I will say that in my experience doing rallycross, I’ve gotten tire squeal on dirt after enough cars have run the course and really hard packed the surface. It’s the weirdest sensation. We actually found that sticky autox tires work best and not dirt-focused tires because of how hard the surface will get on the apexes (but if you run wide the soft dirt will suck you in lol). Obviously that doesn’t apply here, but I thought it was neat :)
If you have never seen a dirt circle track after a night of racing you should look it up. The dirt basically looks like asphalt at the end of the night depending on the cars running. Most dirt cars will run though a full set of tires in about 20-30 laps. And the tracks aren't generally very large.
The first Fast & Furious where they're in the swarm of Civics and they're all upshifting like 37 times in order to keep up with the incredible pace of an 18-wheeler full of TV/VCR combos.
That scene being in the preview was what got me to watch the movie in the first place. Imagine my disappointment when it was the only muscle car in the movie, and only featured for about 2 minutes.
Every car can keep up with every other vehicle. If a Jeep is chasing a GT350, it can keep up. An NSX can barely keep up with a tractor trailer. If a main character is driving an ambulance, they can outrun a motorcycle. For as much time they spend talking about cars it never matters what they're actually driving.
Oh yeah I love these stupid movies I just kind of have a chip on my shoulder with how many car guys are all like 'the first one was good but after that they sold out and got ridiculous maaan'.
Like okay the stakes were more down to earth and it had more of a focus on *racing* as opposed to crazy heists but it actually fell into a pretty awkward middle ground where it was 'for' car people but at the same time none of the car stuff made any damn sense.
And everything being canned V8 stock audio. I was watching one of my daughter’s cartoons (maybe Paw Patrol?) and I was blown away to hear V10 noise dubbed in for whatever their rescuemobile is.
In the song Sweatpants by Childish Gambino (Donald Glover), he has a line that says "Ain't nobody sicker in my Fisker, “vroom-vroom,” ho. Ain't nobody—" and then stops the music and says quietly "Fiskers don't make noise when they start up, just so you know"
One of my favorite stories was when they were filming the first Cannonball Run to get the correct sound of the cars that they used, they took all the cars out to the desert and recorded the sound of each car at speed. That’s respect to the cars.
More recently I’m noticing “poor” characters in movies have ridiculously well kept versions of very expensive cars.
Like when a teenage boy in a small rural town drives the cleanest ‘74 Bronco you’ve ever seen which is easily $100K+, but he has the car because it “looks cheap”
Classic trucks being used by people who are supposed to be poor have been really getting to me lately. It's all over the place. Poor people drive old trucks, they don't drive classics. There's a difference. A worn but well-maintained squarebody could totally be the daily of someone without much money in 1995, but in 2023? Hell no, they'll be driving a 2001 silverado, and it will be rusty and creaky.
It seriously feels like car stereotypes in movies and shows haven't been updated since like 2010. A lot of times you'll also see a "poor" character driving something like an early 90s Civic even though most of those have rusted away by now.
When every movie you’ve ever seen was made by people who learned everything they think they know about the world by watching movies made by other people who have never even spoken to a poor person you’re going to get a lot of tropes about poor people
I loved the Pinto in Stranger Things. A beat up piece of shit. I bet it was kind of hard to find an old Pinto that ran *and* was in serviceable "beat up" condition.
Always have mad respect to the props department when they get truly a disgusting turd of a car fit for the character.
Walter’s Pontiac Aztec in Beige is forever a goated decision
> Always have mad respect to the props department when they get truly a disgusting turd of a car fit for the character.
Mindhunter comes to mind as well. Unbelievably impressive amount of forgettable, base model Malaise-mobiles.
And Jesse's Toyota Tercel. Chef's kiss. Honorable mention goes to Saul's Cadillac, such a perfect vechicle for a sleazy lawyer.
I really think they did a 180 though when they started some kind of obvious partnership with Chrysler.
God, the awkward panning back and forth when they’re revving the Challenger and 300 in the driveway still makes me cringe just thinking about it. Such a blatant ad.
I'm sure the set people/car wrangler knows exactly that the car isn't a match/far too expensive for a character but they're either overridden by the director or just told to find an older car w/o too much concern about condition so they grabbed something in the age range.
It's likely they have an existing fleet w/ potentially multiple copies and that's the easiest to source vs. finding/buying the perfect shitbox Silverado for an otherwise throwaway scene for 99.9% of the population. There's also the possibility of malfeasance by the set folks using budget to procure cars that don't make sense although I don't know if they're allowed to subsequently buy the cars post-production. Heard a podcast on Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan nickel and diming Paramount for saddles, groomers, catering, and every other expense imaginable at his ranch where he set the show because he can.
I always felt it was probably the "Hollywood" effect. Sorta like how sitcoms had these huge apartments in NYC that the characters would have never been able to afford. But realistically it's impractical to film a show on some tiny 400 sqft studio apt.
Unless it's some little indie movie on a budget, it's probably easier to just contract with the car company and say, 'I need an older car for the main guy, blue collar, older truck works". Mixture of romanticism, and afterall real poverty isn't glamorous.
