Nostalgia is a Schedule I influence. Just look at the values of the cars we wanted when we were young, or the way “Back to the Future” heavily affected the DeLorean market. We all want to drive a piece of our childhoods, and if your childhood was the ’80s, guess what? You could be the next owner of an all-time cinema vehicle. We’re talking about a made-for-Hollywood car that perfectly satirized the bloat, excess, and inefficiency of Detroit’s most popular ’80s machines: The 6000 SUX from Robocop.
Yep, we’re looking at one of the most infamous fastbacks of all time, although it’s definitely seen better days. There appears to be a crack in the windshield, the paint is faded, and it’s picked up a few scuffs over the years. Thankfully, replacing the windshield shouldn’t be terribly hard because the middle section of this creation is actually fairly standard.
Underneath Gene Winfield’s coachwork sits a 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme as pictured below, the last model year before the downsized, controversial fastback appeared. This means it’s powered by some wheezy malaise-era motor, likely a 4.3-liter V8, although it should still be efficient enough to exceed the advertised 8.2 MPG.
What about technology? Leather seats, cruise control, and a Blaupunkt? Well, sort of. See, because this is really just a Cutlass, you probably only get one of the three. Obviously, this thing also predates Magnavolt, so you might want The Club because GM’s steering column is notoriously easy for thieves to smash in the pursuit of hotwiring. Still, as a showpiece, who cares?
Winfield built two complete cars and one shell for the film, with the shell being what Clarence Boddicker blew up with his Cobra Assault Cannon. One of the complete cars managed to make its way to Pop Central in France, a big museum full of movie cars and memorabilia, which is now auctioning off a bunch of cars to make way for even more cars.
What else is going under the hammer? How about the actual 1973 Chevelle Malibu from Drive, seen above? It’s up for grabs and expected to fetch between €60,000 and €80,000. That’s strong money, but justified considering the impact the film had. Or how about the Peugeot 406 V6 from Taxi 2? Okay, it’s a bit more niche in North America than the “Drive” Chevelle, but come on. Would.
Anyway, back to the American Tradition. Reckon you’d buy the 6000 SUX for a dollar? Well, you’re probably going to want to bring a fair few of them. Bonhams expects this thing to fetch between €30,000 and €50,000, or between roughly $34,716 and $57,860. That’s not terrible when you think about the provenance of this screen car, and it’s still somehow easier to look at than some actual new cars you can buy today. If you can’t make it to Paris, you can also bid online.
Top graphic images: Bonhams; Orion Pictures
Hey. I had a totally hot-wired Peugeot 504 after the key broke off in the cylinder but didn’t lock the steering wheel. An under-dash toggle switch for the ignition and a push to start button in the console.
I would still love to have that car today. Even, especially, in that state to remind me of how inventive I could be back then. Unfortunately, folded up to the rear wheels by a Plymouth station wagon.
The most underrated character of the movie.
https://youtu.be/iQj8pPO9XfI?si=W0BRTO3mIuBvuyAa
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, during the Civil War, there were 74 deaths from it on the Union side.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27035922/
https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2022/08/nostalgia-during-the-civil-war-a-perplexing-condition-among-soldiers/
Fascinating stuff!
My oldest memory of Robocop was of being super impressed at the futuristic police cars in the cartoon on Saturday morning. I really sold my dad on those cars when we watched the movie, but in the movie they just drove Tauruses. Letdown. Great film, though.
Red Foreman says, “If you buy this car, you’re a dumb-ass!”
Yeah but he hated any foreign cars.
Who wants a car model that sucks? (Sux)
Every single person who buys a Sport Utility Crossover.
Robocop is my favourite movie ever, right there with Gladiator, Godfather and (of course) Shawshank Redemption.
I saw this movie as a kid, way earlier than I should’ve been allowed, and it made a mark on my mind. No joke, the theme of Murphy still being Murphy after (and despite) all that suck with me. As someone who went through some serious crap in my life, sometimes it felt that the person emerging from it would be someone else, worse, less empathetic, more cynic – but we’re made of the stories we tell ourselves about us, and one of mine is Robocop. So, laugh all you want, but Murphy inspired me to hold on to my identity regardless of how much my life changed and how much life tried to beat me up.
Also, this story made me wear my scars with pride – not only on my body, mind you, but on my possessions. This is REALLY handy when it comes to accept dings, scratches and dents on my cars 🙂
Like and subscribe for the next episode where I’ll go on about how much Star Trek made me accept that sometimes we have to let things go, as long as we replace the with better versions with a letter after the NCC-1701 (true story).
I’d say that Robocop as positive inspiration is a lot less goofy than Godzilla (me).
