Have you ever seen the Coen brothers’ movie No Country for Old Men? It’s great. I mean, maybe a little unsettling, but great. It’s an adaptation of a novel by Cormac McCarthy, a writer known for a distaste for punctuation and his bleakly pessimistic and spare worldview. The movie takes place primarily in West Texas in 1980, and the film, like all Coen brothers films, is very carefully produced and crafted. There’s almost nothing anachronistic in the film, with wardrobes and scenery and everything very painstakingly selected to be appropriate to that time and place.
That includes, of course, the cars.
The movie is full of great and mundane mid-Malaise-Era iron. There’s very little flashy about these cars, mostly midrange domestic family cars and trucks. There are hardly any imports, hardly anything fancier than a Buick. It’s pretty much what you’d have seen on a rural West Texas street in the summer of 1980. It’s clear the car casting was taken seriously.
I think that’s why this detail is so fascinating to me, because it shows how important the filmmakers felt the car-casting should be, and the lengths they’d go to make sure everything was just right. But at the same time, it’s also hilariously half-assed. It’s in this scene; see if you can spot what I’m talking about: [Ed note, and spoiler alert: feel free to stop the video after Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) gets out of the patrol car, if you’re averse to mild screen gore – Pete]
It doesn’t have anything to do with the white Ford Granada with the one broken reverse lamp; I think a smashed reverse lamp was a factory option for those. It has to do with the Chevrolet Caprice cop car behind the Granada. Take a look at the cop car; does anything look sort of … off? 
Here, let’s get a little closer. Computer! Zoom and enhance!
See it now? Look that the headlights; what’s going on with those lights? Why is the outboard light about, oh, 10% bigger than the inner one? And, wait a minute – are those even two separate headlights? Why do their borders look kind of wonky?
There’s shenanigans happening here. Shenanigans involving what appears to be black gaffer’s tape, being used to visually disguise one wide, rectangular composite headlamp into what appears to be two rectangular sealed beam headlights! But why?
Well, the reason why is pretty straightforward: anachronisms.
You see, this generation of Chevy Caprice – the third generation – lasted from 1977 to 1990, but during that healthy lifespan, the car received three facelifts. The first sub-generation was from 1977 to 1979, then tweaks were made for the 1980 to 1985 cars, and then one final refreshing in 1986, continuing until that generation ended in 1990.
That means for the movie to be accurate, only the first sub-generation and the very first year of the second could be used. Those wide composite headlights didn’t appear until the final facelift in 1986, well after the scope of the movie.
For reference, here’s a 1981 Caprice’s face:
…and here’s a 1990 one:
There’s some other minor differences – grille size, shape, mesh pattern, and so on – but arguably the most readily noticeable difference are those headlights. The wide composite lamps just change the look of the car a surprising amount, and they just feel like something of the 1990s, not 1980s, at least in America.
So, this is what we have going on:
They had a 1986-1990 Caprice police car, and they needed to make it look like a 1980 (at latest) Caprice police car. But the headlights were too big a giveaway, hence the gaffer’s tape.
According to the sleuths over at the Internet Movie Car Database, the No Country for Old Men Caprice cop car is a 1990, based on the door-mounted seat belt. They also note other attempts to make the car look older, like the removal of the CHMSL from the rear package shelf.
That car above there is an example of a 1980 Caprice police car. There’s a good bit different from the No Country for Old Men car, but I think the prop people made the right call in that the headlights are the most important element to try and reconcile. But even then, I have to wonder why they just did it with gaffer’s tape?
I mean, if it was important enough to change at all, and it clearly was, why didn’t they try and find a period-correct car? The car isn’t just a background car, it’s used by one of the main characters for an extended period of time. It seems like it’d be worth getting the one you actually want?
Maybe finding a good cop car with a more rural Texas-type livery – not a classic big city black-and-white – was harder than they expected. Maybe that was the only car they could use. If that was the case, why not actually change out the headlight units?
It wouldn’t have been hard or expensive; the size and shape of the housings between the two types of lights are basically the same. One should bolt right into place of the other. They could have picked up the older headlight bezels and inner headlight buckets for probably, what, $150 total? They’d bolt right in! These are daytime shots so they wouldn’t even need to wire anything up!
But instead they picked tape?
I’m just baffled. If this is important enough to do something about, why did they do something so half-assed? I mean, they could have at least measured and put the damn dividing line in the center!
I know all those gaffers have tape measures on them. It’d have killed someone to measure this? The fact that the size difference is noticeable even at a distance is ridiculous.
