Carspotting in movies and TV shows is a great pastime, especially when watching older forms of visual arts. Unfortunately, we all know that whenever a car appears on screen there’s always the chance that it’ll meet a grisly end. Even if the car wasn’t anything particularly rare when the scene was filmed, like the A20 Toyota Celica in the opening sequence of 1978’s The Incredible Hulk, sometimes it can still be difficult to watch.
What movie or TV wreck always makes you cringe?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What car has been absolutely ruined by pop culture?“.
Ginkei Garage made the salient point that pop culture ruins everything, and gave a long list of cars that have been taken to the heights of popularity even though the underlying car isn’t that great to begin with. Joe Musashi was a bit less broad, but said that JNCs in general have all suffered.
On a more specific note, Kyuusha Corner suggested the ridiculously expensive R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R, Dave Patten picked the too-easily-driftable S13 Nissan 240SX, and crank_case explained why to UK residents any mention of Lexus will be followed by, “They say it’s the Japanese Mercedes.”
Taylor C. nominated with great sadness the Infiniti G35, as well as its brother the Nissan Altima. Then both he and StreetSpirit reluctantly pointed their fingers at the Mazda Miata.
However, the car that got the most nominations was the Toyota AE86, from the likes of BlitzPig and TheJWT. It was in no small part thanks to the influence of Initial D. This week’s winner was mangocast, who best illustrated the pain of loving a car made famous by anime:
Without a doubt, the AE86.
What was once a cheap, decent-handling platform with a fairly extensive motorsports background has now been reduced to “le tofu drift car!!!” and has been priced out of the hands of most enthusiasts as such. Every time I tell people I love the AE86, I have to clarify that it’s NOT because of Initial D. Not to mention, many have likely fallen victim to fans of said anime, and been turned into scrap metal after being slid into a light pole. Not to mention, the glorification and resulting pushback against the car, reducing it to nothing other than “the corolla people spend 30k on because of an anime”. A number of it’s (primarily younger) fans act like it’s a handling god, even though Keiichi Tsuchiya himself said it had a tendency to understeer. Perhaps I’m just rambling at this point, but it does hurt to have a car I love so dearly (it IS the car that got me into cars, after all) be surrounded by such a cynical rhetoric .
That being said, a vast majority of actual AE86 owners appear to be fairly grounded, and great people.
(Note I said a majority – I had an argument with one who INSISTED that a 3S-GE swap would “ruin the balance” of the car.)
So perhaps it is just the keyboard warriors and 12-year old reality-rejecting fanboys that ruin the car, but either way, I can’t help but feel like it can all be traced back to Initial D. I don’t particularly wish the anime never existed, as if that were the case, the car may not have been mainstream enough for me to learn about it, but there are times I wish Shigeno had chosen a different car for Takumi to drive.That being said, I still can’t help but love it, and still intend to own one some day.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
(spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen twisted metal yet)
i would have to say the moment that Evelyn the salmon coloured subaru impreza in the tv series twisted metal was the most painful thing I have witnessed.
the love for the car grows through the episodes and then it is mercilessly blown up.
As a fan of the original Magnum P.I., I thought I’d give the reboot a chance—but I hated it from the very first episode. They chose to destroy the iconic Ferrari 308 right out of the gate, and that was it for me. If that was their idea of passing the torch, I wanted no part of it.
Any of the crash scenes in CHiPs where things like jump ramps and roll cages are visible in the final edit that aired.
it has to be the moment where the subaru impreza is emphatically blown up in the twisted metal series, you grow to love the car as you go through the episodes amd then the anguish is too much when it is laid there in pieces.
It has to be the moment the subauru impreza is emphatically destroyed in twisted metal, as you watch the series you grow to see the car as an individual with its own personality and then the anguish when it is blown up is too much.
The Italian Job (1969). If you can get past the opening scene without shedding a tear then you lose all rights to call yourself a car enthusiast.
… So, as given this article (question) and its title too, then I think Luc Besson’s Taxi film / movie series (until Taxi 6) used to have a couple of car wrecks in each of the movies’ scenes, but I think half of them didn’t made me that cringe especially because Besson’s Taxi franchise didn’t resonate much to audiences / tastes outside its home market (Europe) just as given that half of the cars featured there are developed in / for European environment just like the films’ leading star (car) Peugeot 406 (1-3) and successor [Peugeot] 407 (4-5), Taxi 2 had Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI models there (which is the main antagonist) but since Evo VI didn’t get much of the demand as the others seen in the film apart from 406-407 thanks to its Euro origins (scenes of Taxi 3 featured a Subaru Impreza and Lancer Evo VII there with the rest as well) and also I think there would have been scenes of car wrecks in one of the series’ titles.
Another Euro content, Alarm for Cobra (Germany) has a couple of car wrecks there, especially if the series’ episodes have scenes feature Renault, Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat and Alfa Romeo cars there too, Inspector Rex (Austria) may have one but anything else? (Car wrecks seen in European-produced contents…)
My apologies for repeat posting but the original two have only just appeared. First time poster.
Mythbusters was a good show for a lot of reasons, but some of their choices of cars to destroy were absolutely unconscionable. I’m thinking specifically of the RT52 Corona Coupe they stuffed full of butane lighters
it would have to be ‘the wraith’, one big wreck of a movie, be it the premise of ‘undead streetracer kills 80’s teenage bad guys played by guys pushing 30’ or the gorgeous cars so unceremoniously crashed in whats is actually a very well made chase movie under the thick layer of straight to VCR cheese.
there’s a yellow trans am, a widebody c3 corvette, an early barracuda and some fancy chrysler laser/dodge daytonas. all go up in flames in the arizona desert.
but worst of all are the dodge M4S pace car replicas used as the indestructible undead hero car.
these get crashed into stuff like it’s nothing.
that’s sad beacuse for some reason i love the roach like design of the dodge M4S
luckily no JNC gets damaged though as far as I remember!
https://ppgpacecars.com/dodge-m4s-1986-ppg-pace-car/
here’s the weird dodge and a site that has all the funky PPG pace cars categorised if you’re interested!
I’ll be dating myself here but in Knight Rider, Michael’s evil twin Garthe (The Hoff with a mustache and evil soul patch) drove an armored semi named Goliath, head-on collided with and it destroyed KITT and knocked Michael out and IIRC it was the series finale cliffhanger (or the end of a to be continued episode) and I was heartbroken. I was just a little kid and it tore me up in the same way it did when King Kong Bundy hurt Hulk Hogan the night before their match at Wrestlemania 2. Luckily, KITT got him back and proved his EV prowess during the next episode. Now that’s all cringey but back in the day for a little kid, nope. Whew!
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The ’61 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder owned by Cameron’s dad. I hated the part when Cameron was kicking the car and when the car fell into the forest. I’m glad it was a replica used for that scene.
The way they filmed that Ferrari 250 GT California throughout the movie was perfect. I wish every car movie afterwards would film their cars like this movie.