70 Fun Facts About Car Movie

What model of car does Steve McQueen drive through San Francisco in Bullitt?

McQueen's car is a Ford Mustang GT, a Highland Green 1968 GT 390 fastback; two were used for filming, and McQueen did some of the chase driving himself.

What car do the hitmen drive in the Bullitt chase?

The Dodge Charger, a black 1968 model with the 440 Magnum V8, was driven on screen by Bill Hickman, the stunt driver who helped plan the chase and also plays one of the hitmen.

Bullitt won an Academy Award in which category?

Best Film Editing was Bullitt's only Oscar, won by Frank P. Keller, whose cutting of the roughly ten-minute San Francisco chase made the film famous; its other nomination, for sound, lost.

The hero car from Bullitt sold at Mecum Auctions in January 2020 for roughly how much?

It fetched $3.7 million after decades with the Kiernan family, who had bought it from a magazine ad and used it as their everyday car; Steve McQueen tried to buy it back in 1977 and was refused.

Who directed the 1983 horror film Christine, about a murderous car?

John Carpenter directed Christine, released in December 1983; he took the job after The Thing flopped in 1982 and he needed a commercial hit.

Christine, the possessed car in the Stephen King story, is what make and model?

Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury; real ones were scarce and never sold in red, so the production bought about two dozen Plymouths, many of them Belvederes and Savoys, and dressed them as Furys.

In Ford v Ferrari, Christian Bale plays which real-life racing driver?

Christian Bale plays Ken Miles, the British-born driver and engineer who developed Ford's GT40 with Carroll Shelby; Miles died testing a Ford prototype at Riverside two months after the film's climactic race.

Ford v Ferrari builds toward which race?

The 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans is the climax: Ford's GT40s finished 1-2-3, but a staged photo finish cost Bale's character the individual win the ending turns on.

Who wrote and directed Baby Driver (2017)?

Edgar Wright wrote and directed Baby Driver, choreographing its chases and shoot-outs to the soundtrack so closely that even the gunfire lands on the beat.

Why does Baby, the getaway driver in Baby Driver, constantly listen to music?

He plays music to drown out his tinnitus, a ringing left by the childhood car crash that killed his parents; the chases are cut to whatever his earbuds play.

Baby Driver is set in which American city?

Baby Driver is set in Atlanta; the story was written for California but moved to Georgia for the state's film tax credits, and the opening chase uses a red Subaru WRX.

In Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), car thief Memphis Raines must steal 50 cars to save whom?

His brother. Kip botches a job for a crime lord, who will kill him unless Memphis delivers every car on the list, so Memphis comes out of retirement and calls his old crew back together.

What car is 'Eleanor' in the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds?

A 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang. The grey fastback inspired so many replicas that the widow of the original film's director took Carroll Shelby to court over the rights to Eleanor.

Disney's Herbie, the racing car with a mind of its own, is what kind of car?

A Volkswagen Beetle. Buddy Hackett, who plays Tennessee in The Love Bug, said the car's name came from a comedy routine of his about a ski instructor.

What racing number does Herbie carry?

53. Producer Bill Walsh is said to have borrowed the number from the jersey of Don Drysdale, the Los Angeles Dodgers' star pitcher.

Which actress rescues Herbie from a junkyard in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)?

Lindsay Lohan plays Maggie Peyton, who finds Herbie in a junkyard and takes him NASCAR racing; Michael Keaton plays her father, Ray Peyton Sr.

Rain in Australia moved the Mad Max: Fury Road shoot to which country?

Namibia. Unprecedented rain had turned the red earth around Broken Hill into what George Miller called 'a flower garden', so he took the shoot somewhere 'the desert is desert'.

Charlize Theron's character in Mad Max: Fury Road, the driver of the War Rig, is called what?

Imperator Furiosa. She uses the War Rig to help the tyrant Immortan Joe's wives escape, heading for the 'Green Place' where she grew up before she was kidnapped.

Max's black Pursuit Special in the original 1979 Mad Max was built from what car?

