Let’s Figure Out What Kind Of Car Is Shown In The Rick and Morty Interdimensional Cable Show ‘Man vs. Car’

When I’m hanging out with my kid and we’re feeling a little lazy or doing some really focused snacking or something like that, one of the things we like to do is watch Rick and Morty. I’m sure you’ve all heard of that show by now – it’s about a somewhat unhinged mad scientist Rick, who can travel inter-dimensionally and his somewhat hapless 14-yeaer old grandson, Morty, whom he takes with him on all of his adventures, which tend to go off the rails in some devastating and troubling ways that often have really dire ethical consequences. But it’s all funny. And kind of vulgar and gross and violent at times, sure. But still funny.

Look, I’m not saying that watching Rick and Morty with my now 15 year old son, Otto, is the best parenting, but what are you going to do? I think most of us parents are sort of winging it, at least some of the time. Anyway, it’s fun, and the other day while he and I were watching, I noticed a car that caught my attention.

The cars in Rick and Morty are often patterned on real cars, if they’re to be focused on for any length of time; I recall that in a flashback, Rick drove an old ’70s Ford LTD, for example. I mention this because while Otto and I were watching, there was a segment that came on that had what looked to be a very specific car in it, and it fired a lot of the car-recognition neurons in my head, but not exactly. I couldn’t quite stop thinking about it, so I decided to try and figure out what it was, and here we are.

The segment is one from an episode where Morty and Rick (sounds weird that way, right?) are watching some Interdimensional Cable – that is, cable TV programs from across infinite universes – and one of them is a show called Man vs. Car, which seems to be a sort of televised deathmatch between a human and an automobile. Here’s the clip – and I suppose I should warn that it does get a little gory in there, so there you go, you’re warned:

The basic gag here is that, no, there’s no way a human is going to win against a ton of motorized metal. It seems in whatever this universe is from cars are capable of at least some independent driving, or they’ve been rigged to drive/fight in this context. It’s not clear. But it’s the car that was chosen for this that I like, and what I liked about it is that it is by no means an imposing car. It’s just a little hatchback, a small city car, an econobox, not some roided-out truck with spikes on it and huge tires, like you may expect based on the look and demeanor of the human competitor. That dichotomy just makes this funnier.

This car looks like it was drawn from a very specific car – whomever the artist was that drew this was pulling from an image of a real car, and I think I know what it is, with a qualifier. It’s not a car we got here in America – I think this is a Mark 2 Volkswagen Polo, the kind made from 1981 to 1994. But it’s not just one Polo – I think it’s a combination of the fastback “coupé” polo and the hatchback/wagon/shooting brake-type Polo.

Essentially, a combination of these two cars:

Here’s what I’m thinking, visually:

The car is mostly the wagon/hatchback Polo. The key giveaway, and the part that caught my attention first, is the unusual rear wheelarch design, which moves up and over the wheel in a curve, then slings back straight to the rear of the car. The rear bumper then slots in below, making a really interesting rear quarter design; this is a detail I always liked about this era of Polo.

Then, looking at the front, aside from the addition of a prominent around-grille chrome surround on the animated one, I think we’re looking at basically the same sort of simple front end, with round lights, full-width horizontal slatted grille, and rectangular indicators set into the bumper directly below the headlights.

So, it’s that wagon-type Polo, but with the angled rear of the hatchback one, a design choice I think the artist made to make the car look more recognizable as a small hatchback city car.

What do you think of this assessment? I’m open to other ideas, as always!

Oh, an one other aside since we’re talking about Rick and Morty: one of the people who started the show, Dan Harmon, was one of the co-creators, years before, of this thing called Channel 101. Channel 101 was a fun event/competition kind of thing where people would make “pilots” for TV shows every…month, I think? And those pilots would be shown in a theater and the audience would vote on which shows should be picked up or not. It was a blast and there were so many incredible shows and pilots that people made for this, including some that had the seeds for what would later become Rick and Morty.

I bring this up because when I was in Los Angeles, the comedy group I was part of put together two pilots for Channel 101, and one of them – I think the one I have embedded below– I delivered on videotape to Dan Harmon personally at his apartment, which was just around the corner from where I lived in Los Feliz. I think I knocked on the door at like one in the afternoon, and he answered in a robe and bleary-eyed, like I woke him up. He was very friendly, though!

This was the pilot I gave to him: it’s basically Knight Rider, but if instead of a Trans Am, KITT was a colostomy bag. With a wormhole in it that connected the wearer’s colon with their colon 24 hours in the future.

Here, you can watch:

Our pilot was not picked up.