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Old Jun 5, 2006 | 03:56 PM
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Jeremiah 29:11's Avatar
Jeremiah 29:11
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Default Movies, Cars, and Best Chase Scenes

Interesting article on Car and Movies I found on the internet:

Best/Worst Movie Cars of All Time?

Here's one for the gearheads and meme freaks: Cars.com just released its picks for Top 10 Movie Cars of all time.

I'm gonna have to quibble with a few, but first the list:
Best:
1981 DeLorean DMC-12, "Back to the Future"
1961 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder SWB, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
1974 Dodge Monaco, "The Blues Brothers"
1964 Aston Martin DB5, "Goldfinger"
Batmobile Tumbler, "Batman Begins"
1968 Ford Mustang GT 390, "Bullitt"
1959 Cadillac Ambulance, "Ghostbusters"
1958 Plymouth Fury, "Christine"
1973 Ford Falcon, "The Road Warrior" (right)
2003 Mini Cooper S, "The Italian Job"

Honorable Mention

1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, "Smokey and the Bandit"
The Magical Car, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
1963 Volkswagen Beetle, "The Love Bug"

Worst:

1983 Ford LTD Country Squire, "National Lampoon's Vacation"
1974 Dodge Tradesman, "Napoleon Dynamite"
Winnebago Chieftain, "Spaceballs"
1984 Ford Econoline, "Dumb and Dumber"
1963 Volkswagen Beetle, "Herbie: Fully Loaded"

My serious quarrels:

- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang belongs firmly at the very top of the Worst list. Dick Van Dyke's simpering grin and the excretious candy-coated bomb of a movie aside, the car looked nothing like the mystical racing-green monster conjured by Ian Fleming's original book. Feh.

- I'd put the original "Love Bug" on the "Best" list in favor of The Italian Job's Mini Cooper S. Much as the race-tuned Mini gives me wood, the Beetle is just more of a movie star.

More Hon. Mentions:
- The Pontiac (?) that Gene Hackman drove in the blistering chase scene in The French Connection

- The seriously hot-rodded Audi S8 in John Frankenheimer's Ronin car chase.

- The eggshell-blue AMC Pacer in Wayne's World

- And a squeakin' tie between Paul LeMat's piss-yellow/puke-green '32 Ford coupe and Harrison Ford's '55 sinister black Chevy coupe in American Graffiti

Egregiously Missing from the "Best":
- Syd Mead's gorgeously aerobatic Spinner from Blade Runner. This set the platinum standard for all futuristic car design in films to come, IMHO (viz the Lexus that gets built around Tom Cruise in Minority Report).

- The 1967 Lola T70s that scream through the warren of tunnels in THX1138 - sorry, but these are far more worthy than the Ghostbusters ambulance, which does nothing but show up. Absolutely some of the best chase footage ever shot, plus they're passionately temperamental and overheat in a pinch.

- The asthmatic, idiosyncratic flying Ford Anglia in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

- And my personal favorites, the white 1970 Dodge Challenger that the mythical Kowalski tries to drive through police lines in "Vanishing Point." Wooww, maaannn.

.




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