I liked Robocop for similar reasons. I also probably saw it too young, but that was all my peers back then, too. I remember being pissed when my father brought us to see a movie called Princess’ Bride instead of whatever stupid slasher movie my friends were seeing. That was one of the few times my father was right.
My parents saw Princess Bride without us for some reason and afterward I couldn’t wait to see it based solely on his recollection of the scene with the ROUSes. Definitely one of the two greatest Rob Reiner/Christopher Guest team-ups.
It was brilliant. That dumb slasher movie? I can’t even remember which series it was. My father could have easily sold the movie if he had told me Andre the Giant was in it and that’s partly how I sold it to the other kids in class after and it soon became quoted all the time.
All these years later I’m still scratching my head at why Drive had the impact it did.
I’d never heard of it until just now… but to be fair, there were several years in there that were a complete dead spot for me pop-culture-wise.
I hated it. Had I gone alone, I’d have walked out. It would have been on the list with Showgirls, which had the added bonus that I had gone with my dancer ex, who was for some reason expecting maybe a raunchier version of Flashdance and who was a survivor of too much bad shit, and she was even less amused by the cheesy “charm” of the future cult, uh, classic. Drive had plenty of elements I normally like, but it really did not work for me at all. Can’t remember why so much and I don’t care to see it again, I just remember leaving in a foul mood of disgust.
Spot on. Lots of good ingredients, didnt work well together.
Hey, it’s got Albert Einstein in it though.
I liked it, sort an American French movie the same way American Graffiti is a French movie except that they’re speaking English and not smoking as much. It’s the that pervading sense of fatalism.
For those who do not know, Albert Brooks had to change his name because he was worried people would confuse him with the other Albert Einstein.
Ah yes, Paul Verhoven didn’t quite connect with Showgirls the way he did with RoboCop and Starship Troopers.
I think that the naturalism (compared to his other films) of Showgirls killed it. It’s pretty much unwatchable.
Yeah, I can’t say I’m a massive fan of Verhoeven, but I liked RoboCop and a few of his other movies were fine enough to me for a single viewing, I’m a misanthrope, and just about the only car movies I like are nihilistic ones from the early ’70s, but IDK if Showgirls was just a bit too cynical even for me or that I hated every character except the one who got assaulted (we ended up leaving when it was near the end and, from the look on my ex’s face, I waited too long to check and see if she hated it as much as I did). At least it was her idea, so I didn’t have to hear about it being my fault as if I had written the damn thing (me writing graphic shit came later, though I’d like to think my characters are a bit more 3D). OTOH, The poor quality of the film that people watch it ironically for today wasn’t a problem as I’ve always enjoyed cheesy movies.
In one of his interviews, Verhoven said that when he started making movies in America, he didn’t really understand America that well so he stuck to science fiction where he was building entire worlds and didn’t have to worry about getting the tone right. I think showgirls demonstrates that he still wasn’t quite ready yet. It was sort of the uncanny valley of narrative.
If he had set it in “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, or just Weimar Germany, he probably would’ve been fine.
So which Autopian got to explain the “Bidders Leave” reference to David?
I’m not so sure about that proud to own part.
Man, Red’s one hellva weird fellow. Kicking his son’s ass here, leading a gang in a future Detroit there.
Which is even weirder: wouldn’t think a Bears fan would like to be in Lions territory….
He was an awesome space jail warden, too!
Aw man, I do love me some Fortress (1992)!
Well he did get his act together and be elected president of the United Federation of Planets.
oooh, really shitty mileage.
VIN decodes as a 350, so it’s got the shitty gas mileage covered (looks like 11mpg), but not so much the really fast part (~18 second 1/4 mile). 455 would help immensely with both requirements though.
455 was gone by 1977, but the 403 was available. I learned to drive on a 350 powered ’77 Cutlass and it had decent torque so it felt quick enough. By the standards of the day, it was.
Interestingly, you could supposedly get the 260 V8 with a 5 speed stick in 1977. I imagine not too many were made.
Wait, are you the same Maymar I’m trading places with on the leader board on Cardle?
Yes! Been having a rough go the past month (used to be in the top 10 in the 1-month/3-month boards but slipped from that), but fun to have a consistent competitor 🙂
And yeah, mostly thinking a 455 swap wouldn’t be that difficult of a swap even if they’d dropped it by that point. I know I’ve seen the 260/5-speed combo in a few online listings years ago (the dogleg shifter helps it stand out), but yeah, very rare.
Nice to meet you here. ???? I’m all over on the 1 month, but I’ve stayed in the top 10 on the 3 month and the all time, probably mostly because I’ve played longer.
