I try not to think too much about moviemaking when I watch a movie, because I’ll very quickly take myself out of the movie once my mind starts wandering to VFX (“I bet that’s a sky replacement”) or the set decoration (“Was that Van Halen poster for sale in 1978?”) or the props (“She’s running with a hammer in her hand, so it’s probably rubber”) and so on. I’m particularly susceptible (as I’m sure you are) to cars in movies.
If it’s a period piece and the car did not actually go on sale until significantly later than the movie’s timeline, that’s a red alert. Or, if the car is way too nice/expensive for the character in question – see Mare of Easttown – then I’m out of the movie. See also: weird details, such as otherwise well-cast 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup in the miniseries Candy, which is appropriately fresh-looking (the events are set in 1980), but it’s lowered to near hella-flush status and wearing what appears to be a set of Ronal Turbo wheels. All I could think about when I saw it was the wheels and stance were either a big car-casting miss, or the milquetoast character who drives the thing had some secret car-guy life that was to be revealed in a later episode. “Chekhov’s Ronal Turbos,” if you will.
When done well, the car-casting choices just feel right. Consider the wonderful choices made for Widow’s Bay, which Jason extols here, and you can listen to Torch talk car-casting with the actual car-casters here. Most recently for me, I hit the recliners at my local Cinemark to take in The End of Oak Street, which I highly recommend as a thrilling film full of surprises and fun, and a far better “Spielberg movie” than actual Steven Spielberg’s last outing (Disclosure Day), which was firmly meh. Where was I? Right, the car casting. Along with the 1973 Dodge Coronet in the topshot, the just-scraping-by Platt family owns a much newer Dodge Omni (or maybe it’s a Plymouth Horizon, same diff) which seems like exactly the sort of car a family might purchase in circa 1982 while still keeping a nearly ten-year-old heap going for frugality’s sake.
How about you – seen any cars on the small or silver screen that made you think “that’s just the right car for that character”? Or maybe the opposite? See you in the comments.
Top graphic image: Bad Robot/Warner Bros.
“Argentina 1985”. Mr. Julio César Strassera, the prosecutor who jailed the Argentine dictators in 1985, drives an early ’70s Peugeot 504. The wide terracotta velour seats without headrests suggest a 504 E (post-1972) or a 504 XSE (post-1973). We don´t get to see more of the car to obtain more details. Very appropriate for a mid to high-ranking court officer, since at that time their salaries were firmly in the middle-class bracket. Current salaries of said officers have increased to the high-class realm, effectively gentrifying the Argentine judiciary, but I digress.
In part of the movie Mr. Strassera is being driven to a meeting with President Alfonsín by Mr. Ormiga, an intelligence service agent tasked with his protection. Ormiga drives a late ‘70s Ford Taunus, a sort of civilized alternative to the Ford Falcons that were vastly used by security forces of all kinds in Argentina. The “small Ford” can be a wink to the brand that provided the automotive symbol of state terror, while keeping a fading bourgeoise whiff and an amiable and subtly elegant undertone.
We see, obviously, a number of Ford Falcons on screen. The most spectacular of such appearances takes place when one is blown away in front of the Pink House, the seat of the Argentine government. It seems to be a basic Standard version built somewhere between 1973 and 1978, recognizable by the “squircle” tail lamps, the thin metallic protective strap (more expensive versions had a wider one that continued at the rear panel between the tail lamps) and the “Falcon” emblem on the rear quarter panel (taxi versions lacked those ornaments).
There is an issue with taxis, though. There is a Falcon portrayed, a model with the redesign of 1982 but with integral “Scorpio” hubcaps that only became available in 1987 on Ford Sierras and only later on, on Falcons. It is not unusual to find a newish car serving as a taxi, especially one built for public service, which points to the second inconsistency: there is also a Ford Sierra used as a taxi. It is highly improbable that a Sierra, launched in Argentina in 1984, served as a taxi in 1985. It was a high-class car, one of the most expensive in the local market, and it was too sophisticated for traditionally conservative taxi drivers.
