I was just thinking about how The Six Million Dollar Man didn’t have a car, which seems like a miss. Now, some of you, like The Bishop, may say Steve Austin drove a Mercedes 280 SL, which he in fact did. If I ever knew this, I forgot it. But the car wasn’t really a signature vehicle, not in the mode of something like Starsky’s boldly striped Gran Torino or the Ford Mustang II Cobra II that Jill Munroe (Farrah Fawcett, Mrs. Six Million Dollar Man) drove on Charlie’s Angels. Or, consider Jim Rockford’s Firebird Esprit, Magnum P.I.’s Ferrari 308 GTS, or Columbo’s 1959 Peugeot 403 – which I like to imagine was loaded with gadgets à la James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5. “Oh, just one more thing…” (activates ejector seat).
Anyway, back to Steve Austin (the cyborg, not the wrestler). I think it would have been fun if Oscar just issued a Schwinn Continental to Steve as his official OSI transportation. With his bionic legs good for 60 mph running, I gotta believe Steve could effortlessly maintain highway speeds on a bicycle.
BUT, he wouldn’t be able to easily carry a passenger or spare D batteries or Bigfoot repellent or whatever, so I guess a car would be best. Shades of Farrah’s ride, I think a Mustang, a full-size Mustang, would suit him well – see topshot. Steve was stylish enough to pull off a salmon leisure suit, so I think the flashy Mach 1 would suit him well
What about the Golden Girls, whom you may recall from The Golden Girls? Once again, The Bishop tried to bring me down.
Thank you, Stephen Walter Gossin, for the clap.
You take it from here, The Ask has been made!
What TV And Movie Characters Deserved Signature Cars But Didn’t Get Them, And What Should They Have Been?
Top graphic images: Ford; Universal Television
70s Sesame Street:
Bert – Pinto
Ernie – Pacer
Oscar – D100
Kermit – Citroen DS
Big Bird – VW Bus
Animal – Pantera
Miss Piggy – Eldorado Convertible
The Count – Continental Mark IV
French Chef – 2CV
Add some more… What about the humans?
I dunno who French Chef is, but The Swedish Chef obviously deserved a P1800 ES.
Volvo winner!
(I mixed up SNL’s French Chef..)
Wait ’till YeahNo finds out that there was a French Chef on PBS as well!
I see him as more of a Saab guy, a 99GL Combi Coupe. The front wheel drive helps when making pancakes (which he does by – ga put da cake inna da pan, ga putta notha pan ga top, ga met da bil – here he drives over the cake – pancake!)
Those are… Perfect. (Except for the chef, as discussed)
Animal, Piggy and the Swedish Chef were never Sesame Street characters. By the same token: Ernie, Bert, Oscar, Big Bird and The Count were not Muppet Show characters.
There might have been an isolated crossover featuring a cameo of Big Bird, I’m not sure. But they kept those two settings very separate from each other. The only consistent crossover was Kermit.
BTW it’s canon for Fozzie Bear to have a Studebaker.
The Sesame gang showed up in the Muppets Take Manhattan during the wedding scene, and of course the big 3-way crossover with The Fraggles on Muppet Family Christmas.
The Swedish Chef hunting Big Bird for dinner was a hilarious concept.
It has been a looooooong time since MTM; I don’t remember a single thing about it. And I never saw Muppet Family Christmas, so I’ll just have to take your word for it.
Indeed. Fozzie drove a 1951 Studebaker Commander.
Animal, Miss Piggy, and the SWEDISH Chef were on the Muppet Show proper, not Sesame Street. Kermit only did occasional segments as a reporter, he was never main cast.
As a rule, the Sesame Street characters could appear with the Muppets, but almost never the other way around. Henson considered them more “adult” characters, probably a little too edgy for Children’s Television Workshop’s 3-5 audience.
Sam the Eagle; AMC Matador sedan in light blue, with full wheelcovers and whitewalls as the only touches making us certain it’s not a government-fleet car.