The 455 went into the early colonnades, I almost bought a W30 1975 Hurst Olds project right out of high school. It was too much to deal with heading into college, so I passed but I think about what if often. I also looked at a 1977 with a 403 and T-Tops.
I remember paging through the owner’s manual for dad’s ’77 and finding that 260 5 speed option and wishing ours had that. ????
If you are on Bluesky, look me up with the same username. Lots of weird car people there.
Schedule one. 😀
I liked the first Robocop movie of course, but I don’t feel compelled to own this or any other memorabilia from it.
I had a pretty strong crush on Nancy Allen as Officer Anne Lewis at the time IIRC. She really rocked that short hair. 🙂
Jill Hennessy, Rachel Weisz, and Jessica Chastain are my biggest weird screen crushes.
I’d watch anything these were in. Even Robocop III.
Nothing weird about any of that IMO. 😉
Careful who you tell about your Rachel Weisz crush, her husband had a license to kill.
Well, her on-screen husband had been a Nazi more than a few times, so there’s that.
I’d rather have one of the Taurus-based cop cars from the movie than this thing.
Agreed… those were pretty cool, especially since the Taurus was so modern looking back then. 🙂
Damn those Colonnades sucked hard.
The sedans sure did.
The coupes? YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH.
Okay – The Grand Prix did not suck.
Something with reclining leather seats, that goes really fast, and gets really shitty gas mileage! maybe even a Blaupunkt
I considered bringing this up for the 6000 STE from Pontiac Pthursday. Odd that it shows up now.
I think we have a sort of unintentional thing for writing points and then counterpoints. 🙂
Fitting that we just saw a 6000 STE article as I think the 6000 SUX is making fun of 80’s GM and their sad-ass cars.
I always assumed that was intentional, given the heavy Taurus product placement
I almost died laughing at this.
Bidding is open at €30,000.
You have 20 seconds to comply.
You now have 15 seconds to comply.
You have 5 seconds to comply.
I am now authorized to use physical force.
your move, creep
I won’t buy that for a dollar, but…
Ronnie Cox as Dick Jones was one of the best movie villains ever. Deserved at least an Oscar nomination.
Recently rewatched Beverly Hills Cop after decades, and him as a good guy is hard to deal with b/c of how good he was in Robocop.
Try Deliverance!
No, that’s okay, really, I’m good.
He’s also great as Edward Jellico on TNG, as kind of a bad guy who’s really a good guy that just irritates the fuck out of people.
That’s where I know him from
Ah Captain By The Book to a T
Good point, however he is still kinda the antagonist lite to Foley’s protagonist…
After playing Todd in Breaking Bad, I can never see anything with Jesse Plemons without seeing that POS character. He was great in that role—too good.
It’s been a while, but didn’t he give basically the same performance in Total Recall?
Yes. With the same director from Robocop.
Not exactly. The Kolhagen character wasn’t as menacing as Dick Jones, and in many ways Quait’s adversary was his former identity, Hauser.
Plus, it’s just not as good of a movie.
I’ll have to revisit them both. But yeah, I don’t think I need to re-watch Deliverance, good call.
You’re clearly not welcome to the party then
Well played. I recently rewatched the remake, just to see if it was as meh as I remembered it being. It definitely was, and while I appreciate that it did try to cleverly bring in as much of the original as it could (“two weeks?!”), it was most clearly missing the angry, violent henchman. Perhaps b/c nobody could possibly do it as well as Michael Ironside.
And Michael Ironside’s Mars security commander was… Gul Dukat!
I love his crazy Jack Skellington arms when he falls to his death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWuRgfUDVSk
Man, I would love to own that Ronny Cox stop motion puppet!
I would actually happily drive it daily. so many modern upgrades would be perfectly fine in that chassis. But I would not be willing to pay that much just to get it and then add on shipping back to the states. probably better to have a custom builder make a version to be able to drive and leave this for Volo or some other movie car place to let sit and not get used.
Wow, the 6000 SUX. Hopefully it finds the right buyer.
I’ve often wondered (or maybe I just thought of this now) what if this magnificent vehicle had been in production and had continued on for multiple generations.
If only there was someone who could bring that vision to life.
I think maybe the Caddilac Celestiq was starting to go there. the rear overhang definitely fits the vibe. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3o7pj5Zl4j8vmjysbAkP8cQYmnAc6oEncaoogfHHNUftmquLDr8oIre1X4LTCbD10Sjg&usqp=CAU
I like it!
(I’m sorry.)
Ha ha ha YES! Firing that Cobra Assault Cannon was probably Emil’s last moment of happiness, he died HARD (but literally softened).