The Pursuit Special is a Ford Falcon XB GT hardtop from 1973, an Australian-market coupe never sold in the United States, billed in the film as the 'last of the V8 Interceptors'.

The 1979 Mad Max held a Guinness World Record for what?

Highest box-office-to-budget ratio. George Miller, then an emergency-room doctor, helped raise its tiny budget by going out on emergency medical calls, with producer Byron Kennedy driving the car.

In Days of Thunder, Tom Cruise plays a NASCAR rookie named what?

Tom Cruise plays the rookie Cole Trickle; Robert Duvall plays his crew chief Harry Hogge, and Cruise met Nicole Kidman, cast as his neurosurgeon, on the set.

Which Top Gun director reunited with Tom Cruise for Days of Thunder (1990)?

Tony Scott. For authentic footage, NASCAR let his crew enter camera cars in actual races, with professional drivers at the wheel.

In Talladega Nights, Sacha Baron Cohen plays Jean Girard, a rival from which racing series?

Formula One. Girard, who drives a Perrier-sponsored car, later admits he came to America hoping to lose to a better driver so that he could finally retire.

Ron Howard's Rush (2013) dramatizes the rivalry between Niki Lauda and which driver?

Chris Hemsworth plays James Hunt, who took the 1976 title by a single point after Lauda returned only six weeks after his fiery Nürburgring crash.

In the 1969 film The Italian Job, the gold heist takes place in which city?

The heist is set in Turin: the getaway cars race across the rooftop test track of Fiat's Lingotto factory and down the steps of the Gran Madre di Dio church.

Which small cars carry the gold in the 1969 Italian Job?

Mini Coopers. With the city's traffic at a standstill, the three small cars slip away where nothing bigger could follow: down staircases, through shopping arcades and across rooftops.

How does the 1969 Italian Job end?

It ends with a coach teetering over a cliff edge, the gold sliding toward the rear doors; Michael Caine's Charlie Croker gets the last line, 'Hang on a minute, lads, I've got a great idea.'

What does the Bandit drive in Smokey and the Bandit?

A Pontiac Trans Am. The director saw the car in a magazine while preparing the film and asked Pontiac for six; the company agreed to four, and the stunts left all of them badly damaged.

What cargo is the Bandit hired to bootleg from Texarkana back to Georgia in Smokey and the Bandit?

400 cases of Coors beer. Coors was not then sold in the eastern United States, so trucking it to Georgia was bootlegging, and Big Enos bets the Bandit he cannot make the run in 28 hours.

Smokey and the Bandit was the directorial debut of which former stuntman?

Hal Needham. Hollywood's best-paid stuntman struggled to get studios to take his script seriously until his friend and housemate Burt Reynolds agreed to star, and Universal then backed it.

The Bluesmobile in The Blues Brothers is a retired police car of what make?

Dodge Monaco. Thirteen ex-police Monacos played the Bluesmobile, some set up for speed and others for jumps, and the crew ran a 24-hour body shop to repair the dozens of police cars wrecked chasing it.

The Blues Brothers' indoor car chase through the shops was filmed in what kind of place?

A real but shuttered mall. The production rented the empty Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, and drove through its storefronts for real, laying waste to much of the building.

What speed must the DeLorean reach to travel through time in Back to the Future?

88 mph. A stock DeLorean's speedometer stopped at 85, the most a US rule of its day allowed, so the film's car needed an altered dial to show it reaching the mark.

What device does Doc Brown say makes time travel possible in the DeLorean?

The flux capacitor, a Y-shaped arrangement of three flashing tubes, is what Doc says makes time travel possible; he pictured it in 1955 after slipping off his toilet and hitting his head on the sink.

The Ghostbusters' Ecto-1 is built on a 1959 model from which manufacturer?

Ecto-1 is a 1959 Cadillac professional chassis with Miller-Meteor coachwork, an ambulance-hearse combination that Ray Stantz buys for $4,800 needing a long list of repairs.

James Bond first drove an Aston Martin DB5 in which film?