On an unusual departure from that usual trope, Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo (Mr. Strassera’s deputy) is followed eerily by some military riding on an early ‘80s Torino. It is, again, a reasonable choice as the personal use vehicle for a high-ranking official attending a private event like the one Mr. Moreno Ocampo just left: the last remnants of a formerly powerful nation, now conspicuously outdated and outclassed. Similarly, military commanders use a green Dodge Coronado to deliver documents to the court, an obsolete display of wealth and power.
Umbrella Academy – One of the default cars was an older Toyota Century. Nice choice.
Bad choices abound – Usually the car is to expensive for the hero or just doesn’t fit. The best example I have is from years ago – Nash Bridges. The Barracuda he drove was made in very low numbers (under 100 for that particular option set) and he drove it like a police car.
I recently watched One Battle After Another, and the casting was *mostly* decent, but the one incredibly aggravating choice was that they used the EXACT SAME 2020 era Charger Police Interceptor in white in two different time periods in the movie. Leo’s daughter is supposed to be around 18 in present day (2025) during the main part of the movie and they used the same exact car before she was born. I get that that generation of challenger was a bit long in the tooth when it went away but it genuinely broke my sense of time at the beginning of the movie. The S197 GT500 for the car chase near the end was an excellent choice and an amazing scene.
#1 of all time: “My Name is Earl” and their El Camino.
Also tied for #1: “King of the Hill” where Kahn trades in his Universal Japanese Sedan for an El Camino when he has a meltdown and decides to just give up and become a “redneck.” As he told the boys:
“I know what you’re thinking: Why not an IROC? Why not a Z car? But like Elvin points out, those are just cars. A Camino is a way of life…”
There is only one notable car in Only Murders In the Building and the Peugeot 504 is perfect for the Oliver Putnam character. The Cali license plate ” APHRODIT3″ seems to have too many characters though.
Dark Winds’ cars rarely miss.
I like the 90s Ford Bronco in Longmire, another series with Zahn McClarnon.
Chuck Lorre and Taylor Sheridan shows always seem have good car casting. Not only initially but over time and integration into to the story lines.
All the big bang universe of shows they really nailed the cars. I can’t think of a single one that felt wrong. Most there is no better option.
When Georgie traded his mustang that was very him for that Buick century that really worked for the story and seemed right. Before that penny with the Jetta with all the light on very Nebraska in LA. Then Volvo driving lenard gets her a Taurus just works.
Landman has great car casting just missing a car for a character. When they pulled that Kia Rio out for the sons wife I was shocked how well that worked. All the rest of his shows it’s all good choices.
Wait. Didn’t Leonard have a Saab 9-5? Full disclosure: maybe Leonard had a Volvo before the Saab. I can’t say for sure.
Maybe both? They normally only showed the interior. At one point he got a new car maybe 3. I’m pretty sure he had an s40 for a while.
”The Americans” found every 80’s GM four-door that’s still presentable, but their peak was the mid-life crisis IROC. Perfect.
The overall car casting in that series was absolutely outstanding.
I really liked Steven Spielberg’s *Jurassic Park*, but I think it’s become overrated lately. So I think Jurassic Park did a good car casting.
Hogan’s Hero’s had some great cars. Sometimes the German staff car (a mercedes, of course) is left hand drive, sometimes right hand drive. The Germans often use Citroen H vans as surveillance vans/radio locator vans, etc. Funny though, I don’t recall any VWs in the show.
If we’re reaching back that far, Charlie’s Angels leaned into the product-placement aspect of all the main characters driving current-year Fords by making them company cars in-show, if unusually heavily-optioned ones.
Like the character, nobody appreciated Bosley’s T-bird.
I guess I missed the “recent” part of the question.
They also used a random assortment of American trucks and motorcycles, pretty sure CBS Productions shared some vehicles back and forth between Hogan’s Heroes and M*A*S*H (as well as with the Nazi Planet episode of Star Trek).
And some prewar American and British cars, which, I guess, technically wasn’t that anachronistic, since they could have still been imported into Germany before the war
I like the cars in Sugar, Magic City, French Connection, Clockwork Orange, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, Gomorrah and way to many others.
John Sugar’s ’66 Vette is perfect casting for sure. It’s not only a handsome car for a handsome guy like Colin Farrell, but it’s also a fantastic callback to the Corvette Mike Hammer drove in the old show, further heightening the meta-noir character that defines the series.