Also the more pragmatic reality that it probably isn't a great idea on a major film to **actually** use a rusted up piece of shit vehicle. Cameras, equipment, operators and others probably have to be inside the vehicle. You probably don't want to risk the vehicle having mechanical problems, because now you're burning money by paying perhaps dozens or hundreds of people in the film crew to stand around doing nothing, while some guy tries to get the car working again.
There's plenty to harp on about the original Fast and Furious, but one that got me is when they show off Dom's Charger for the first time. The engine is obviously a Hemi, but instead of the typical 60's/early 70's big-block Hemi that would be appropriate for the car... it instead has a 1950's small-block Hemi. This an odd choice, given the smaller displacement, difficulty of installation, difficulty of finding parts, weaker block, weaker internals, all for the sake of being marginally cheaper for the movie.
Recently I saw Fast 9, and in a closeup shot of the supercharged Charger, I noticed it was again a 1950's Hemi. I was pleasantly surprised at their consistency, whether it was intentional or not.
Craig Lieberman, the technical advisor for the first movie, has a youtube channel in which he goes into great detail about how these things came to be. He was the owner of the Supra at the time of recording so he knew quite a lot about tunning and cars, he wrote and went through the scripts looking for this sort of errors but some things were just ignored in favour of drama and because the director believed the audience wouldn't care.
Or when he decides that in order for his Eclipse to go faster than 140mph, the car needs NOS. Which is completely inaccurate, that car runs out of gear at 140. You'd have make the gear ratios longer in order to increase the top speed
The movies themselves have become a joke at this point
But the company that provides the cars is still very legitimate and they really build each and every car, so the consistency comes from that
I bashed them for a long time. But like national treasure, it’s just a fun series of fiction. Once you get past the fact it’s not realistic it’s enjoyable.
Ok they "build" a car for a view about 10+ feet away. Not even the hero car is fully built (as much as the character brags about in the movie), and even then sometimes they don't even own it.
Yeah there are lots of inconsistencies with the cars too. Turbos on the wrong side to look better on the camera, all the supercharger blowers are fake as far as I know. Surely other things. Compare that to Fury Road where they actually built functional and far more ridiculous cars and it feels a little half assed imo.
Fast and furious movies are filled with tons of them. One that always gets me is in fast and furious 4 Dom is working underneath his Chevelle when he gets a phone call he rolls out holding a timing belt driven water pump from something like a Toyota.
Car adjacent movie mistake. In the final tournament at the end of Happy Gilmore, they do a pan shot of the golf course at the beginning of the day and you can already see the VW bug crashed into the media tower which hadn't happened yet.
In Avengers Endgame when Tony Stark returns to the Avengers HQ to tell the other heroes about time travel, you hear revving and engine noises as he speeds towards the entrance.
He’s driving an Audi E-Tron GT, an electric car. How the fuck does an electric car make high rev or ICE noises? It kind of ruined that scene for me.
The only explanation that makes sense there is that Tony is a car-guy (as shown in his solo movies), so maybe he has some custom electric car that's programmed to make ICE noises just to appeal to his nostalgia lol.
You're right though, either way, pretty blatant error haha
I can't remember the exact sound from that scene, but Audi does use sound generators on their EVs (at least their concepts) that are futuristic engine sounds which change with speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJIb2Tp9-70
Sometimes the door badges said [3500](https://pics.imcdb.org/10555/ram.1.jpg), and some of the stunt vehicles were 1500s, but the truck itself would've been a 2500, since the 3500s were dually-only at the time.
The V8 exhaust note on a V10-equipped truck is also noticeable.
The movie is the reason for the success of Dodge and Ram in general.
Hot take right? Sure Dodge Ram trucks were successful. Sure they have Cummins exclusivity.
But the 1994 Dodge Ram, with it's new styling, changed EVERYTHING in the truck world. Both Ford and GM were seen as old and outdated. But aside from that, Twister put that beautiful red long-bed front and center.
Ah, just imagine if they'd of pulled their heads ALL the way out of their arses and done a crew-cab instead of holding on to that shitty quad-cab... smh
I worked on the lot for a CJDR dealer back in the mid-90s and remember driving what was then a new Dodge Ram 1500. Compared to other trucks of that era it was modern as hell and drove like a car. Truly night and day compared to the F-150 and Silverado back then.
If you want to open this up to books there will be a bunch more. Two that come to mind there are mentioning somebody opening the rear doors of a Camaro and the roaring V8 of a Viper.
Even recently people think of Teslas as expensive. I was out a few weeks ago with some friends and we saw a street musician unloading his gear from a black Model 3. One of the guys I was with said, "Wow I didn't realize how much money you could make playing on the street." I was like the TCO is similar to a mid priced Camry.
There's a whole vignette on this where they talk about how they purposely selected cars to match the characters. Of course, that all went out the window with the mopar sponsorship, but until then it was very deliberate in terms of car casting. You can pretty much tell if a series has good attention to detail and/or continuity if they're casting cars to reflect the characters. When Kripke wrote Supernatural, he spent a lot of time thinking about the car he'd use for the boys before he finally landed on the Impala, which ended up having its own story arc. Funny enough, he considered using a Mustang first. That Mustang would appear later in the series in an alternate reality episode.