I’m not entirely sure what to think about all this – it’s such a strange contradiction or maybe juxtaposition or contrast or one of those words about how two things relate to one another where incredible care was paid to the idea, but less so in the execution.
It doesn’t hurt the movie at all, though, and I never even realized it until the Bishop pointed it out to me today, so I suppose in the grand scheme, it hardly matters. Still, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m kind of delighted to know it’s A Thing.
Also, if I’m honest? The tape basically works. It’s probably good enough.
Maybe if the Coen brothers decided to release a re-mastered version, they’ll use CGI to superimpose the proper headlights over those goofy taped-up ones. Seems like a good use of money.
Top graphic image: Miramax
I didn’t need to see the tape. That drop-center front bumper is obviously from a later generation.
I love this film (and Cormac McCarthy too!) and I’ve seen the film multiple times but never noticed the cop car anachronism.
Talking about anachronisms I stopped watching Narcos the moment I saw an E39 BMW in the screen.
This car in this movie has always bothered me, since it’s an anachronism and one that is rather sloppy, considering the tape (which I never noticed till now) and the taillights (which they didn’t disguise). BUT: in each period piece by the Coens, I believe there is an anachronism —and I believe they are intentional since it’s so obvious when everything else is meticulous — here, we have the 90 B-body, and in A Serious Man, the rabbi is drinking a cup of tea with a contemporary Lipton label. Or in Buster Scruggs, the titular title character enters the frame playing a brand-new reissue Recording King guitar that in no way resembles its predecessor.
There’s a bit of a nod to classic magical realism with this-as in, @this may not actually be a real reality” -but as an Eastern European Jewish person, I kinda want to think it’s witchy Golem paranoia. As in, you gotta have one letter out of place in the name of God or the clay becomes alive. YMMV. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
This car in this movie has always bothered me, since it’s an anachronism and one that is rather sloppy, considering the tape (which I never noticed till now) and the taillights (which they didn’t disguise). BUT: in each period piece by the Coens, I believe there is an anachronism —and I believe they are intentional since it’s so obvious when everything else is meticulous — here, we have the 90 B-body, and in A Serious Man, the rabbi is drinking a cup of tea with a contemporary Lipton label. Or in Buster Scruggs, the titular title character enters the frame playing a brand-new made in China Recording King guitar.
There’s a bit of a nod to classic magical realism with this-as in, @this may not actually be a real reality” -but as an Ashkenazi Jew, I kinda want to think it’s Golem paranoia. As in, you gotta have one letter out of place in the name of God or the clay becomes alive. YMMV. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Torch cracked it, the great mystery of our time!
I have no experience with this generation of Caprice, but having worked on a lot of cars from the 60s – 80s, It’s not likely that the headlight assemblies from the original model would work on the refresh model years.
There are always more changes than you would think, both to the visible exterior panels, and the mounting holes behind.
Would probably only work by replacing all the front sheetmetal, and the bumper too!
At least they tried. I actually noticed the door mounted seat belts first and stopped the video there.
I did look at the “face” in the top shot before I played the video, but it didn’t hit me why I had focused in on it.
Call it, friendo.
you dont know what you are talking about
Sir?
its a line in the same sene
Oh I know. The old guy behind the counter replies with “Sir?”.
scene
Wasn’t this also a problem on Stranger Things for the Cop Cars, but they didn’t bother with the tape? I wonder if this is the same cop car with a different wrap.
Stranger Things really DGAF about period accuracy. Most of the time they just use a song from the year it’s supposed to be to set the time period, but they didn’t even get that right. They used a Moby song from 1995 at least twice in the series.
The kids ride around on beach cruiser bikes with huge handlebars and banana seats. I can say from my experience that in 1985-6, we (who were ACTUALLY 12 and 13 at the time) would not be caught dead on one of those – it was a “girl’s” bike. BMX, skateboard, or walking.
By the final season, the writers stopped being concerned with period-correct dialogue, too.
I’m a bit older than you and agree, wide handlebar, banana seat beach cruisers were not in vouge in the early to mid ’80s. Those beach cruisers are a holdover from a decade or two before.
That said the show is set in podunk Indiana and old beach cruisers might have been what those kids were handed down.
I was in a small Texas town about a half hour north of Austin that, at the time(1986), was under 16,000 people (it’s now about 100k). So, pretty close to podunk, although a lot of towns in TX are still under 4,000 people or so.
I’m willing to buy hand me downs, except that most of the kids are shown to be the eldest siblings, LOL.