Among the many reasons to watch The Studio (amazing architecture, funny AF), the cars in it are great. Chase Sui Wonders’s character has a Mini convertible that suits her perfectly, Ike Barinholtz has a yellow 911 cabrio that’s a perfect fit for the scene in which he goes to Musso & Frank’s with his daughters (one of whom demonstrates the impracticality of the back seat, perched up high like a parade dignitary), a Checker cab does stunts in an imaginary Ron Howard movie, there’s an Apollo 5000 GT that I saw just enough of to keep pausing in befuddlement (E Type? Ferrari?), and Seth Rogen’s main character has a rotating cast of cool rides from a 356 Speedster to a Studebaker Lark convertible (LA = ragtops), a lovely brown MG B that gets a ton of screen time, and an Alfa Spider that he might embarrassingly call a Fiat (maybe he has one we haven’t seen yet?) while hanging out with doctors in a scene that’s spot-on in matching my experience with doctor friends… they know a lot about their jobs and have very little mental real estate left for matters of less importance, which is a sign of how seriously they take their jobs.
It’s not recent (almost 30 years old at this point), but Max’s Caddy, Melanie’s VW Bus and Ordell’s Merc were perfect in Jackie Brown.
And the selection of cars in the mall parking lot is amazing.
Loooouuuisssss, did you just shoot me in front of a Chrysler Laser and next to a yellow 924?
https://youtu.be/bXy8AgE7jBo?is=4unXFWnzf0YwSmy-
I was really impressed with the cars on The Grand Tour, especially in the destination episodes.
Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul. In one episode one of the characters mistook a Mercury Sable wagon for a Ford Taurus and I thought it was the typical Hollywood trick of substituting a similar vehicle, but no, it turned out the confusion between a Sable and Taurus was actually a plot point in the episode!
Breaking bad was one of the best car casting shows of all time. Every choice was not just right on, but was entertaining to car people. You could tell they spent some time on it and that they were car guys. You absolutely know that while they were having discussions about what car each character would drive, they had wry little smiles when they settled on each one. There was definitely a sense of humor behind many of the choices. Don’t know if it was Vince Gilligan or others involved, but the cars were just as much part of the characters as the characters themselves.
The only issue I had with Better Call Saul was that it starts in 2002, and his Esteem would have been a virtually brand new car, since they were still being sold new for the 2002 model year. I accept that he skimped on maintenance and beat on it a lot, but all the squeaks and rattles, groaning suspension, creaky doors, and belching smoke just seemed a bit much to be believable. I think they wanted to show him with a broken down econobox and chose the Suzuki because of the joke of the name Esteem, but a Ford Aspire would have allowed for the same humor and been more credible as a junker in the early 2000s
The thing about Breaking Bad is they were able to keep the year of the story kind of amorphous. Between the flip phones, the model years of cars used, and any other hints that fans tried to use to pinpoint the timeline, there were enough subtle contradictions that, while not distracting from the story, made it impossible to apply an exact year to any of it, which I think was done on purpose, and I was more than happy to just go with it and not obsess over it. Honestly, I’m not sure if Better Call Saul ever had a more definitive timeline.
No, there actually is a very definate, carefully considered timeline for both shows, the events of Breaking Bad all occur between September 2008 and September 2010, Better Call Saul plays out between May 2002 and February 2005, the sequel movie El Camino is June-later in September 2010, any apparent inconsistencies are either unintentional continuity errors on the part of the production team, or the result of product placement requirements imposed from higher up (Chrysler Group insisted on using the real world current year 300 and Challenger, instead of subbing the slightly older models that made sense, and they were the ones paying, so)
Car discussion is in the comment tracks.
Network tv still has some tricks up its sleeve…ABC’s RJ Decker is quite watchable.
Ala the apocryphal Miami Vice lore, it’s like the pitch for the show was a cocktail napkin with “Florida Man PI” written on it.
So of course he drives a scruffy but solid early 80s/AMC era Jeep Wagoneer. It’s perfect.
I like Emilia Ochoa’s Porsche in that show as well. And it is an entertaining show to watch. Hyundais seem to permeate NCIS: Sydney and I guess that’s correct since Ford Australia and Holden are no more.