And/or a red, white & blue Concord – definitely AMC, whitewalls, and wheelcovers.
Later in his career, he soared into a wood paneled AMC Eagle.
Outdoorsy, and very “on the beak”.
Later in the series when DS parts are getting hard to find, Kermit buys a new F41-equipped ’78 or ’79 Chevy Malibu 4-door. First day he owns it, Animal “fixes” the non-opening rear door window by smashing his head through it.
In green. After he passed on a used Beetle.
Oh, all his cars were green. The DS would be bright green, the Malibu would be two-tone light and dark metallic green with a green interior.
Alfred Pennyworth(1966) should drive an XKE convertible.
George Jetson would look at home in a Suzuki X-90.
All in the Family was the classic “if it wasn’t NYC this is the cars they’d have” for me.
Archie Bunker: 1968 Plymouth Fury sedan (and he actually did own a LaSalle, in the ’50s when it was already an old heap).
Mike and Gloria Stivic: 1965 VW Beetle, later replaced by a 1977 Datsun B210.
George Jefferson: 1976 Cadillac Sedan de Ville, triple black, for part of one episode before replacing it with a baby-blue Coupe de Ville with white vinyl top and white leather interior. The plot would involve him being mistaken for a chauffeur.
Archie would buy a Fury just for the name alone.
Now when Sherman Hemsley played Deacon Frye on ‘Amen’ he drove a Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency.
In real life, Jean Stapleton drove a Plymouth Duster!
I think Jim Rockford’s Firebird Esprit should have been an Estwing™ edition.
Steve Austin drove a 450SLC, not an SL.
From Moonlighting:
Maddie Hayes – Cybil Sheppard BMW 325i convertible
David Addison Jr – Bruce Willis would rock a 1984 Hurst Olds in black
Agnes DePesto – Allyce Beasley gets a Toyota Tercel
David had 2 company Porsches.
Wow!
And IIRC Maddie drove a 635csi?
Nice!
It was never seen, but my favorite actual TV car is from Maude: she had a ’69 Corvair, which she very darkly referred to in the landmark two-parter “Maude’s Dilemma” (the abortion episode).
Carol Traynor: [Maude is scribbling on a piece of paper] Mother, what are you doing?
Maude Findlay: I’m just figuring how many yards of tubing it’ll take from the exhaust pipe to the rear window on a ’69 Corvair.
It’s one of the most underrated Norman Leer shows. The abortion episode is famous, but the one when Walter tries to kill himself is just as dark for a sitcom of any era, much less the 70s.
Dirk Diggler in a 1972 Lincoln Continental MARK IV. It’s…long
He did have a ‘little red Corvette’
Cannon actually drove a succession of Silver Blue w/ Black vinyl roof Lincoln Marks – first a 1971 Mark III, then Mark IVs.
Big Coupes for a Big Man
Big is an understatement.
https://youtu.be/M5m_POWXntg?si=_q3GJNIEgo9YK4VF
Snake in Cannon’s Lincoln: “I want you to get it out of there before it learns to drive!”
The $6 million man, Steve Austin did have a car. It was a baby blue Mercedes SL.
And then when he retired from the Air Force and OSI he got a job as a stunt man/bounty hunter and drove a rad GMC. He also stopped using his bionics as much
At least a 10 year old me saw it that way
If I recall correctly his truck on The Fall Guy was a Ford.
As he was no longer a US Government employee/Federal asset, they bricked his implants.
I keep seeing Steve Austin mentioned and am like, “but at one point he had a monster truck…”
Apparently wrong Steve Austin.
Teeter in Yellowstone. Her signature vehicle would be a red and rust, clapped out ‘89 Dodge Dakota convertible with no bumpers or tailgate.
Accurate
And a vanity license plate expressing her signature philosophy: H4Q 7FJ3
I know at least a few someones are going to try to figure out what that means. It’s supposed to be a random issue plate that reads as jibberish, sort of like how Teeter sounded to everyone else….
