Many actors claim playing a villain in a film is much more fun than starring as the protagonist. “Bad guys” tend to have more interesting personalities, and this nature trickles down to the cars they drive on screen.
Almost without exception, the evil characters in movies have exceptional taste in cars. Unlike flicks where the vehicles themselves are possessed by the devil such as Stephen King’s Christine or the silly film The Car, these villain mobiles are essentially innocent bystanders. Still, the cars tend to take on this evil by association.
There’s nothing inherently nefarious about a Lincoln Mark III, but when driven by the heroin kingpin in The French Connection this black personal luxury coupe takes on a very dark image. The French license plates (and possibly French-mandated yellow headlights under the covers) only adds to this mystery of how this thing even got there.
For a ubiquitous, Camry-like Bad Guy Car you simply can’t beat a Mercedes, particularly a W126 sedan in black. Hell, even guy-you-love-to-hate JR Ewing drove one on Dallas. You can’t forget Eddie Murphy chasing one in Beverly Hills Cop:
Big Benzes also featured prominently in the Lethal Weapon movies, including a chase with a black Sacco masterpiece in the fourth installment:
My favorite car-and-villain pairing of all time? I simply can’t think of a better one than David Carradine’s character in Kill Bill and his ride of choice: A DeTomaso Mangusta.
This untamed beast with a Ford 351 Cleveland in back was a car that made Ferraris look like dainty little kiddie cars. Raw, iron fist performance under a beautiful but sinister-looking glove.
Enough of my Bad Guy Machines. What are some of your favorites?
It’s not strictly a car, but my childhood demands I post this – the Death Probe from the Six Million Dollar Man.
Easily some of the coolest episodes from the show, Steve Austin facing off against an unstoppable Soviet space probe gone berserk was just too much fun.
I’m sure it was probably a VW Beetle under that futuro-brutalist tank exterior, so maybe that counts?
Totally useless fact for you- they used that same prop car (heavily modified) for the ‘Crimebuster’ in the Andy Kaufman film Heatbeeps
OMG I haven’t seen that since I was 8. Totally forgot about that!
Same here. Doesn’t look like it holds up from 10 year-old me to much-more-than-10-year-old me.
Peter Thorndyke’s Apollo GT in The Love Bug, and Biff Tannen’s Ford convertible in Back To The Future deserve a mention.
I love The Duck from Batman Returns. So absurd.
There is only one answer, and it’s the Duke of New York’s Cadillac with the chandeliers on the fenders.
A Number 1!
This was my second choice, what other car has better headlights?
I love that car, but is the Duke the true villain. I always felt it was the president.
Carradine was also involved with the worst movies cars of all time in the form of Frankenstein’s Shala Vette in Death race 2000
But you know the Bullitt 68 charger is a tops for many.
The orange Valiant from “Duel”. Shame it triumphed over that poor mack truck in the end.
Cruella De Vil’s Panther De Ville in “101 Dalmatians.”
Chick Hicks, obviously. He’s the villian, and the car
Love how his grille is such a perfect copy of Dale Earnhardt’s mustache.
Dennis Hopper’s C2 Corvette from King of the Mountain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8yvWHrGu4
He drove a pretty apropos Charger in Blue Velvet too. “This. Is. It.”
Man o man, between King of the Mountain and Heartbeeps, movies in heavy HBO rotation when I was a kid are coming out of the woodwork.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/captain-america-v16-coupe
I love Red Skull’s ridiculous pre-war dreadnought of a car
The sinister black fleet driven by the “bad guys” in Twister is the only thing that really stands out to me. The “good guys” were in a rag tag collection of vehicular misfits, and Cary Elwes’ group had a caravan of blacked out Caravans (or maybe the Chrysler equivalents, but probably Dodges) and a big GMC dually provided by their evil corporate sponsors.
Great non verbal “these are the antagonists” messaging in the part of the director/cinematographer.
When the GMC got swept up by the tornado, I cheered like when Paul Reiser’s character met the Xenomorph in Aliens.
Cadillac Fleetwood. It always seemed Jim Rockford was always forced into one by a couple of Gorillas.
Such a good point. A while back, someone here mentioned the wonderful typology of cars on that show -like how the girl in distress often had a Mercedes SL convertible!
