucker: The Man and His Dream; started my love affair with what I consider my ultimate favorite car - the 1948 Tucker (trivia: the car is not known as the Tucker Torpedo as it is rumored).

[cletus8269]

dirty mary, crazy larry. that 4dr 66 impala was freakin nutz, so was the charger.

[caparica007]

To be honest, my favorite car movie is Herbie. I think it's a lot of fun and I can see it with my kids. I also like most of the Fast and Furious movies, they are also great.

[NINETY EIGHT REGENCY]

The Smokey and The Bandit Series and Demolition Man

[GMTruckGuy74]

I agree with you on Demolition Man, Ninety Eight. It featured 17 of GM's most current concept cars from the late '80s up through 1992. The GM Ultralite concept was even picked to be the "star car" of the movie - they made 20 fiberglass models with full running gear to be used as police cars and civilian models and then one of them was used in the 1999 Robin Williams movie Bicentennial Man while another was used in an episode of NBC's SeaQuest DSV:

Here is a picture from filming of the GM concept cars used:

Let's identify the 17 shown in the photo:

Front Row - GM Lean Machine

Second Row (L-R) - Pontiac Sunfire [1990], Pontiac Banshee [1988], Buick WildCat [1985], GM Ultralite [1991] (trivia - they were badged as a Chevrolet for the movie)

Third Row (L-R): Oldsmobile pre-production Aurora [1992], Pontiac ProtoSport 4 [1991], Corvette Stingray III [1992], Oldsmobile AreoTech II [1989]

Fourth Row (L-R): California IROC-Z Camaro [1989], Cadillac Aurora [1990], Pontiac Salsa [1989]

Back Row (R-L): Cadillac Voyage [1988], Cadillac Solitaire [1989], GM HX3 Hybrid Van [1990], Chevrolet Venture [1988], UNKNOWN-white concept car (possibly the Buick Sceptre [1991]?)

Another vehicle featured in the opening "1997" portion of the film was not a GM vehicle at the time but would eventually be sold under the GM banner: the 1991 AMG HMMWV (aka Humvee and Hummer H1).

Can you tell I'm a fan of this movie?

Edited October 2, 2013 by GMTruckGuy74

[GMTruckGuy74]

By the way, when the movie was released in late 1993 Mattel offered a set of Demolition Man movie cars:

These are the nine vehicles that were offered for sale. The cryo-cubes, rebranded Hot Wheels license plate parking garages, featured a double-side photo card - one side featured the concept vehicle and the other side featured a puzzle piece. When the cubes were assembled in order, they would form a poster from the movie. I have many of these bought bewteen the movie's release and Christmas of '93, but I'm missing 2 or 3. I see these from time to time at toy & car shows, and of course eBay is your friend if you need to go that route.

On another note, if you've seen the movie you know at the end an Oldsmobile dealer of the future (2032) is featured. Also, the classic car used by the hero (Sylvester Stallone) is a 1970 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 coupe. If you look at the list of concept cars above, Oldsmobile featured two concept/pre-production vehicles - the Aerotech II and the soon-to-be released Aurora sedan. Here's an interesting article from October 1993 that states GM intentionally featured Oldsmobile to reinforce that the division was not going away. It's ironic then that Oldsmobile did not live past 2004

Same thing with the Back-to-the-Future series; the second movie spent half of the movie in 2015. Predominantly Pontiac was featured in the future - the 1988 Pontiac Banshee and the 1987 Pontiac Pursuit concepts were heavily used on set and the Studebaker (1955)/Toyota (1985) dealerships became a Pontiac dealer for 2015. Sad to say Pontiac didn't survive past 2010.

Edited October 2, 2013 by GMTruckGuy74

[Robert Hall]

Saw maybe the oddest car chase in a long time in a tv show/movie the other evening.  It was .between a dirty cop in an  '85 Mustang LX convertible being chased by criminals in a Nissan Leaf. (the Leaf eventually drained it's battery).. The Mustang was specifically mentioned as being a 5.0, a 302, but didn't have 5.0 badges.    This was in the new Amazon streaming series 'Too Old to Die Young', a very long, very slow paced, very violent and strange trip from director/writer Nicholas Winding Refn (the Dutch auteur behind 2011's 'Drive' which had a couple good car chases and a great soundtrack).    

This show reminded me of David Lynch at his oddest but maybe less surreal.    

Edited June 20, 2019 by Robert Hall

[David]

Currently I have been cracking up at the various shows on Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Youtube TV where they add motor sounds to an auto and you can tell that the auto never had a motor like that especially all the fake V8 motor sounds being applied to Hybrid / ev auto's.  