Elaine Benes, clearly a Volkswagen Cabriolet
Kramer had a Fox body LTD, then a ’73 or so Caprice. George would have had a K car.
George did have a K car. He bought John Voight’s ’83 Lebaron.
Really, any car would work for him so long as it had the “Assman” plates.
I can’t scroll 2 inches without the become a member popping up and since I don’t get the advantage of full membership I only join about 6 months a year. But then the whole bottom screen is taken up with other ads that if you hit the x it opens the window and takes you to the advertising page. And once you deal with that it brings up a new ad you can’t close. This has literally become the worst site I have ever been on. Sorry I’m not going to be forced to become a member by terrible page especially when it takes 2 to 3 days to get my comments approved
I’ve noticed the same thing, when you press the X, it actually opens the ad. And sometimes the Autopian ad on the top and the bottom ad take up 90% of the screen. I wish I was in a position to join, and I understand the site needs to pay the bills and advertising very important, but I’m never going to shop at that advertiser if their ad is blocking the content so the advertisers might be wasting their money?
And I really really enjoy this site. It absolutely has the best writers on the Internet.
The one that most recently stuck out to me was Landman the daughter avery doesn’t have a car despite having a multi millionaire step father a mother who is who loaded and a father who has a lot of cash around. On top of living in texas and being a cheerleader. I think it would be sort of funny if they gave her a convertible new beetle or an older Audi tt. Logically it would be some Audi lease machine like a Q5. It could be a mini. Could also be funny if the step father had given her a Tesla or bolt.
That struck me in Stranger Things as well, if Ted Wheeler canonically makes a 6-figure salary in the early/mid ’80s, surely he could’ve swung a strippo Chevette Scooter for Nancy so she wouldn’t have to catch rides in Jonathan Byers’ ’71 Ford for her newspaper job?
Though he was written out, I like to think Apu on the Simpsons still owns that red ’79 Firebird.
Don Draper in a fully trimmed out Cadillac.
Don started out in a 1959 Buick Convertible which somehow morphed into a 1961 Dodge Polara sedan for the Season 1 car wreck with his mistress.
He then was persuaded by Roger to get a Cadillac – which he did: a blue and while 1962 Coupe de Ville, which he later traded for a silver 1965 Coupe de Ville w/ a red interior.
Poor Betty. She had a 1957 yellow and white Ford Country Sedan – then later a 1962 Mercury Colony Park. After her father died, she inherited his black 1961 Lincoln Continental.
My theory is he also wrecked the Buick ragtop driving drunk, hence the pivot to a Dodge post sedan which was safer by the standards of the day, a model favored by many states’ troopers. Much later in the run Betty’s seen driving another Ford wagon, a red ’68 Country Squire.
At the time though weren’t station wagons pretty trendy, like when SUV’s had their heyday in the early 2000’s?
Station Wagons were the SUVs of their day.
(Minus the 4WD, multiple screens and cupholders)
The Simpsons: Homer seems to have some older ’80s Cadillac sedan, Marge seems to drive an even older ’60s Falcon wagon.
Homer has a 1986 Plymouth Junkerola (Tho it’s probably really a 1970’s Valiant)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/a24744/homer-simpsons-car/
Marge’s wagon is a 1973 Chevy Chevelle.
https://supercarblondie.com/marge-simpson-car-based-on-american-icon-chevrolet-chevelle/
Wow. Keep in mind, I was a teen when it first aired.
Me too. At this point, I enjoy telling people, yeah, I’ve been watching that show since before you were born.
I was in the USAF when it first aired.
The guys in my unit called me “Bart”
Canyonerooooooo!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
Unexplained fires are for the courts to decide.
Steve Austin clearly drove a 1974 450SL – https://www.imcdb.org/v310116.html
…as did Wonder Woman, Bobby Ewing, etc.
Golden Girls:
Dorothy was a divorced school teacher – The Calais was probably the best she could do.
Sophia never drove a car in her life. She took the bus.