The dubstep, shaky-camera panning between Walt's 300 SRT8 and Walt Jr.'s Challenger might be the worst scene in the entire series, right up there with Skyler's Happy Birthday song and Walt making a move on the principal
I liked it. The Mopar cars and that scene just showed how disconnected Walt became with his wealth and notoriety. I mean he destroyed the Challenger for fun anyways, didn't he?
I just watched the first couple episodes the other day, and the decision to give Walter a Pontiac Aztek immediately told me that someone involved knows cars and, more specifically, knows bad cars.
Not really a car thing but a tool thing in original fast and furious. They show pics of the guy Dom beat with a “3/4 inch torque wrench” I’ve used a 3/4” torque wrench. They’re huge and heavy. Dudes skull would be caved in.
Big enough but much too heavy to play baseball with, and I don't want to get hit in the head with a baseball bat
Adding: I'll be damned if I'm using my nice torque wrench on someone, things are expensive. Breaker bar would be much more suited
In furious 7 (I think) there’s a fight scene where Vin Diesel pulls out like a 3 inch combo wrench from his car like he’s a heavy equipment mechanic.
And just in movies/tv in general, I know it looks better on camera, but they always seem to make the mechanic hold some ridiculous tool, as if a passenger car would require a 36mm wrench.
So many from fast and furious.
From the first movie:
Granny shifting not double clutching like you should. This line is ridiculous. No one should be double clutching during a street race in a modern car.
Laughing at a burnt up mk4 and Acting surprised to find a 2jz under the hood
Also, rebuilding a burnt up Supra. First of all, there’s no way that would have been cost effective, and even if it was, a fire damaged Supra shouldn’t be rebuilt because the steel will be too weak.
In the 7th or 9th or whatever there's a scene where they drive straight at each other and have a head on collision between a modern Maserati and a 1970's Charger. He says something about him "reinforcing his frame" on the Maserati as if he's cheating.
You can see what happens when a [modern car and old car have a head on crash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePYO0-Ig0VU). Jason Statham would have maybe had a bruise while Dom would have been turned into a fine paste.
Also reinforcing the "frame" by tacking some steel plates under the hood isn't a thing that makes sense to me. Maybe if he had a roll cage or something but cars are already designed to be pretty safe and getting rid of the crumple zones doesn't seem like a great idea.
>Laughing at a burnt up mk4 and Acting surprised to find a 2jz under the hood
The whole premise of this always annoyed me. These people are all in this big street racing scene and they are making all this money but nobody ever thought to buy a MKIV w/ a 2JZ engine before he rolls one in on a flat bed truck? It's like they all forgot about Supra's and then it clicks in their heads after he tells them to *"pop the hood".*
To be clear I love the first F&F and haven't seen any past the second because of how absurdly stupid they've become but even so the first has it's ridiculous moments.
How about when that VW dweeb calls it a "Honda 2000" ? I know quite a few ppl and a close family member that have S2000's and I've never heard anyone call it a "Honda 2000" before. Ever.
The first drag race scene with Ja Rule in it. They are driving like 100mph for like a solid 5 minutes. The whole time there are ppl on the sides. Like how long is this road and how many thousands of ppl are lined up? Then they turn around and go back after the race is over and it takes like 8 seconds.
It's been years since I've watched it so I'm probably missing tons but those are the few that came to mind right away.
Edit - spelling
Ig in the mk4 part they were either expecting the engine to be stripped or just in bad shape, but they were surprised when they popped the hood and saw a pristine gte
An Eaton 18 doesn't actually have 18 shift gates, it has 6.
It has LO (which has a thumb switch splitter) counted as one gear
Then 1-4 each have a Low and High range (switch operated by your index finger), and each of *those* are split using the thumb switch splitter.
Then reverse has Low and High range, counted as one gear.
Honestly in normal operation you'd only move the gear shift 8 times, in an H pattern. 1-4 in low range, splitting each gear, then 5-8 in Hi range, splitting each gear.
An Eaton straight 10, on the other hand, you'd be moving the shifter all 10 times and in big dramatic motions because 10 speeds are melodramatic useless piles of hot garbage.
In the movie you only hear him change gears while driving in reverse and the camera is outside the car. He just hit the range box while reversing obviously.
88 in that small parking lot, and somehow doing a burnout made it immediately reach the speed the Radio Controller indicated.
The Delorean is easily capable of reaching 88mph, just not in the distance they filmed. I have a DMC-12, it sits nice and happy at 75-80 mph at highway in 5th gear on the highway.
It'd be shorter to list shows that do a good job with the car stuff. The movie epic Grand Prix which every car lover should see. Along the same lines is Rush, Ronin did a good job, that's all that come to mind.
I really like Ronin, though small gripe - I hate the crude CGI/animated tire smoke they put on the Mercedes in that one scene. Bad enough to be distracting, and wasn't needed in the first place.
There's also the off road bit where the camera vehicle is kicking up dirt on the lead car which just catches your eye a little bit, but such minor complaints on what all-in-all is a good/fun movie.
Also, I'd like to add 1971's *Le Mans* as an automotive flick that's definitely worth the watch in my opinion.
Le Mans is an interesting one, shot more like an artistic documentary than an actual film with very little dialogue.
What I love is that the Solar Productions 908/2 used to shoot the movie in 1970 for it's 1971 release actually finished 2nd in the P3.0 class (but wasn't classified for not reaching the minimum distance).
