Related: The Best Movie Ever: Car Chases
But sometimes a car just isn’t good enough, it needs to be special. It needs to be unique. There have been tons of cars made for movies specifically, but they aren’t all created equal. Some of them are barely created at all: the coolest stuff that the Mach-5 does in Speed Racer was all computer-generated. Our list of The 12 Best Cars Made for Movies focuses on cars that were physically built and – mostly – do exactly what you see on-screen. Visual effects may be used to ramp up the action or digitally remove some wires, but for the most part we’re only looking at cars made for movies that were completely original, physical creations or – at the very least – highly modified versions that nobody would mistake for the original car. Did we forget anything? Let us know in the comments.
The 12 Best Cars Made for Movies
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12. The Shaggin' Wagon
From: Dumb and Dumber (1994)
"I spent my life savings turning my van into a dog."
Everyone loves a good shaggin' wagon. Dumb and Dumber went several unnecessary steps further by covering a 1984 Ford Econoline with actual shag and making it look like a puppy. It's silly, sure, but come on... you want one.
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11. Eagle 5
From: Spaceballs (1987)
"Looks like a Winnebago with wings!"
The Millennium Falcon in Star Wars was always supposed to be kind of a jalopy. Mel Brooks took the concept to an illogical extreme in his 1987 parody Spaceballs, shoving jet engines and wings onto a Winnebago and calling it "Eagle 5," but everyone in the movie recognizes it as a Winnebago anyway. But it's coolest Winnebago ever.
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10. The D1 Turbocharger Desk Mobile
From: The Nude Bomb (1980)
"This desk can go from zero to sixty in five seconds."
The Nude Bomb, the first movie based on the hit spy parody series "Get Smart!", was a commercial bomb and a critical failure, but by god, it has a Desk Mobile in it. And that's cool.
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9. The EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle
From: Stripes (1981)
"It's a tank... or something."
"It's an urban assault vehicle!"Bill Murray and Harold Ramis stole our hearts AND this weaponized mobile home in Ivan Reitman's classic army comedy Stripes. This modified mid-1970s GMC motor home could transform from RV to AFV and was perfect for going AWOL to gallivant with your girlfriends.
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8. The Ecto-1
From: Ghost Busters (1984)
"Everybody can relax, I found the car. Needs some suspension work and shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear-end..."
The preferred mode of transportation of ghostbusting personnel the world over, The Ecto-1 is a modified 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor with tons of paranormal investigation gadgets strapped to the top that... actually never get used in the films. But in the cartoon we find out that one of them is a proton canon for mobile ghostbusting and that's totally awesome.
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7. The Monster
From: Death Race 2000 (1975)
"You want to make love to me because I drive The Monster and wear this costume."
David Carradine stars in Paul Bartel's sardonic cult classic Death Race 2000 as Frankenstein, the superstar of a cross-continental car race in which killing pedestrians earns you bonus points. His iconic vehicle, The Monster, is a Shala-Vette modified to look like, essentially, a monster, but it's a total chick magnet and perfect for mowing down passers-by.
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6. The Pursuit Special
From: Mad Max (1979)
"She's meanness set to music and the bitch is born to run!"
"Mad" Max Rockatansky is known for kicking ass in the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, and The Pursuit Special, aka "The V8 Interceptor," is his vehicle of choice. And man, is it choice: it's a modified 1973 XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe with a Concorde front and a supercharger pushing out of the hood. It'll put you in a coma, man.
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5. Black Beauty
From: The Green Hornet (2011)
"Wanna see something cool...?"
The Green Hornet may have been a box office bomb, but it wasn't the car's fault. Black Beauty is a modified 1965 Chrysler Crown Imperial with two 30-caliber machine guns mounted on the hood, sidewinder missiles under the front and rear bumpers, suicide door machine guns and retractable anti-riot spikes. It's one of the few movie cars that's 100% better than the actual movie.
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4. The DeLorean Time Machine
From: Back to the Future (1985)
"The way I see it, if you're going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?"
Doc Brown's time machine may go back to the 1950s but its design is just about as 1980s as it gets, modifying the short-lived DeLorean into a vehicle that defies space and time and - at the end of the movie - gravity, just for the hell of it. Back to the Future kept the legend of the DeLorean alive long after production ceased on these cars in 1983, an ongoing popularity that led to the limited production of new DeLoreans (only about 20 per year) that started in 2008.
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3. The Batmobile
From: Batman (1989)
"Where does he get those wonderful toys...?"
Batman's iconic car would make several apperances in several different designs but few felt as uniquely gothic as this version, seen in Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. Built on the chassis of a Chevy Impala, this hulking monstrosity was long, sleek, low-to-the-ground and made such crappy 90 degree turns that Batman had to mount grappling hook guns on the side to help it round corners at decent speeds. But it's an inky black nightmare car that only made the Dark Knight seem that much darker, and more stylish than ever before.
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2. The Lotus Esprit Submarine Car
From: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
"There are one or two rather special accessories..."
James Bond has always had great cars, but usually they're just a well-known model with an ejector seat or (sigh...) the ability to turn invisible. But his coolest and most useful model was this modified Lotus Esprit, which was also a submarine. Repeat, it was also a submarine. Bond's gear never got much cooler than that. This car is such a collector's item that Tesla founder Elon Musk bought the original at auction for nearly $1 million last year, with the intention of finally making it transform for real.
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1. The Tumbler
From: Batman Begins (2005)
"Does it come in black?"
We already had one Batmobile on our list, but The Tumbler is special. Christopher Nolan's film evolved the idea of Batman's signature vehicle into a high-octane tank, crossed with a Lamborghini. The now-iconic design was based on Frank Miller's redesign of Batman's wheels in the classic comic book series The Dark Knight Returns, and is now the new gold standard in premium, customized movie cars.
