10 Movie Cars That Rev Our Engines

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Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe

Movie: Mad Max

Year: 1979

Driver: Mel Gibson / Mad Max Rockatansky

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This classic movie hot rod is as Aussie as a Vegemite sandwich, a no-bloody-nonsense vehicle that'd punch KITT square in the windscreen given half a chance. Technically it's a Pursuit Special, a police car normally used for pulling over errant drivers, but post-apocalyptic law enforcement doesn't leave a lot of room for issuing tickets.

Instead, Mad Max just uses it to destroy the hell out of perps. Just check out that front supercharger and side pipes. We're not sure what they do, but they look frackin' cool. Thanks to this fantastic Ford, Byron Kennedy and George Miller's creation launches a thousand teenage car crushes.

1961 Ferrari GT California

Movie: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Year: 1986

Driver: Matthew Broderick / Ferris Bueller

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There’s no way we’d want a 1961 Ferrari GT California in real life. Not because it isn’t a beautiful, desirable, wonderful car – not at all. It’s because they’re so rare, so precious, and so highly regarded that one recently was sold for over $10 million, meaning that even the tiniest scratch would probably clock in at the same price as a semi-detached family home in Wigan. In the film itself, of course, the car we see isn’t actually a 1961 Ferrari GT California – it’s a kit car version. Three “replicar” models were used, in fact, and they notoriously refused to work properly during the film’s shooting, resulting in the scene where Ferris leaves the car with the garage attendant being shot over ten times, because the ‘car’ wouldn’t start.

Needless to say, the crew had a huge amount of fun destroying the blasted thing when it did eventually tip over into one Mr. Cameron Frye’s back garden, though that said, it was a one-shot, no-fuck-ups-please affair. If there’s a set visit we wish we could have been on – although it took place before Empire Magazine was ever published – it would have been Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Anyway, continuing our adventure into fantasyland, hypothetically we’d probably kill kittens to even have a drive around the local Tesco’s car park in a Ferrari GT California. The whole affair would end with the classic car crushed under a passing milk float or impaled on a bollard and ourselves mortgaging our first-born to pay off the debt, but still, it would be fun while it lasted.

Mercury Monterey

Movie: Cobra

Year: 1986

Driver: Sylvester Stallone / Lieutenant Marion 'Cobra' Cobretti

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Marion Cobretti is the kind of cop who'd drive to work in a tank if he could. He can't – it's illegal in LA – so he settles for the next best thing, a 1950 Mercury, which is by any standards a muscle car for the discerning match-chewing badass. It looks like the kind of vehicle ZZ Top would have driven if they'd gone into crime-fighting, but Stallone's mere presence at the height of his '80s action heyday upholsters his vehicle in OTT awesomeness.

Check the features list: it's got a nitrous-aided Holley carburettor, 400-turbo hydraulic transmission with four-wheel brake and one of those nice cup holder things. This car rocks. Sadly, it rolls too, as witnessed by its explosive collision with a drydocked speedboat.
 
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1976 AMC Pacer

Movie: Wayne's World

Year: 1992

Driver: Dana Carvey / Garth Algar

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First off, let’s get all the pop culture catchphrases out in the open now, so you don’t have to dread them coming up in the rest of the piece. All together now: "Schwing! Party on!”, “That's what she said", and "...Not!"

Phew. Glad that’s over.

Anyway, the car. Sure, it looks like a blue upside-down fishbowl with go-faster flames on the side, but that’s what makes it so magnificent: It’s ludicrous. It’s appalling. It’s the goddamn Mirth Mobile, and everybody wants one, if only to play Bohemian Rhapsody ludicrously loudly and shake their heads till their necks get whiplash. Obviously.

Then there are in the in-built perks inherent in Wayne and Garth’s specially customised vehicle – you’ve got your red liquorice dispenser mounted on the head liner, a bar tap in the glove box… this is no ordinary vehicle. Okay, it’s a very ordinary vehicle – but it’s a very ordinary vehicle with flame decals and weird in-built gadgets to boot, and that’s enough for us. Plus, we also have the Mirth Mobile to thank for making mismatched wheels cool. Mismatched wheels are cool, right? Right?

The Mini Cooper S

Movie: The Italian Job

Year: 1969

Driver: Michael Caine / An assortment of others

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Much like Bullitt and the Ford Mustang, the Mini Cooper S is synonymous with the 1969 British crime classic, resonating with plucky British charm – in no small part helped by the fact the three motors were painted the colours of the Union Jack, red, white and blue.

Thinking about it, it’s practically compulsory for every red-blooded Brit to love a Mini Cooper. Seeing an old school ‘60s model pootling down the road forces all men to stare and admire it longingly, even if the exhaust might be dragging on the ground and the headlights have long given up the ghost.

It’s neat, it’s nimble, and it’s damn good at negotiating Italian sewer systems. Sure, when The British Motor Corporation were first designing and building a modern, reliable, nippy little four-seater they didn’t necessarily have Italian sewer systems in mind, but it doesn’t much matter – they created a classic car, and a classic car helped create a classic film.

Golly, just thinking about it makes you want to salute the flag, sip some tea and eat a cucumber sandwich. Long live the Caine. Wait, the Queen! Yes, the Queen. Long live her.

1981 De Lorean DMC-12

Movie: The Back to the Future Trilogy

Year: 1985 – 1990

Driver: Christopher Lloyd / Dr. Emmett Brown

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How could we not include the De Lorean DMC-12? It’s the De Lorean DMC-12. It’s goes back to the future. And forward to the future. And back again. How many cars do you know that can do that? That’s right: one. The De Lorean DMC-12 – like we said.

But let’s be honest, without Marty McFly and Doc. Brown’s adventures through time, the De Lorean DMC-12 would have gone down in history as a weird one-off from a failed vanity motor company out of a Belfast. And no, annoyingly, the real deals don’t take you back to the future – not without a flux capacitor and/or a “Mr. Fusion” nuclear reactor, anyway – but they do look pretty sweet, and will have legions of nerdy guys and girls cooing all over it as you blast it down your local high street.

In a way that other movie cars just can’t match – not even The Italian Job’s beloved Mini Coopers – the Back To The Future series is defined by the De Lorean DMC-12 and vice versa. The flaming tyre tracks, the open gull wings, the Drew Struzan posters, the California OUTATIME number plate... It’s one hell of a vehicle and quite possibly the most iconic car cinema has to offer. There, we said it.

http://www.empireonline.com/features/movie-cars
 
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That is one hell of a wack list. Where is the Gone in 60 sec Mustang? The Charger from Vanishing Point? Yet an AMC Pacer makes this list???
 
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