Funniest lately was the first few seasons of "The 100" where they have this old made new Jeep Wrangler that is supposed to be an EV with solar panels on the roof for quick recharging and yet every time it took off, they would add V8 engine sound to is and then the rest of the time you have the traditional EV motor wine. Too funny,

[Drew Dowdell]

I like the car they use in Good Omens, it's a 1930s Bentley.  Not really a car movie, but still very good series.

[Robert Hall]

5 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

I like the car they use in Good Omens, it's a 1930s Bentley.  Not really a car movie, but still very good series.

I'll probably watch that next week...I like both David Tennant and Michael Sheen. I noticed in the trailer there is a Reliant Robin also. 

Edited June 20, 2019 by Robert Hall

[Drew Dowdell]

Just now, Robert Hall said:

I'll probably watch that next week...I like both David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

It can move quickly.... don't have any distractions on. 

[Robert Hall]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:17 AM, Drew Dowdell said:

It can move quickly.... don't have any distractions on. 

Watching it now, in episode 4.  Enjoying it, a lot of fun..  (took a break to try and watch the debate, but Hulu kept crashing), so back to the show..

Edited June 27, 2019 by Robert Hall

[ykX]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:11 AM, Drew Dowdell said:

I like the car they use in Good Omens, it's a 1930s Bentley.  Not really a car movie, but still very good series.

I finished watching it just recently.  That old Bentley is super cool and these two guys are something, they what makes the show fun, otherwise it would be just ok.

[balthazar]

Never seen the movie (The Highwaymen (2004)), just scenes. Intriguing 'robotized' car (& villain).

[Robert Hall]

8 hours ago, balthazar said:

Never seen the movie (The Highwaymen (2004)), just scenes. Intriguing 'robotized' car (& villain).

Saw it maybe 10 years ago... the hero car was a '67-69 Cuda, the villain drove a modified '71-72 Eldorado IIRC...

[David]

10 hours ago, balthazar said:

Never seen the movie (The Highwaymen (2004)), just scenes. Intriguing 'robotized' car (& villain).

Cuda was Cool, she was Hot, Villian was a villian and sadly an abused Eldorado.

Love the Fast n Furious Franchise.

[balthazar]

I really like Christine conceptually, and some scenes are good but the movie hasn't held up for me over the years. Having read the book beforehand, I was disappointed at some of the shortcuts they took RE LeBay. It's a movie I certainly would sit upright in my chair if I were to hear a reboot was in the works.

[Robert Hall]

Maybe Hollywood will make a movie about a possessed self-driving car...with a Tesla, maybe. 

[balthazar]

^ They've already done that countless times, but more to the point; wouldn't an out-of-control self-driving Tesla be a bit too 'real-life' to be interesting?

[David]

47 minutes ago, balthazar said:

I really like Christine conceptually, and some scenes are good but the movie hasn't held up for me over the years. Having read the book beforehand, I was disappointed at some of the shortcuts they took RE LeBay. It's a movie I certainly would sit upright in my chair if I were to hear a reboot was in the works.

No Christine yet, but it is under consideration. Amazing at all the reboot movies slated for now to 2022.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls052091214/?sort=list_order,asc&st_dt=&mode=detail&page=1

2 minutes ago, balthazar said:

^ They've already done that countless times, but more to the point; wouldn't an out-of-control self-driving Tesla be a bit too 'real-life' to be interesting?

Could scare everyone to not want to buy an EV!  

[smk4565]

Duel is probably one of the most suspenseful because of how little dialog there is, that is a good one.

Gone in 60 Seconds is probably my favorite, good story, some comedy and action and a ton of cars.

The Cannonball Run (and Speed Zone) series is good for corny, ridiculous car stuff, but the zany cross country race idea is fun.

[Robert Hall]

Of the older films, Duel, Vanishing Point and Bullitt are probably my favorites.  Of racing-themed movies, I love Grand Prix, Le Mans, Winning and Rush.  Of more contemporary movies w/ car chases, Ronin and The Transporter are maybe my favorites...

[smk4565]

Rush is really good.  

RIP Niki Lauda.

[wavecatcher]

Love all Fast and Furious movies. I just realized that I was still in college when the first film came out. 

[Drew Dowdell]

On 6/28/2019 at 4:03 PM, Robert Hall said:

Maybe Hollywood will make a movie about a possessed self-driving car...with a Tesla, maybe. 

There was an episode of the Sherlock series Elementary that did that.  Someone hacked self-driving car to kill people. It was a Chrysler 300c.