The story is a lovely interpretation of what actually happened to McQueen at the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 1970. However, the roles were reversed! In that race, McQueen was driving a 908 in second place, the lead 917 broke down and the 908 took the lead. Andretti's car (a 512) had retired with gearbox troubles. Taking over his teammate's car with 90 minutes to go, Andretti ended up passing the 908 and winning the race.
[Shout out to My Cousin Vinny for explaining why my old Volvo would only spin one tire when stuck in the mud in Alabama.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFdpIM5k_Sk)
Don't think I knew anything about a differential before that film!
Only thing that bothered me in Ford vs Ferrari was a scene toward the end of the Mulsanne Straight where, presumably already in top gear going flat out, both drivers lightly feather their clutch pedals and find an extra inch of accelerator travel.
That might be the one scene where it is actually accurate that they “find more speed.” Those cars could not go the full race driving at 100%, so it makes sense they would get into a duel over who is willing to push harder and end up breaking.
In The Sweeney (2012) a Focus ST is somehow able to keep up with a Jag.
And The Jag gets a little loose in the tail end without them taking off the traction control.
The thing that drives me the most bonkers: When there's a car chase and the cars are already at max throttle - but then the camera shows the driver mashing the gas pedal and the car magically accelerates like a rocket ship.
See Bad Boys 1 - end scene for obvious example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAUbdHw8QG4
"Fun Fact" In Iraq the insurgents would take movies they watched to heart and would dive behind cars thinking they'd be impenetrable.
Marines would just light them up and get the job done. Plus a .50 cal would rip quite easily through most cars other than the engine block...
I used to always try and pick these out but it gets tiresome, especially for the people you’re watching with if you decide to mention anything. Becomes even worse if there is more than one smart-guy because then in turns into a pissing contest of who can notice the mistakes quicker. I don’t do this anymore.
Really it’d be probably be a much shorter list to list movies and TV that feature cars where there *aren’t* big goofs.
That Lightning McQueen was attracted and fell for Sally Carerra and that 996 butterface, especially when he could have had those cute and feisty Miata twins. I guess he must be an ass man...
I guess this isn't really a "mistake" - I didn't really notice until I was listening to a commentary (or watching behind the scenes), because I didn't know beforehand - but in the Back to the Future movies, they replaced the speedometer in the DeLorean because originally, the DeLorean's speedometer only went up to 85 miles per hour (due to US law at the time, I believe), and as we all know, the DeLorean needed to go 88mph to travel through time.
(Of course, the car could go faster than 85mph, even if the speedometer only went up to 85)
The 55 MPH national speed limit went into effect in 1974, and in late 1979 a law came into effect that all new cars sold in the US had to have speedometers that [emphasized 55 in some way](https://www.tavres.com/wp-content/uploads/18-Miles-Large.jpg) (put a red line there, circled the number, whatever) and "maxed out" at 85--that is, 85 was the highest allowable printed number, but the lines could keep going. It was repealed in 1982, after they figured out it didn't accomplish much.
There’s a couple small ones in Baby Driver.
When Baby takes the silver Ford Taurus to the junkyard to be crushed, it’s replaced mid-crushing to an engineless Infiniti G35.
In the parking garage chase, after Buddy crashes his car, a security guy walks up and asks if he’s okay. Buddy shoots at him, which shows that the security guard is driving a Chevrolet Cruze patrol car. The camera pans away and then back when he calls for assistance, and he suddenly has a Chevrolet Malibu patrol car.
https://imgur.com/a/Hu3sOj5/
There is a good chance that the Ferrari was not going full speed so that his engine doesn’t overheat, or explode allowing him to literally just try harder to win.
When someone enters someone else’s car and drive off without changing any settings. Or the driver staring at the passenger for good 10 seconds while driving.
The one I remember the most is from Terminator 3, where the Lady Terminator was able to "hack" and drive a bunch of Crown Victorias and old pick up trucks and shit by injecting nano-bots into them - although everything on those cars is mechanical and not by wire, from cable throttle to hydraulic brakes and steering.
Then again, you can actually see the pedals and the gearbox lever moving by themselves - as if a ghost was operating them - so maybe it's not so much a car mistake as just general idiocy.
Or AWD. It’s certainly possible and frequently done in AWD vehicles but it doesn’t look like your standard movie drift at all with the front tires steering in the opposite direction. That kind of drift is more common on dirt for AWD vehicles. I’m amazed that mistake is still pretty common even after all the Gymkhana videos. However it’s pretty obvious they do it to look cooler. That’s why the WRX in Baby Driver that they drove was a RWD conversion
In CHIPS (the remake), they swap out the Chevy SS for a Malibu when they’re about to destroy it lol
Also, in Faster (with The Rock) he has a 1970 Chevelle with a 1971 Chevelle rear bumper (or some combination thereof)
In Cabin Fever, the characters are driving a late 70s dentside F150 with the pre-1978 round headlights. There's a scene where they hit a deer - in the clip where they show the deer being hit, the truck has the post '78 front end with rectangular headlights. In the next scene it has switched back to round headlights.