Rose was a widow who didn’t have a lot of money either – but being from St Olaf, I’m sure a sensible Fox-body Ford LTD would have been her choice.
Blanche – Well, she was a widow too, and she sure had a lot of male friends with money, didn’t she?
She gets a 450SL.
Designing Women:
Julia Sugarbaker – She definitely has a Lincoln Towncar.
Mary Jo Shiveley – She’s divorced and a single mother. She probably has a Ford Taurus GL Wagon.
Charlene Frazier – She was raised a strict Baptist, was one of 13 children, always dates the wrong guy, and reads the National Enquirer. She definitely has a Pontiac Grand Am with a dealer-installed aftermarket landau roof.
Anthony Bouvier is a wrongly-convicted, formerly incarcerated person who is working to better his life. He drives a base Mazda 323.
Suzanne Sugerbaker – The former beauty queen who has had a chain of successful husbands and boyfriends (Except for Dash – the only poor man she ever kissed) often refers to her “Mercedes convertible” – a 380SL, which she drives with her pet pig in the passenger seat. But late in Season 5/1991 she trades it in for a Cadillac (probably a red Coupe de Ville w/ a Landau Roof)
Wow how about the girls from Sugarbakers? Certainly an old ladies vibe here.
Mary Jo’s car was shown once toward the end of the show’s run, and I’m pretty sure it was in fact a Taurus wagon at that point. In an earlier season, there was an episode with a thread about her car being held hostage by a shady mechanic, and though the car was never seen, the ladies went to liberate it with a chant of “FREE THE SHIVELEY VOLVO!”, so I imagine it was a 240 of some kind.
I had the feeling there was a Volvo involved there somewhere – Thank you.
The episode that the Calais pulls into the driveway on Richmond Ave depicts Rose coming in with car keys in hand…so it’s most likely hers, which tracks for a midwestern girl.
True — but there had to be some bizarre circumstances surrounding how she got it. Like the local car dealership held a raffle to support the St. Olaf Community Theater’s production of “Hey, That’s My Tractor,” and she won second prize which was a half bushel basket of turnips from Mr Clemson’s garden, but when Rose learned that BOTH of her tickets were winners… well, she put that basket of turnips in the trunk, drove right home, and baked the whole cast of “Hey, That’s My Tractor” her famous Turnip Custard Pie — enough for everyone to have seconds, which they did. The next issue of the St. Olaf Gazette made several mentions of the distracting tuba solos during the matinee. Dorothy said, “Rose, you didn’t mention that this was a musical.” Rose replied, “It wasn’t. Funny thing though, it turns out that turnips are quite the rival to beans when it comes to the most musical of fruits.”
Sophia enters the kitchen: “Hey, What’s that smell?”
Wonder Woman should have driven a 1935 500K Spezial-Roadster kind of ironically since it was a German pre-WWII car.
But she drove a pale blue 450SL.
Some seasons, the first one maybe, it took place in World War II and other seasons took place in modern times. I was too young to remember how the switch happened. I do remember other things.(Plural, things, if you know what I mean) about the show
Lt. Martin Castillo, Metro-Dade PD.
Edward James Olmos masterfully played him as this intense, taciturn boss who never smiled, barely acknowledged others, and was a professional all the freakin’ time. Why he didn’t have a blacked-out Dodge Diplomat to arrive at the scene and end Crockett’s complaining and/or hot dogging with a steely stare is beyond me.
Edit – works for the movie too, just Barry Shabaka Henley and a Ford Crown Vic.
Men In Black spec Vicky.
I would love a final scene where Castillo shows up in a Spinner dressed as Gaff.
I think it would have been fun if Oscar just issued a Schwinn Continental to Steve as his official OSI transportation. With his bionic legs good for 60 mph running, I gotta believe Steve could effortlessly maintain highway speeds on a bicycle.
Make it a Masi Gran Criterium and even pre-cyborg Steve could have hit freeway speeds with just his regular legs as long as he had a friendly trucker to draft:
https://vimeo.com/50872582
Likely the chain would have broke.