I’m the eldest in my family, and it didn’t mean that I got new stuff, I just got first dibs on things that were new to the family. My first bike was second-hand, as was some of our clothes, and other toys.
Then they’d get handed down to my middle bro, and finally my little bro would get whatever was left after me and middle had got through with it. I still remember him almost crying at one point “I never get anything new!“
I’ll have to ask my Hoosier wife..
On the subject the bicycles in Welcome to Derry are all new, that is all not 1960’s.
Not the only anachronism but the most easily spotted.
Checked in with my wife, she said those bikes were common BMX style were not until later, also popular “10 speeds” always boy’s bikes, even for girls.
Sounds about right. The Stranger Things bikes were more like what I rode as a much younger kid in the mid 1970’s, a handed down three speed, glittery flower power, banana seated cruiser with a chrome sissy bar, pedal brake and tassels on the grips. I was too young to know any better and it was a time when you just got what you got.
Flash forward a few years to the early 80’s just before the show is set. My MS bike was a Huffy Santa Fe 10 speed I had mostly forgotten about until I saw one online for sale a few years ago. Nostalgia bit and I looked at the pictures longingly…for about 15 seconds. Now I can see the cheap components, the sketchy weld quality, the heavy gas pipe tubing, all the corners cut. On seeing that I realized my dad probably bought it for me at K-Mart as a blue light special. I can’t blame him since he probably figured was likely to be stolen or broken. I also suddenly recalled how some of the other kids ridiculed it for being a Huffy. I guess they had Schwinns.
I don’t recall much excitement about BMX bikes or even ATBs even though they were both more or less invented close to where I lived.
Oh man, remember the Huffy ads with Christopher Cross “Ride Like The Wind”? I had a K-mart 10 Speed, what a disaster. Then I saw “Breaking Away” and busted my ass painting a summer to buy a Schwinn. That got stolen and I discovered how really bad even Schwinns were, so I got a Motobécane. Now we were talking, 25 pounds or so?
I dont recall Schwinns in that movie. The bikes I recall were a Masi, AMFs and whatever the jerk Italians were riding which I don’t recall but were not likely Schwinns.
What kind of Schwinn did you have that was so problematic? Chicago built Schwinns are generally highly regarded, especially models like the Paramount but after the first bike boom crash in the 70’s Schwinn contracted out a lot of their bike building. Panasonic of Japan and Giant of Taiwan were two of those contracts and I have a few in my collection. My Panasonic made bikes are to my eye excellent (Panasonic also made my Peugeots) while my Giants are kind of a mixed bag. I’m not sure who made my early 90’s Schwinn Voyageur but I haven’t found any issues with its build quality yet. I haven’t picked up a Motobecane since my current preferences are for fully lugged all terrain bikes and I’m not aware of any made by Moto.
My understanding is Schwinn went off a quality cliff in the naughts with Pacific bicycles but I don’t think you’re talking about those.
I didn’t watch the last season, but something I did like in the first seasons is that they did get the cars right in general. It was the music they got wrong more than right.
1. Radio and MTV was different back then. A song would play for 3-4 months and then disappear and never be played again. Unless you had the album, you never heard it again. The show had songs from different years playing at the same time, which never happened except around Christmas.
2. Kate Bush. I had to look up who she was. I don’t remember any song by her from that time. Pat Benatar or Joan Jett would have been a better choice for a strong female from that era, since they actually got airplay. The song is a good song, but I don’t remember ever hearing it before that season.
3. Swing and a miss on genre. 80s Music is very well defined.. Now. Back then, there was pop (M.J, Madonna, etc.) New Wave (Devo, Talking Heads), Motown (L. Richie), Heavy Metal (VH), Blues (ZZ top), 50s revival (Stray Cats), and other genres on the radio and MTV regularly. It wasn’t like “best of the 80s”, but more of a hodge podge. Since there was normally just 1-2 local radio stations, they played all the genres.
4. Subculture. The main 80s culture rejected and disliked the geeky kids that played D&D. So they rejected the main culture. D&D works best with weird prog rock in the background. Stuff like Tubular Bells or Songs from the Woods. New Age Jazz (recorded in the 80s) worked well with D&D since it provided back ground music without lyrics (or drunken growling). Shadowfax seemed to be played constantly. The theme song is very Tangerine Dream sounding, but that was more for Traveler since it was more futuristic sounding.
5. Lack of Pop songs. Michael Jackson and Madonna were massive hit generators at the time. You couldn’t go into a store without hearing one of them.