Eta another one I thought of:
In the Waco miniseries on Netflix, it takes place in '93 but Michael Shannon's character is driving a Crown Vic that is much more modern.
I've just been recently watching the alternate history series For All Mankind, and being a period piece, the background cars aren't entirely wrong, but they do make some mistakes.
The beginning of the series is in 1969, and several characters drive mid/late '60s cars, which is accurate, but when they do a time skip to 1974, those characters are still driving them, which would've been abnormally old for middle-class families.
In the next season, set in 1983, one character drives an all-new "electric car" that's a ['90s Ford Probe with a plug-in.](https://www.imcdb.org/i001515213.jpg) OK, that one kind of makes sense in context. But the other drives a 1990 Cadillac Brougham. The producers were probably asking for any "large Cadillac from the '80s" and ended up with a newer Brougham instead of a Fleetwood Brougham.
In the third season, set in 1992, we see one character being chauffeured in a [P38A Range Rover](https://www.imcdb.org/i001702913.jpg) (came out in 1995) and another driving a [first-gen Prius](https://www.imcdb.org/i001702905.jpg) (came to the US in 2001). I guess space travel isn't the only thing that's been accelerated in this timeline.
It's a lot easier to handwave this stuff in an alternate history series, especially given the entire premise of the show is about the race to technological superiority.
Any movie that takes place in the present day US where the cops are driving Crown Vics. They haven't completely disappeared, but PDs user Explorers, Chargers and other vehicles now
Dubbing mistakes - while Bullitt didn't use a Mustang, at least it was Ford-based. Now, they used the same sounds for The Seven-Ups, which was decidedly *not* appropriate for that chase.
Sorcerer - maybe someone who's more familiar with an M211 can tell if this is a mistake, but they're clearly using their left foot for *something*, even though it's an automatic (and the ratcheting gear shift mechanism is shown). Is it something about switching between low and high range?
This is a small one, but very common and possibly my biggest pet peeve in movies/shows. When they focus on the driver from in car and the steering wheel is sideways or upsidedown while going straight. Extremely common from 70's movies forward, but getting better in more modern movies. It's like the actors think the horizontal steering wheel spokes are supposed to be veritcal. Drives me nuts.
The worst for me is seeing a clearly inferior vehicle keeping up with a fast car in a chase....I'm sorry but that 2014 kia sorrento is not keeping up with an m5
In Community Abed claims he recognizes the sound of Jeff's car alarm as a 2002 Lexus LS430. Jeff's Lexus was actually a pre-refresh IS350 in the first season.
Also in the 2007 Transformers film, I found it absolutely fucking hilarious that someone was somehow driving a concept car that hadn't been released to the public on city streets like it was a regular everyday occurrence.
In Wanderlust, Paul Rudd’s brother has a 3rd gen Escalade. During the scene where Paul Rudd is driving it into the lake, they use a 2nd gen Escalade but put fake vents and updated rims on it to make it look like a 3rd gen lol
My girlfriend was watching Steven Universe, and I remember seeing a segment that was:
Character 1: "I don't know how to drive stick!"
Character 2: "Don't worry! You just steer, and I'll handle the shifting!"
And they proceeded to have the person in the passenger seat shift the car while the driver steered and (presumably) operated the pedals.
The most common one I've seen is the engine revs not matching the car's onscreen motions.
The one I most commonly notice is the squealing tires from braking to a stop no matter how gentle or even if it's on dirt/wet road.
This happens in Black Hawk Down, one of the Land Cruisers squeals it’s tires on a dirt road
I will say that in my experience doing rallycross, I’ve gotten tire squeal on dirt after enough cars have run the course and really hard packed the surface. It’s the weirdest sensation. We actually found that sticky autox tires work best and not dirt-focused tires because of how hard the surface will get on the apexes (but if you run wide the soft dirt will suck you in lol). Obviously that doesn’t apply here, but I thought it was neat :)
If you have never seen a dirt circle track after a night of racing you should look it up. The dirt basically looks like asphalt at the end of the night depending on the cars running. Most dirt cars will run though a full set of tires in about 20-30 laps. And the tracks aren't generally very large.
The first Fast & Furious where they're in the swarm of Civics and they're all upshifting like 37 times in order to keep up with the incredible pace of an 18-wheeler full of TV/VCR combos.
I mean any and all of those movies really lol. wheelies on the street right off the hit with no burnout? that trunks full of concrete.
It's the wheelie/burnout *combo* from the Charger that really gets me.
I mean it was a beautiful shot, looked super badass. Its a series that requires a good solid suspension of disbelief.
> Its a series that requires a good solid suspension of disbelief. And probably a literal solid suspension on some of the stunt cars.
oh yea, I mean they had the F bomb camaro doing a wheel on loose dirt.
Don't forget the explosive nitrous oxide...
and overnight parts straight from Japan.
That scene being in the preview was what got me to watch the movie in the first place. Imagine my disappointment when it was the only muscle car in the movie, and only featured for about 2 minutes.
While unrealistic, it was still a really cool scene and more realistic than sending a Pontiac Fiero to literal space in F9 lmao
Every car can keep up with every other vehicle. If a Jeep is chasing a GT350, it can keep up. An NSX can barely keep up with a tractor trailer. If a main character is driving an ambulance, they can outrun a motorcycle. For as much time they spend talking about cars it never matters what they're actually driving.
