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 hitmen's car is a black 1968 Dodge Charger R/T with the 440 Magnum V8; it was reportedly quicker than McQueen's car, so the stunt drivers had to hold back.

Bullitt won an Academy Award in which category?

Bullitt's only Academy Award was Best Film Editing, for Frank P. Keller's cutting of the roughly ten-minute San Francisco chase sequence.

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

It fetched $3.7 million at Mecum's Kissimmee sale after decades in the Kiernan family's garage; McQueen had written to owner Robert Kiernan in 1977 asking to buy it back 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 Furys were rare and came only in Buckskin Beige, so the production dressed more than 20 Plymouth Belvederes and Savoys as red 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, played by Matt Damon; Miles died testing a Ford prototype at Riverside two months after the 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 gunfire to the soundtrack so the gear changes land 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), how many cars must Memphis Raines steal in a single night?

Memphis must deliver 50 cars within 72 hours and the crew boosts them all in one night; each target gets a woman's code name, and 'Eleanor' is the one that always eludes him.

'Eleanor', the unicorn car in the 2000 Gone in 60 Seconds, is depicted as what?

The remake's Eleanor is a 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang in grey, a custom fastback designed by Chip Foose; in the original 1974 film Eleanor was a yellow 1971 Mustang.

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

Herbie is a Volkswagen Beetle, a pearl-white 1963 model with red, white and blue stripes, who first raced in Disney's The Love Bug in 1968.

What racing number does Herbie carry?

Herbie races as number 53; producer Bill Walsh, a Dodgers fan, reportedly took it from pitcher Don Drysdale's jersey number.

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.

Mad Max: Fury Road was filmed mainly in which country?

Fury Road was shot mainly in Namibia after unseasonal rain turned the planned outback locations around Broken Hill green; the Namib desert stood in for the wasteland.

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

Charlize Theron plays Imperator Furiosa, who drives the War Rig with a prosthetic left arm; the film won six Academy Awards, the most of any film at the 2016 ceremony.

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?

Guinness listed Mad Max as the film with the highest box-office-to-budget ratio until The Blair Witch Project overtook it in 1999; George Miller put its cost at $350,000 to $400,000.

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.

Who directed Days of Thunder (1990)?

Tony Scott directed it, reuniting the Top Gun team of Scott, Cruise and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer; racing scenes were shot at Daytona and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

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

Jean Girard is a Formula One champion who arrives in NASCAR and reads Camus between laps; John C. Reilly's Cal Naughton Jr. is Ricky's 'Shake and Bake' partner.

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?

The gold rides in three Mini Coopers, one red, one white and one blue; BMC would not donate them, so the production bought the cars at trade price while Fiat offered as many of its own as wanted.

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?

The Bandit drives a Pontiac Trans Am, a black-and-gold 1977 Special Edition; Trans Am sales roughly doubled in the two years after the film's release.

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

Big Enos bets the Bandit he cannot haul 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Georgia in 28 hours; Coors was then sold only in a handful of western states, so hauling it to Georgia was bootlegging.

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

Hal Needham, who had doubled for Burt Reynolds for years, made Smokey and the Bandit his directorial debut; it finished 1977 second at the domestic box office behind only Star Wars.

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

The Bluesmobile is a 1974 Dodge Monaco, a retired Mount Prospect police cruiser; thirteen ex-California Highway Patrol Monacos played it, and the film wrecked a then-record 103 cars.

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

It was shot in a real but shuttered mall, Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, which had closed in 1978; the crew re-dressed the empty stores and drove straight through them.

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

The DeLorean must hit 88 mph to activate time travel; the plutonium reactor was later swapped for a Mr. Fusion unit that runs on household garbage.

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?

The DB5 debuted in Goldfinger in 1964 with an ejector seat and revolving number plates; one of the original promotional cars sold for $6.4 million in 2019.

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

Elon Musk paid about £550,000 for 'Wet Nellie' at a London auction in 2013 and said he planned to fit a Tesla electric powertrain so it could really transform.