Goldfinger. In the novel Bond drives an older Aston Martin, but effects man John Stears wanted the not-yet-released DB5 and persuaded the company to lend him its prototype.

Who bought the Lotus Esprit submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me at auction in 2013?

Elon Musk. He said he was disappointed to learn the prop could not really transform, and planned to fit a Tesla electric drivetrain so that it could.

Who voices Lightning McQueen in Pixar's Cars?

Owen Wilson. His character is named not for the actor Steve McQueen but for Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died in 2002.

The forgotten town where Lightning McQueen gets stranded in Cars is called what?

Radiator Springs sits on a bypassed stretch of Route 66; the town was inspired by the cross-country road trip John Lasseter took with his family before making the film.

The Fast and the Furious (2001) grew out of a street-racing article in which hip-hop and R&B magazine?

Vibe. Ken Li's 1998 article 'Racer X' followed New York City's illegal street racers; Universal optioned it and moved the story to Los Angeles.

What car does Brian O'Conner deliver to Dom's garage as a wreck and rebuild in The Fast and the Furious?

A Toyota Supra. Brian owes Dom a 'ten-second car', and at the end he hands over the rebuilt Supra's keys so that Dom can get away instead of arresting him.

In Fast Five, the crew drags a bank vault through the streets of which city?

Fast Five moves the crew to Rio de Janeiro, where two cars drag the stolen vault through the streets; Dwayne Johnson debuts as agent Hobbs and the series pivots from racing to heists.

Duel, in which a salesman is stalked by a tanker truck, was the feature debut of which director?

Steven Spielberg. Richard Matheson based the story on his own scare with a trucker on a California road on the day President Kennedy was shot, and Spielberg filmed it for ABC television.

George Lucas set American Graffiti's 1962 night of cruising in which California city, his hometown?

Modesto. Lucas felt the real town had changed too much since 1962, so most of the film was shot in Petaluma instead.

What car does Kowalski drive from Denver toward San Francisco in Vanishing Point (1971)?

Kowalski drives a white Dodge Challenger, an R/T he is delivering; a blind DJ called Super Soul cheers him on, and Tarantino put the same car in Death Proof as a tribute.

In the 1971 film Le Mans, Steve McQueen's driver Michael Delaney races for which manufacturer?

Porsche. McQueen's company entered a camera-carrying Porsche in the real 1970 race to film it, and the story ends with Delaney settling for second so that a teammate's car can win.

Ryan Gosling's character in Drive (2011) wears a satin jacket with what emblem on the back?

A golden scorpion. The jacket drew on the band Kiss and Kenneth Anger's film Scorpio Rising, and the film's dialogue brings up the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was based on a children's book by which author better known for spy novels?

Ian Fleming wrote the 1964 children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for his son Caspar; Roald Dahl co-wrote the 1968 film's screenplay, and the Sherman Brothers wrote the songs.

Thelma and Louise make their final drive in what car?

Louise's car is a 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible, the one they drive into the canyon at the end; Callie Khouri won the Oscar for the screenplay, and Brad Pitt broke through as J.D.

The car Cameron's father cherishes in Ferris Bueller's Day Off is what?

Cameron's father's car is a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California; the production mostly used Modena Spyder replicas, since a real one was far too valuable to reverse through a garage window.

Which James Bond actor spoofs his own image in The Cannonball Run (1981), gadget-laden Aston Martin and all?

Roger Moore. He plays Seymour Goldfarb Jr., a rich man who insists he is Roger Moore, in a comedy written by Brock Yates, the journalist who founded the real coast-to-coast outlaw race.

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) starred which two musicians as the Driver and the Mechanic?

James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, of the Beach Boys, play the Driver and the Mechanic, racing a primer-grey '55 Chevy against Warren Oates's GTO for pink slips; the film entered the National Film Registry in 2012.

Where was the Thunder Road drag race in Grease filmed?

In the Los Angeles River. The concrete channel runs nearly dry for much of the year, which is why it keeps turning up in film races and car chases.