Dang, this is a pretty good list. No notes, except to say that the ONE Kate Bush song they used in the show got played so much it made me hate the song.
It made me wonder: if you were trapped in a shadow dimension, would you really want to hear the same song played ad nauseum at all times? Poor Max.
Admittedly, that was on brand for the 80s. I remember one summer that every station all the time played “Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you”. Even worse than it being every other song, I just wrote the entire lyrics, other than the (973x) part that goes right after it.
There were maybe two anachronistic cars in the show, so at least they got that (mostly) right 😉
yeah, and admittedly, if they did do a show about any era and had actual music from the time on the radio, every one’s ears would bleed.
Let’s look at 1977. Two of the top selling albums of all time were released that year. Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) and Hotel California (Eagles). So, assuming you have the budget to get the rights for songs off of those albums, you could have a TV show with realistic music of 1977 and play songs from two legendary bands at the height of their powers.
Except… That’s album sales. Not what’s played on the radio.
If you look at List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 1977 – Wikipedia
The most played artist for 1977 was… Debby Boone. Barbra Streisand had the same number of weeks at #1 as Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles did COMBINED.
If you made a movie from 1977 and played “You Light up my Life” about 3 times as much as Stranger things played “Running up the Hill” it would be realistic of what was on the radio. And fans would show up with pitchforks and torches for ignoring Dreams, The Chain, Life in the Fast Lane, etc. etc. etc.
Had to look it up. Stranger things starts in November 1983. #1 played song was “All Night Long” Which was over taken by “Say Say Say”. Lionel Richie and Paul McCartney aren’t exactly what people think of as 80s music.
I just have to say wow, you really know your mainstream 80s music *and* all the other genres and lesser known songs. I haven’t seen the show myself, but I admire your ability to care about something so trivial, and I really mean this the best possible way. I mostly listen to the mainstream 80s, and I like basically all the songs you mentioned in all your comments. Even “Every time you go away”. I’ve heard a lot worse.
“Every time you go away” is not the worse song I can think of from that era, it’s just the one that was played so often that it branded itself into my brain.
The big thing I have as a posit is this. Today’s music sucks and always has. Per some random list on the internet, the best year of all time for Music was 1969.
Which makes sense when you look at the some of the songs that charted #1. Like “Dizzy”, “Love Song from Romeo and Juliet”, “In the Year 2525” “Wedding Bell Blues”, and “Na Na Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye”
Yeah, I picked songs that got to #1 that I don’t know, but that’s the point. These songs are not the legends that songs that didn’t even chart in 1969 (Gimme Shelter) are.
I have a second posit and this links back to Stranger Things.
What makes a song popular (30 years after it aired originally) is TV shows and Movies. A director wants a song that captures a time period and there will be a song that just drops into the show hand in glove. Running up the Hill does for Stranger Things. A bigger one is Fortunate Son for every movie that has ever shown Vietnam. Like Running Up the Hill, Fortunate Son didn’t get a lot of airplay when it was originally released. But it fits so well with ever Vietnam movie ever made that you can’t imagine the late 60s not blasting that song on ever radio near a helicopter 24/7. (as if any officer in Vietnam would allow such an anti-war song to be played on base in a warzone).
Ok, first thing first, I haven’t heard “In the year 2525” since the pandemic, so I got immediate flashbacks! “Fortunate Son” is one of those that I heard so much, even today, that I’m beginning to tire of it.
When you say todays music sucks and always has, do you mean that contemporary music always sucks to those in the present? Because I could see that happening too. I haven’t lived through the 80’s but I wonder if I had, would I have thought that the new music was bad? Were people still listening to old classics from the 60’s, for example?
I now also wonder what songs directors filming a 2020’s period movie in 2060 will choose.
Mainstream doesn’t challenge you. So it becomes forgotten. Stuff that pushes the boundaries is risky and not aired. “Rodeo” is hard to put on the airways 30+ years after it was recorded. While Ace of Bass got more airplay than RATM with songs that didn’t incite riots
Oh, missed part of the question (using my phone). Music in the past didn’t suck worse or less than today. It sucked equally (well, I don’t know about the 70s, they had some real stinkers as #1 hits).
The music industry doesn’t take risks. Group A had a hit with a song that sounded like that, let’s find another group that looks the same and sounds the same and sings about the same thing! I have so many hours a day to play songs, I can play songs I know everyone will like, or try something different and see what people think…
Read how many music types started “underground” with college radio stations and underground scenes and the like and then had a breakout. And then becomes a new formula to make hits once it is proven it works.