Who voices Lightning McQueen in Pixar's Cars?

Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen; Paul Newman voiced Doc Hudson in one of his final roles, and Larry the Cable Guy voiced Mater.

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) was based on an article in which magazine?

Vibe published Ken Li's 1998 article 'Racer X' about New York's street-racing scene; the film moved the setting to California.

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

Brian brings in a Toyota Supra, a wrecked 1994 Mk4 that the crew rebuilds; the orange Supra becomes his signature car, and he races it against Dom in the finale.

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 directed Duel as an ABC Movie of the Week in 1971, his first feature-length film; Richard Matheson adapted his own short story, and the truck driver's face is never shown.

American Graffiti's single night of cruising is set in which California town in 1962?

George Lucas grew up in Modesto and set the 1962 cruising night there, though the film was shot in Petaluma and San Rafael; the $777,000 picture grossed well over $100 million.

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.

Steve McQueen's 1971 racing film Le Mans includes footage shot at the real race in which year?

The crew filmed at the real 1970 race, using cameras on a Porsche 908 that actually competed; McQueen's Michael Delaney drives the #20 Gulf Porsche 917, and there is almost no dialogue for the first half hour.

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

The jacket bears a golden scorpion, a nod to the scorpion-and-frog fable the Driver recites; the film won Nicolas Winding Refn the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2011.

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 automotive journalist wrote The Cannonball Run, having created the real race it depicts?

Brock Yates, a Car and Driver writer, founded the outlaw coast-to-coast race in 1971 and wrote the 1981 film's screenplay; its cast included Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Jackie Chan and Dean Martin.

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?

Thunder Road was shot in the Los Angeles River, the concrete flood channel near downtown's Sixth Street Viaduct that later hosted chases in Terminator 2 and Drive.

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

Doyle chases an elevated train carrying the hitman Nicoli, racing a commandeered 1971 Pontiac LeMans beneath the BMT West End line in Bensonhurst; the film won Best Picture.

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?

George Barris built the Wagon Queen Family Truckster from a Ford LTD Country Squire, a 1979 wagon; Clark drives it to Walley World with the late Aunt Edna strapped to the roof.

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

Jazz transforms into a silver Pontiac Solstice; Ironhide is a GMC TopKick pickup, Ratchet a Hummer H2 rescue vehicle, and Optimus Prime a Peterbilt 379 truck.

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

The Mirthmobile is an AMC Pacer, a baby-blue 1976 model with painted flames and mismatched wheels, in which Wayne and Garth headbang to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

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 in the 2005 film The Dukes of Hazzard?

Seann William Scott plays Bo Duke opposite Johnny Knoxville's Luke in the 2005 film, with Jessica Simpson as Daisy and Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg.

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

The 40-minute chase wrecked 93 cars; H. B. Halicki wrote, directed, produced and starred, and compressed ten vertebrae in the climactic jump.

In which two French cities do the acclaimed car chases of Ronin (1998) take place?

The chases run through Nice and Paris, including a wrong-way run against périphérique traffic; John Frankenheimer used professional racing drivers, and David Mamet co-wrote as 'Richard Weisz'.

In The Transporter, what are Frank Martin's three strict rules?

Frank's code is never change the deal, no names, never open the package; he breaks the third rule when he opens a bag to find Lai, a woman, inside.

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

Drivers score by running down pedestrians, with higher points for the elderly and children; Roger Corman produced it to ride Rollerball's publicity, with David Carradine as 'Frankenstein'.

Who directed the 2003 remake of The Italian Job?

F. Gary Gray directed the 2003 remake, starring Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron; it opens with a gold heist in Venice, and Gray later directed The Fate of the Furious in 2017.

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

The bomb arms above 50 mph and detonates if the bus drops below 50 mph; Jan de Bont's directing debut won two Oscars, for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing.

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

Daniel's cab is a white Peugeot 406 with pop-out spoilers and a hidden turbo; Luc Besson wrote the film, which launched a series of sequels, and Marion Cotillard co-stars as Lilly.