The main character’s family replacing their big-bumper Ford Maverick sedan with the radio station’s old ’78 or ’79 Bronco in Son of a Critch. Overall I’d give it a 7 or 8 out of 10 for car-casting, but part of that would be an allowance for actually having been filmed where it’s set in Newfoundland where the pool of ’80s and older cars is limited. If an LA-based show did some of the things they did it’d be a 5.
Lodge 49- Dud’s VW Thing and Ernie’s Cadillac Seville were perfectly cast for their characters.
Bosch-in the books Harry Bosch drives a Mercedes, but as played in the show he’s exactly the kind of guy who has an old XJ Cherokee on aftermarket wheels.
Get Shorty-Harry Zim’s beat up blue plate Mercedes convertible is exactly the kind of car that a guy who was once making money and now isn’t would still be driving.
Good calls on Lodge 49 and Bosch. And the van with the religious mural on the side in Lodge 49 actually made me write a fan letter.
In the books Bosch starts driving the old XJ after investigating the death of an old colleague. If I remember correctly, he didn’t really feel comfortable driving the Mercedes. In fact, the first XJ gets totaled and he ends up finding another.
I probably should finish reading the series!
Not recent movie, but “I comme Icare” with Yves Montand suddenly popped on YT, and aside from all the US luxobarges used in it (it depicts a fictional country where people speak French but are likely US-ish), there’s a Citroen CX Tissier Ambulance which is absolutely out of this world.
Dark Winds has a great selection of ’50s-’70s period vehicles that feel reasonably appropriate to the characters and setting. ( And it’s a great show even without the old American metal. )
My only quibble is a mildly lifted Suburban driven by one of the main characters that is fitting but seems a little anachronistic, did suspension lifts even exist in the mid ’70s?? And I doubt a cop would drive such a thing. Also because of the lift it’s easy to tell it has modern tires on it. But I kind of doubt anyone but car nerds will notice this and I can overlook it because I thought the rest of it felt pretty realistic.
Great show. Mostly filmed in New Mexico near Santa Fe and at a native-owned studio on a reservation. During filming, the whole car cast is out in the parking lot.
I make the same observation- but the lift is only season 1. There were lifted trucks back then though!
The rest of the casting is great though- the El Camino, the fact that the rest of the PD using a smattering of sedans that are a few years old since they dont have a ton of money, the old trucks.
And of course FBI Agent Seven of Nine in a newish stripper Fury.
Yeh the el camino was a great casting for Chee.
The lift on the Suburban threw me as well, but there are many beautiful period cars on that show.
Yeh I was happy to overlook it and the suburban was a great casting if it hadn’t been lifted.
all the vince gilligan shows have interesting but usually overlooked cars.
I started racking my brain trying to think of that TV series in which the kid had a pristine ’70s Bronco, but of course that is your link to Mare! I kept waiting for the story to explain the car, like it was inherited from a favorite uncle and the kid just couldn’t bear to sell it. It took me quite a long time to realize they just screwed up. A ratty 1990s full size, or Bronco II, would have been an easy substitute.
I figured that the description was something like “old truck” and whoever was in charge of it looked through the available cars and picked it because it was suitably old.
Guy Pearce’s Jaaaag was perfectly cast, however.
That’s a coincidence as I just saw Christopher Nolans “Momento” the other day (live with the drummer from King Gizzard playing the score) and Guy Pearce’s Jaaaag was great in that as well!
I had the same thought when I saw that. They were trying to play the Bronco off as a beater when it’s a valuable collectible now.
I know the Autopian had an article about Pluribus last year, but I just started watching the show this month. 78 Corolla, Chevy pickup with a bitchin’ hood mural, an MG, and Carol chooses both a state police cruiser AND a Rolls Royce as her personal vehicles. There’s also some kind of South American Toyota box truck that tries to help Manusos!
All of Vince Gilligan’s shows have excellent car choices. Breaking Bad is epic.
The GNX (or GN?) in Lanterns.
Agreed. It’s a good fit for the series’ version of Hal Jordan.
I always had an issue with Will Sharp’s perfectly restored classic Bronco worth six figures while he’s drowning in medical debt and takes on a heist to pay his bills. Maybe it was a loaner from his movie brother and the dialogue was cut because who else is going to clue in on that. I’m not usually that pedantic but that one stuck out to me.