What makes this vapid music good isn’t actually the song. It’s your memories. A summer as a teenager when you went to the beach and everyone was blasting the song of the day and a girl you like smiled at you, or learning to drive and driving around with friends and blasting your favorite tunes on the radio.
Outside of the memories of your teenage years, these songs are 100% forgettable and without those powerful memories, today’s music feels so forgettable and boring and based on a formula, which you didn’t recognize at 13 when a similar formula was used to get you to listen to the crap of that era.
Very well put, and, after some consideration, it’s true for some/most of the songs I’m listening to. I’ve been listening to songs I heard when we were going on vacation when I was a teenager (you described basically exactly this) and now i start to realize that they’re not that good by themselves, if I “take them out of context”, so to speak. And didn’t I already kind of like some songs, but didn’t actually put them on my list until I heard them in a good context?
Music is extremely personal in this way. Even if you just like a song outright, you will almost always have some nice memory or experience to link to it after a while.
Hmm, interesting topic.
True as this may be, I will NEVER stop loving this movie. There is so much that is right with it. Reading Cormack McCarthy is kind of a painful experience. As noted, the non-existent punctuation makes you go back and try to figure out who said what countless times. I do not know the man, but I would gather that he had to be a bit of an insufferable art-tEEST. I would wager that in The Royal Tennenbaums, the Owen Wilson character was inspired by Cormack McCarthy. Having said all of that, his stories are so very good and horrible and you have to read them despite the headache.
The Cohens, to me, are utterly brilliant to have extracted this movie from the book. It really does the writing so much justice that it should make other directors feel shameful for just about anything they do. In the books there are countless pages of description that lays out how the landscape looks, feels, all of it. It would be so easy to just skip over those elements and just hit the plot points. Nope. Cohens made sure that the land itself was a prominent character in the movie. It takes balls to put in long silent shots of nothing but landscape without it turning into an exercise of indulgence. It was done so well that you barely even notice it. The Cohens painted such a vivid picture of the time and place all throughout the movie. You don’t watch that movie, you feel it.
I could gush for ages about that movie but I’ll spare anyone who has read this much. All I can say is that I really hope to see the Cohens come back for Blood Meridian.
It’s definitely one of my favorite movies. The scene in the gas station with the coin flip is one of the greatest scenes in cinema.
you get much rain up your way?
Still better than James Joyce
I read The Road by Cormack McCarthy. It was very, very, good, but so incredibly fucking bleak I have never read it again, or anything else by McCarthy, and have no desire to see the film.
Great author, but no thank you.
‘all a bit Cormac McCarthy’ is a common reply to someone asking how’s your day going with my mates if it’s been particularly crap.
Totally agree. Brilliant film. The way the camera goes from wide angled landscape shots to intense close ups just adds to the tension.
Due to the lack of soundtrack I got to see this film played with a sparse live instrumental soundtrack by one of my favourite bands (see the clip for Rubber Bullies) Tropical Fuck Storm at the largest Arts Theater here in Melbourne. It worked so well.
I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s an episode of The Crown, set firmly in the ’60s, in which the queen visits a horse farm in Kentucky, and she’s driven in what’s obviously an early ’70s Caddy limo.
In The Americans, a FANTASTIC series lush with ’80s period detail, there’s a point where Philip is starting to succumb to decadent capitalism and lusting after, I think, a Z28. And he spouts some gibberish about it that’s truly shocking in such a meticulous production. I mean, it’s all automotive words, but not in an order that makes any sense at all.
Any chance you could help me find that scene about the Z28? I’m interested now…
That would be a really deep cut, and probably 0.1% of viewers even noticed the flub. The episode where he actually got the car is titled “New Car,” but the scene I’m talking about might even be in the preceding episode. I think Philip was talking to his son Henry about it, looking at a newspaper ad or something.
It is actually available on a streaming service I have, so I’ll try to find it! Thanks!
Do you mean “Three hundred and eighty 6 horsepower. Four on the floor, direct overhead cam.”? You’re right, I wouldn’t have caught it.
Huh. Not as bad as I remember it, but yeah, ‘direct’ was definitely not the word they were looking for.
I have worked film sets and I worked for a prop house. In my experience directors often request changes the ‘day of’ after they look through the lens and decided they want to see something different. Typically a production assistant is sent out to the prop house or the hardware store, mall, whatever…but they are running like their hair is on fire because with the actors and other trades sitting idle it’s costing the project thousands of dollars a minute to do nothing until they get back. Usually at that point good enough is good enough.