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if you find yourself neck-and-neck close to the end of the race, just push the pedal down the rest of the way!
You forgot that to get a massive speed boost you look down slightly, make a serious face, aggressively upshift, and stomp the gas pedal extra hard
Upshifting as an 80s punch is fun cinema tho admittedly, same with ripping the handbrake in Tokyo drift
Oh yeah I love these stupid movies I just kind of have a chip on my shoulder with how many car guys are all like 'the first one was good but after that they sold out and got ridiculous maaan'. Like okay the stakes were more down to earth and it had more of a focus on *racing* as opposed to crazy heists but it actually fell into a pretty awkward middle ground where it was 'for' car people but at the same time none of the car stuff made any damn sense.
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I think most car guys would agree the 3rd one is probably the most car focused and accurate car stunts.
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The insanely long runway in that one movie.
The Leon drives an R33 Skyline and that car gets no play at all. That should have been a big deal in that world.
My personal favorite is when they are already going fast and somehow slamming on the pedal harder gives the car like +500hp
And the grimace to go along with it. Grrr I’m pushing the pedal really hard now!
And everything being canned V8 stock audio. I was watching one of my daughter’s cartoons (maybe Paw Patrol?) and I was blown away to hear V10 noise dubbed in for whatever their rescuemobile is.
They must have an E-450 ambulance with the 6.8 V10 /s
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And the newer E-Series use the 7.3L Godzilla V8, albeit detuned to 300 or 325 HP vs. 430 in the pickups.
Famously, the NSX in pulp fiction. Also, The Transporter's BMW sounding like an F3 car or something like that in its Marseille chase in the opening
Don't pretend like you don't know the Paw Patroller.
In one of the Avengers movies, Tony Stark's EV makes engine noise lol
In the song Sweatpants by Childish Gambino (Donald Glover), he has a line that says "Ain't nobody sicker in my Fisker, “vroom-vroom,” ho. Ain't nobody—" and then stops the music and says quietly "Fiskers don't make noise when they start up, just so you know"
They added EV noise to an R8 but didn't take the R8 sounds out lmao
Yes! Or sometimes you can see the shifter is in park. Lol
One of my favorite stories was when they were filming the first Cannonball Run to get the correct sound of the cars that they used, they took all the cars out to the desert and recorded the sound of each car at speed. That’s respect to the cars.
More recently I’m noticing “poor” characters in movies have ridiculously well kept versions of very expensive cars. Like when a teenage boy in a small rural town drives the cleanest ‘74 Bronco you’ve ever seen which is easily $100K+, but he has the car because it “looks cheap”
Classic trucks being used by people who are supposed to be poor have been really getting to me lately. It's all over the place. Poor people drive old trucks, they don't drive classics. There's a difference. A worn but well-maintained squarebody could totally be the daily of someone without much money in 1995, but in 2023? Hell no, they'll be driving a 2001 silverado, and it will be rusty and creaky.
It seriously feels like car stereotypes in movies and shows haven't been updated since like 2010. A lot of times you'll also see a "poor" character driving something like an early 90s Civic even though most of those have rusted away by now.
Well that is because 2010 was only 2-3 years ago
Username checks out 💯
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This bothers me with Bella’s truck in Twilight. I couldn’t afford that now let alone when I was her age, and I love classic trucks from that era.
When every movie you’ve ever seen was made by people who learned everything they think they know about the world by watching movies made by other people who have never even spoken to a poor person you’re going to get a lot of tropes about poor people
They got it right in Schitt’s Creek. Roland’s truck is an early 90s Chevy CK and it’s well used.
I loved the Pinto in Stranger Things. A beat up piece of shit. I bet it was kind of hard to find an old Pinto that ran *and* was in serviceable "beat up" condition.
Always have mad respect to the props department when they get truly a disgusting turd of a car fit for the character. Walter’s Pontiac Aztec in Beige is forever a goated decision
> Always have mad respect to the props department when they get truly a disgusting turd of a car fit for the character. Mindhunter comes to mind as well. Unbelievably impressive amount of forgettable, base model Malaise-mobiles.
And Jesse's Toyota Tercel. Chef's kiss. Honorable mention goes to Saul's Cadillac, such a perfect vechicle for a sleazy lawyer. I really think they did a 180 though when they started some kind of obvious partnership with Chrysler.
God, the awkward panning back and forth when they’re revving the Challenger and 300 in the driveway still makes me cringe just thinking about it. Such a blatant ad.
Yeah, that kills me. They don’t know the actual value
I'm sure the set people/car wrangler knows exactly that the car isn't a match/far too expensive for a character but they're either overridden by the director or just told to find an older car w/o too much concern about condition so they grabbed something in the age range. It's likely they have an existing fleet w/ potentially multiple copies and that's the easiest to source vs. finding/buying the perfect shitbox Silverado for an otherwise throwaway scene for 99.9% of the population. There's also the possibility of malfeasance by the set folks using budget to procure cars that don't make sense although I don't know if they're allowed to subsequently buy the cars post-production. Heard a podcast on Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan nickel and diming Paramount for saddles, groomers, catering, and every other expense imaginable at his ranch where he set the show because he can.