In The French Connection, Popeye Doyle commandeers a car to chase what?

An elevated train. The hitman Nicoli has boarded it, the motorman collapses and the train crashes, and Doyle shoots Nicoli on the station stairs, the moment used on the film's poster.

Death Proof was released in 2007 as half of a double feature called Grindhouse — what was the other film?

Robert Rodriguez directed Planet Terror, the zombie half of Grindhouse; in Death Proof, Tarantino's stuntwoman Zoë Bell plays herself riding a car's hood in the 'Ship's Mast' game.

What vehicle carries the family to the pageant in Little Miss Sunshine?

The family travels in a yellow Volkswagen van, a Type 2 microbus; when its clutch fails they must push-start it and pile in through the sliding door on the move.

At the end of Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski leaves his prized car to whom?

Walt's will leaves the Gran Torino to Thao, his teenage neighbor, on condition he does not modify it; Clint Eastwood directed and starred, setting the story among Hmong families in Highland Park, Michigan.

The Griswolds' Wagon Queen Family Truckster in National Lampoon's Vacation was built from what?

A Ford LTD Country Squire. The 1979 wagon got pea-green paint, extra fake wood panelling and eight headlights for the film, and the Griswolds end up driving it with the late Aunt Edna tied to the roof.

In the 2007 Transformers film, which Autobot disguises himself as a Pontiac Solstice?

Jazz. Optimus Prime's second-in-command is the Autobot who does not make it to the end of the film: he is killed in the final battle in Mission City.

The Mirthmobile in Wayne's World is what kind of car?

An AMC Pacer. Its headbanging scene nearly had a Guns N' Roses song: Mike Myers fought for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and said he would quit the film without it.

The 2008 film Speed Racer was written and directed by whom?

The Wachowskis wrote and directed it, adapting Tatsuo Yoshida's 1960s manga; Emile Hirsch drove the Mach 5, and the film lost money on a $120 million budget.

In Rain Man, Charlie Babbitt inherits which classic car from his father?

Charlie inherits a 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible; because Raymond refuses to fly, the brothers drive it from Cincinnati to California, and the film won Best Picture.

Who plays Bo Duke opposite Johnny Knoxville's Luke in the 2005 film The Dukes of Hazzard?

Seann William Scott. His Bo wins the Hazzard County rally in the General Lee while Luke and Uncle Jesse hold off the police, and the cousins stop Boss Hogg from strip-mining the county.

How many cars were wrecked during the 40-minute chase in the original 1974 Gone in 60 Seconds?

93. H. B. Halicki wrote, directed and starred, bought the film's police cars and fire trucks at auction, and hurt his spine doing his own stunt driving.

The car chases of Ronin (1998) tear through which two French cities?

Nice and Paris. Professional racing drivers did the real driving at speed in right-hand-drive cars, while the actors sat beside them at dummy steering wheels on the left.

In The Transporter, what is the first of Frank Martin's three strict rules?

Never change the deal. The other two are no names and never open the package, the rule Frank breaks when he realises the bag in his boot holds a bound and gagged woman.

In Death Race 2000, how do racers in the Transcontinental Road Race score points?

By running down pedestrians. Roger Corman had noted the publicity around Rollerball and wanted a futuristic sports film of his own, with David Carradine as the champion driver Frankenstein.

Which future director of The Fate of the Furious made the 2003 remake of The Italian Job?

F. Gary Gray. He called it an homage to the original: after a heist in Venice the story moves to Los Angeles, where the crew hijacks the traffic-control system for its getaway.

Below what speed will the bus explode in Speed (1994)?

50 mph. Writer Graham Yost first set the trigger at 20, until a friend suggested raising it; he got the idea when his father described the film Runaway Train to him.

In the French comedy Taxi (1998), Daniel drives a customised white example of which car?

Peugeot 406. A policeman who keeps failing his driving test catches Daniel speeding in it, then offers to let him keep his licence if he helps catch a gang of German bank robbers.