My wife has some sort of relative that is in the special effects side of the industry. From this 3rd hand knowledge, I understand that CGI is used to fix stupid little stuff. Could it be that they assumed that CGI would fix the quick headlight fix?
I once was asked to spray paint a pair of black hiking boots white for an alpine scene. The PA could not wait for the paint to dry and asked me, ” can they just hike in them with wet paint?”
This is the first time I ever noticed this, so to me, for almost 20 years this worked flawlessly lol
When my Corolla all-trac wagon was used for an American TV show in the background. They added side marker lights (reflector stickers) USA plates. and blacked out the interior (It’s LHD). As they did film quite a lot of movies here in Melbourne, Australia (until recently when the content laws changed). The car wranglers in town have about 10 or so American police cars that are used for different shows filmed here.
I think there is at least one company here in Melbourne that acts as a rental ‘broker’ for owners of suitable cars to list them as available for hire for TV and film use. I know a couple of owners of such cars, and it is an odd experience to watch a movie and suddenly recognise a car you have ridden in as a passenger previously.
On the other hand, at the other end of the scale I have seen movies filmed here decades ago where the budget probably ran to ‘borrowing’ the personal vehicles of the crew to decorate the street with parked cars of the right age. Case in Point, in the movie ‘Malcolm’, there’s a red Datsun 1000 wagon which is distinctive for the fact it is actually a van version with fixed one-piece side rear windows added. It appears as a parked car in several different locations during one car chase scene, obviously because they had to shuffle all the available cars around as they filmed to keep the background full of suitably period-correct cars!
I have a couple of cars registered with them and the Corolla has made twice what I paid for it in daily rentals.
I do notice in particular with a lot of USA movies on busy streets how many times the same car pops up particularly CHiPs was a fave.
The other favourite is when a main character drives around in an old car and you know that there is going to be a major accident as the budget won’t let them write off anything new.
Also, in CHiPs, the bad guys would wear the same clothes several days in a row. Most likely they just filmed each run-in on the same day, and didn’t care to get them a change of clothes or two.
In a scene on the street in the show Monk, the same black car drives past 5 times. It was oddly immersion breaking.
In the TV series ‘Alias’, there was a scene that takes place somewhere in Europe, and Sydney Brostow or some other character is in a Ford Focus. It should be a Focus RS or ST, but the camera lingers for a few seconds on the rear of the car, and centers on the SVT Focus badge on the rear of the car…SVT is a North American (U.S.?) trim level ONLY, so why is it shown on a car that’s supposedly in Europe? I understand if Ford provided vehicles for the series, but it could’ve also provided some European Ford badges…
Misspelled ‘Bristow’ there…
I imagine someone noticed it 2 minutes before the cameras were about to roll on it.
I wonder if they they sometimes do these little mistakes on purpose.
Do you actually watch movies to find automotive inaccuracies or does your legion of taillight aficionados send you anonymous tips via payphone at night.
Both.
I’ve only seen the trailer, but the Brits had a limited run series on the Lockerbie investigation, a P38a Range Rover backdated with round headlights wildly stood out to me.
https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt4b099fa9cc3801a6/blt4dbc6b406f29144a/695444eab2ca1a3d126d4bb0/Lockerbie-7.jpg
Holy shit, that does look way better than expected!
Similar was done in Amazon Prime’s Reacher season 3 by covering up the Audi’s DRLs so the car can pull up in the scene with ‘no lights on’. Tape job was terrible and the camera shot couldn’t have made it more obvious.
Reminded me that I remember seeing trailers for Wonder Woman 1984 and seeing post-88 facelift LTD Crown Victoria police cars in the background.
This could have been a logistics issue, but I think you’re overlooking the obvious.
Clearly this is the Coen brothers trolling car folks alert to every automotive detail, and in particular, YOU!
Aside from that, I’ve often suspected that cars that came with standard bulbs are often changed out with quartz lamps or something even brighter to get more dynamic night shots on film.
If they had used aluminum tape, even The Bishop probably would not have noticed. That is the fundamental flaw here, not that they used tape, but the wrong color tape.
I didn’t notice the headlights, but the full wheel covers (what cop car has those?) and the door-mounted passive seat belts jumped out at me.
Most of the LE Capieces in my area growing up had those fugly full wheel covers, even after they went to the Shamu bodies in 91. I distinctly remember telling a Lincoln County deputy that his hubcabs were ugly after it was clear that I was getting a ticket.