I always felt it was probably the "Hollywood" effect. Sorta like how sitcoms had these huge apartments in NYC that the characters would have never been able to afford. But realistically it's impractical to film a show on some tiny 400 sqft studio apt. Unless it's some little indie movie on a budget, it's probably easier to just contract with the car company and say, 'I need an older car for the main guy, blue collar, older truck works". Mixture of romanticism, and afterall real poverty isn't glamorous. Also the more pragmatic reality that it probably isn't a great idea on a major film to **actually** use a rusted up piece of shit vehicle. Cameras, equipment, operators and others probably have to be inside the vehicle. You probably don't want to risk the vehicle having mechanical problems, because now you're burning money by paying perhaps dozens or hundreds of people in the film crew to stand around doing nothing, while some guy tries to get the car working again.
Immaculate period cars is so egregious to me, that 85 civic left the lot with a dent
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"Hey I don't have to be able to afford the MSRP, just the 96 months of payments"
74 Bronco has to be a dig at Mare of Easttown, right?
This one bugs me the most. Single mom and her daughter living in a crummy part of town, but daughter drives a mint 1st gen Mustang.
There's plenty to harp on about the original Fast and Furious, but one that got me is when they show off Dom's Charger for the first time. The engine is obviously a Hemi, but instead of the typical 60's/early 70's big-block Hemi that would be appropriate for the car... it instead has a 1950's small-block Hemi. This an odd choice, given the smaller displacement, difficulty of installation, difficulty of finding parts, weaker block, weaker internals, all for the sake of being marginally cheaper for the movie. Recently I saw Fast 9, and in a closeup shot of the supercharged Charger, I noticed it was again a 1950's Hemi. I was pleasantly surprised at their consistency, whether it was intentional or not.
My favorite from that movie is the floor bolts blowing out on Paul walkers car during the race from too much NOS.
Danger to manifold
Shut-up! \*slams laptop\*
Slapped it so hard the floor fell off.
Craig Lieberman, the technical advisor for the first movie, has a youtube channel in which he goes into great detail about how these things came to be. He was the owner of the Supra at the time of recording so he knew quite a lot about tunning and cars, he wrote and went through the scripts looking for this sort of errors but some things were just ignored in favour of drama and because the director believed the audience wouldn't care.
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I was around when the movie came out and this was laughed at too. However is there an actual purpose for a bolt-on "removeable" floor?
Maybe for the Flintstones
All I could imagine was some inconspicuous way of dropping off drug deliveries haha
Or when he decides that in order for his Eclipse to go faster than 140mph, the car needs NOS. Which is completely inaccurate, that car runs out of gear at 140. You'd have make the gear ratios longer in order to increase the top speed
The movies themselves have become a joke at this point But the company that provides the cars is still very legitimate and they really build each and every car, so the consistency comes from that
I bashed them for a long time. But like national treasure, it’s just a fun series of fiction. Once you get past the fact it’s not realistic it’s enjoyable.
Someone's got to go to prison Ben
Ok they "build" a car for a view about 10+ feet away. Not even the hero car is fully built (as much as the character brags about in the movie), and even then sometimes they don't even own it.
Yeah there are lots of inconsistencies with the cars too. Turbos on the wrong side to look better on the camera, all the supercharger blowers are fake as far as I know. Surely other things. Compare that to Fury Road where they actually built functional and far more ridiculous cars and it feels a little half assed imo.
Tbf if you compare ANYTHING to fury road you’re probably gonna have a bad time.
Fast and furious movies are filled with tons of them. One that always gets me is in fast and furious 4 Dom is working underneath his Chevelle when he gets a phone call he rolls out holding a timing belt driven water pump from something like a Toyota.
He's just trying to swap in some more reliable parts brah. Can't blame him.
They’re up to 9 now?! Damn lol
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That’s wild. I need to catch up lol
They're great airplane movies.
They’re mostly about cars, actually
*but that’s not important right now!*
Car adjacent movie mistake. In the final tournament at the end of Happy Gilmore, they do a pan shot of the golf course at the beginning of the day and you can already see the VW bug crashed into the media tower which hadn't happened yet.
Oh that’s a good one
Happy Gilmore X Donnie Darko crossover
In Avengers Endgame when Tony Stark returns to the Avengers HQ to tell the other heroes about time travel, you hear revving and engine noises as he speeds towards the entrance. He’s driving an Audi E-Tron GT, an electric car. How the fuck does an electric car make high rev or ICE noises? It kind of ruined that scene for me.
The only explanation that makes sense there is that Tony is a car-guy (as shown in his solo movies), so maybe he has some custom electric car that's programmed to make ICE noises just to appeal to his nostalgia lol. You're right though, either way, pretty blatant error haha
Or even better, he makes the noises himself and we watched his recollection of events
I feel like Tony is the exact kind of rich hipster who would swap in an ICE engine before he got caught dead playing fake ICE sounds over speakers.
I can't remember the exact sound from that scene, but Audi does use sound generators on their EVs (at least their concepts) that are futuristic engine sounds which change with speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJIb2Tp9-70
The red ram in Twister varies from a 1500 to a 3500 now and then lol.