I’m thinking the stock Regina chain wouldn’t have broke, but the Regina freewheel would have left him spinning and going nowhere like a pet hamster on coke. Probably replaced with a Suntour for the movie.
If anything was going to break it would have been Steve’s decidedly non bionic lower back with all that heavy lifting.
Great reference! I suppose Steve’d have to ride after he returned his ‘Vette for a “REFUND?! REFUND!?” I can see him in a Chevelle with a roof rack tho. Too bad Dennis Quaid went so far off the rails, it’s hard for me to watch anything with him in it now.
That scene is surprisingly realistic, as far as the cadence required to go 60 mph in the big ring and small cog. And for sure, you gotta have that draft–and the quads
Cheers: Sam had a Fox-body Mustang, Norm owned an A-body Cutlass, Cliff had a Chevette, Woody a Beetle. Diane had an MG, Rebecca a Mercedes gifted by a boyfriend, and Carla ONLY drove Cadillac. Frasier was BMW. Coach probably had some old Ford Fairlane.
Wasn’t Sam a Corvette man?
At that point, Fraiser would have either had a Volvo or a Saab.
I thought Corvette for Sam originally, but the bar was always struggling. A Mustang seemed a good mid-point. I see Fraiser in those cars too, but let’s be honest. He is a BMW or Mercedes man.
Frazier was a conservative, educated man.
A sensible E320 sedan would have been his choice.
If you watch Frazier he was BMW maybe Lilith drove the Saab or Volvo
Then clearly an E34 5 Series – probably a 525i Automatic.
But same clearly owned a Corvette mentioned in the show. Probably an older model left over from his baseball days
Yes! It was a quad headlight, second gen.
Sam’s Corvette was cannon. There was at least one episode about it. I think it’s a little on the nose, but.
Oops, canon.
That’s logical. Something weird happened with Corvette guys in the mid 80s. That I’m not sure many people noticed and isn’t really talked about. I would imagine Sam would be part of it. My uncle was a big Corvette guy he had a lot of other Corvette guy friends. They all were doing decently well most had their own businesses and at least semi self mad. They just didn’t like the c4 for whatever reason and slowly all went from c3 to fox body mustangs normally gt or lx 5.0 convertibles.
At the same time some of my dads stranger engineer friends went to c4 and turned into the c4 boomers. While there was less military with Corvettes more with mustangs. It was also a big era or the grey market euro spec mercs and bmw from European assignments. Pilots went from c3 Corvette to sporty bmws.
There was an episode where he sold his beloved Corvette and replaced it with a tan Plymouth Volare.
Saab with a newfangled CD player
“Oh, for God’s sake, Lilith! Sell Sam his Corvette back!”-Fraiser Crane.
Thanks – I was but a child when these originally aired.
He was recovering from hard financial times.
Rebecca-Congratulations Sam. I hear you bought a Ferrari.
Sam-No, it’s a …Volare.
Sam was 100% Corvette
Frasier was wonderfully consistent with his cars, both on Cheers and Frasier—every three years or so, he got a new BMW sedan, which suggests they were leased. On Cheers he was shown to have an E32 7-series. At the beginning of Frasier, after his divorce from Lilith, he had downsized to an E34 5-series. When the E39 came out, he got a new 540i, which got upgraded to the facelift model when those came out. At the tail end of Frasier’s run, he was back in a 7-series—unfortunately, a then-new E65 745i.
There was also once a joke in which it was revealed that Frasier’s favorite color is “Artic Silver. It’s available on all the big BMWs.”
In a perfect bit of car/character casting, Niles always had the Mercedes equivalent (more or less) to Frasier’s BMW, going from a W124 E320 into a W210 E55 AMG.
In one episode of Frazier he complained bitterly about being given a hatchback as a rental car, which I’m picturing as a ’91-96 era Ford Escort LX 5-door in that slightly purplish strawberry-soda metallic red.