Easy, the Hannibal 8, driven by Prof. Fate in The Great Race!
https://wp-stahlsauto.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/1965-Hannibal-web-scaled.jpg
Push the button, Max!
What a great answer and what a great movie nobody but my brother and I have ever seen.
Ahem.
It is, in my opinion, the greatest movie ever made.
Knowing exactly what you meant I didn’t have to see the picture but I just clicked and holy crap is that a beautiful display! Where is that?
Stah’s Automotive Foundation, in Michigan
Max: In 10 seconds, the engine will fall out of car number 5.
Dr. Fate: Max?
Max: Yes sir?
Dr. Fate: We’re number 5.
A true Blake Edwards classic.
Here’s a photo of it in its 6-wheeled, screw-nosed, pop-up-cannoned, scissor-lifted glory:
https://tfltruck.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Great-Race-Hannibal-Twin-8.jpg
It’s an easy one, but the black on black Dodge Charger from Bullitt.
Ominously imposing, with an incongruously bespectacled pilot (actually stunt driver extraordinaire Bill Hickman) behind the wheel, it oozed functional menace. It doesn’t matter that we don’t even know the names of those in it, that’s exactly the point.
Peter Yates and McQueen went out of their way to ensure everything in that movie was as realistic as possible (for instance, Hickman’s gunman partner puts earplugs in before discharging a shotgun indoors) and that car was the perfect choice for a dispassionate mob out to cancel an account.
I love the shot where they fasten the seatbelts. Adds a great touch to the buildup for the chase.
the magically returning Hub caps and Christine level of immediate body repair was something special to behold as well.
But how many hubcabs did that Charger have? Yo Dawg, I hear you like hubcaps on your hubcaps.
There was also a significant audio aspect: the Charger (presumably a 440) had a low-pitched and menacing thrum while McQueen’s Mustang had a rowdier, peppier exhaust note.
I like to think that the sound of the Charger was the inspiration for the simple two-note menacing score in Jaws, seven years later.
This is gold.
Not to mention the Charger misses the gas pumps. You can catch a fleeting glimpse of it going past them as they explode, disappearing behind the building.
…and rolling down the rear window in the Charger so he can blast the Bullitt mustang.
The semi truck/trailer in Duel.
Stuntman Mike’s Nova
I want to say a 1961 Ferrari GT…but the car belonged to his friend’s dad.
Oh, yeah…
bomp bomp chicka chicka
Any bets on whether they’ll have to explain this thread to DT?
I have seen The Car as an adult. It is a dumb movie.
But the car from that movie scared the whee outta me when I was a kid.
I’ll confess to enjoying it even as an adult. It’s impressive that they were able to do an entire movie around such an inane concept. And set out west, not a lot of 2-story buildings I guess.
Does the Team Associated RC10 that played the RC Corvette bomb in The Dead Pool count?
How about the original Monster in Death Race 2000? (aka Alligator car)
Really any of the cars from that movie counts, but they are all pretty Terrible, so getting anyone to admit to them being their favorite is the trick here. I think we would probably have to move up to the Statham era Deathrace cars for most to admit Favorites.
Also is it a villain car or anti-hero unit? because if anti-hero’s count then The last of the V8 Pursuit Specials has always had a place in my heart.
1958 Plymouth Fury in Christine
My favorite love story.
How about the custom one-off “Corvorado” – a mashup of a Corvette and a Cadillac Eldorado as seen in Roger Moore’s Bond debut, “Live and Let Die”.
https://i.imgur.com/iolmCUm.png
Thing looked sick.
“Felix, get me a make on a white pimpmobile!”
“Fine James…in the movie version of this, I don’t get fed to the sharks!”
The double ’59 Eldorado driven by Immortan Joe in Mad Max Fury Road.
Really anything from that movie.
The Gigahorse!!
I had to scroll way too far to find this. Definitely the Gigahorse deserves a place here as the cars are as much of the character’s personality as the actors themselves.
The Doofwagon with the flame-spitting electric guitarist in red long johns deserves an honorable mention.
One that I particularly loved in high school was the Saleen Mustang Police transformer in the original TRANSFORMERS movie.
https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/f/8337725.jpg
Also a David Carradine car:
https://silodrome.com/death-race-2000-david-carradine-car/
Yeah, but Frankenstein was the hero in Death Race 2000.
Oh shit, that’s right. Man, it’s been too long.