There was also the one in which he mentioned that he was taking the car in to have the “pollen filter” replaced as it had been six months. Niles replied, “You went SIX MONTHS without replacing your pollen filter?!”
I remember an episode where Niles’s plumber makes a comment about Nile’s Mercedes, and he’s shocked to find that his plumber had owned one. “I miss that car.” (Niles has a look like, “Yeah, you couldn’t’ afford it…”, but the plumber continues with, “But the kids grew up and I had to move to a big Benz.
Niles, with envy: “YOU have a BIG BENZ??!”
Norm had an early Honda Civic hatchback that was depicted on location in Boston.
Sam had a C2 Corvette convertible.
Fun Fact: The episode where the Corvette was on was sourced from Corvette City in NH. My brother was a salesman there at that time and made the deal for the use of the car. The owner drove the car to Boston for filming.
My sister used to hand-paint the windshields and windows at the dealership on occasion with sales information, and stuff like that, and that car had a big Cheers! logo painted on the windshield it when it was in the showroom.
In today time, the six million dollar man needs a six million dollar car.
Lamborghini Veneno Roadster.
And he can mount Wonder Woman’s invisible jet on the engine cover.
Six million doesn’t go as far as it used to.
$6M is barely the copay for all the bionic surgeries, assuming OSI is in network and he’s met all his deductibles.
All the Six-Million-Dollar man had done was a hip replacement in 2026
And a few OTA software updates
Actually, it was a 450SL and not a 280 in some episodes, but also a Corvette for Steve Austin.
Bionic Woman was always an S30Z; usually a 280 with those funny hubcaps
But where would she put Max the $1 Million Bionic Dog in that thing?
https://youtu.be/21edBCXLk6M?si=xELyEu9CC3gJbonT
Whoops, answered my own question.
https://youtu.be/8byknztSnYE?si=1km8lUEpY9VfeFyA
First – appreciate the Schwinn Continental reference, my first job was at a Schwinn dealer in the mid 80’s but they still had NOS in the box from ’82.
In the Nancy Drew books she drove an unidentified blue roadster – I think Dana Scully should have had something similar – like the not-Porche 356 Speedster kit car Harry Hamlin drove in the movie “King of the Hill”
That was a great cult classic.
Cult classic being Nancy Drew or X-Files or King of the Hill?
Nothing like watching Dennis Hopper really stretch his skills as “acting” wasted. I do also like his ‘Vette that looks like Mark Hamill’s car after the chop shop got their hands on it.
King of the Hill.
You’re not wrong about the Corvette either
The X-Files actually did a really good job car-casting the various vanilla Detroit 3 sedans Mulder and Scully showed up in. A good mix of Ford, GM and Mopar, mostly models on the back half of their product cycle. Basically what would actually have been in the GSA motor pool fleet.
The dual temptations of giving them a distinctive, toyetic X-mobile or making a product placement deal were avoided.
Yeah I always associate their FBI cars / rentals with a Taurus or Crown Vic, I was thinking about when Scully let her hair down for a drive in the country in her own car, only to have Mulder call her on the brick phone
“Get the next flight out of DC and meet me in Lansing, there’s been several disappearances linked to the mythical Owashtanong Shirokinukatsukami”
“I’ll meet you there” followed by the road trip montage of red hair and blue roadster and some awkward moment at a gas station with Luke Wilson.
I can see Frazier Crane tooling about in an E-class Mercedes, maybe an AMG. We all know Seinfeld preferred Saab.
I see Rosanne as driving an early ’80s Malibu sedan. Her husband may have had a slightly older Ford or GM pickup. Al Bundy had his Dodge Dart.
Tell me Newman wouldn’t have had a Gremlin.
Newman doesn’t have a car – he rides the subway and the bus.
That was after he “borrowed” the mail truck for a bottle deposit run and sold it to Torch?
Dan Connors had a worknvan
Dan Conner you mean? He had a squarebody Chevy with a service-truck body in the original series and a mid-2000s F150 with the regular pickup bed in the revival.