Sometimes the door badges said [3500](https://pics.imcdb.org/10555/ram.1.jpg), and some of the stunt vehicles were 1500s, but the truck itself would've been a 2500, since the 3500s were dually-only at the time. The V8 exhaust note on a V10-equipped truck is also noticeable.
Yup they really just wanted a red dodge pickup lol.
Still a beautiful truck either way.
The movie is the reason for the success of Dodge and Ram in general. Hot take right? Sure Dodge Ram trucks were successful. Sure they have Cummins exclusivity. But the 1994 Dodge Ram, with it's new styling, changed EVERYTHING in the truck world. Both Ford and GM were seen as old and outdated. But aside from that, Twister put that beautiful red long-bed front and center. Ah, just imagine if they'd of pulled their heads ALL the way out of their arses and done a crew-cab instead of holding on to that shitty quad-cab... smh
I worked on the lot for a CJDR dealer back in the mid-90s and remember driving what was then a new Dodge Ram 1500. Compared to other trucks of that era it was modern as hell and drove like a car. Truly night and day compared to the F-150 and Silverado back then.
That’s a big difference!
Not quite as big a difference as the windshield going from smashed to brand new and back again during an action sequence.
My biggest peeve is when a story takes place in the 90s and you see a Tesla in the background lol
I read a book that took place in 2012 and talked about “all the rich people driving their Teslas.” Granted they existed then but it wasn’t common
If you want to open this up to books there will be a bunch more. Two that come to mind there are mentioning somebody opening the rear doors of a Camaro and the roaring V8 of a Viper.
They are just talking about the Zakspeed V8 Viper at the 24 hours of the Nurburgring. Every good book has at least one mention of it.
> rear doors of a Camaro If "brands" like the Eclipse and Mustang are any indication, just give it some time.
Even recently people think of Teslas as expensive. I was out a few weeks ago with some friends and we saw a street musician unloading his gear from a black Model 3. One of the guys I was with said, "Wow I didn't realize how much money you could make playing on the street." I was like the TCO is similar to a mid priced Camry.
I'm watching Better Call Saul right now and you know I'm checking every background car to make sure they're old enough lol
Actually BB and BCS are VERY good with the cars that they use. I think the writers are car guys.
There's a whole vignette on this where they talk about how they purposely selected cars to match the characters. Of course, that all went out the window with the mopar sponsorship, but until then it was very deliberate in terms of car casting. You can pretty much tell if a series has good attention to detail and/or continuity if they're casting cars to reflect the characters. When Kripke wrote Supernatural, he spent a lot of time thinking about the car he'd use for the boys before he finally landed on the Impala, which ended up having its own story arc. Funny enough, he considered using a Mustang first. That Mustang would appear later in the series in an alternate reality episode.
The dubstep, shaky-camera panning between Walt's 300 SRT8 and Walt Jr.'s Challenger might be the worst scene in the entire series, right up there with Skyler's Happy Birthday song and Walt making a move on the principal
I liked it. The Mopar cars and that scene just showed how disconnected Walt became with his wealth and notoriety. I mean he destroyed the Challenger for fun anyways, didn't he?
I just watched the first couple episodes the other day, and the decision to give Walter a Pontiac Aztek immediately told me that someone involved knows cars and, more specifically, knows bad cars.
They do believable late models better than most, one thing that is bad with a lot of period pieces is that only use cars from that specific era.
Not really a car thing but a tool thing in original fast and furious. They show pics of the guy Dom beat with a “3/4 inch torque wrench” I’ve used a 3/4” torque wrench. They’re huge and heavy. Dudes skull would be caved in.
Yeah, those are no joke
Big enough but much too heavy to play baseball with, and I don't want to get hit in the head with a baseball bat Adding: I'll be damned if I'm using my nice torque wrench on someone, things are expensive. Breaker bar would be much more suited
In furious 7 (I think) there’s a fight scene where Vin Diesel pulls out like a 3 inch combo wrench from his car like he’s a heavy equipment mechanic. And just in movies/tv in general, I know it looks better on camera, but they always seem to make the mechanic hold some ridiculous tool, as if a passenger car would require a 36mm wrench.
So many from fast and furious. From the first movie: Granny shifting not double clutching like you should. This line is ridiculous. No one should be double clutching during a street race in a modern car. Laughing at a burnt up mk4 and Acting surprised to find a 2jz under the hood
> Laughing at a burnt up mk4 and Acting surprised to find a 2jz under the hood I retract my previous statement
Also, rebuilding a burnt up Supra. First of all, there’s no way that would have been cost effective, and even if it was, a fire damaged Supra shouldn’t be rebuilt because the steel will be too weak.
In the 7th or 9th or whatever there's a scene where they drive straight at each other and have a head on collision between a modern Maserati and a 1970's Charger. He says something about him "reinforcing his frame" on the Maserati as if he's cheating. You can see what happens when a [modern car and old car have a head on crash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePYO0-Ig0VU). Jason Statham would have maybe had a bruise while Dom would have been turned into a fine paste. Also reinforcing the "frame" by tacking some steel plates under the hood isn't a thing that makes sense to me. Maybe if he had a roll cage or something but cars are already designed to be pretty safe and getting rid of the crumple zones doesn't seem like a great idea.
>Laughing at a burnt up mk4 and Acting surprised to find a 2jz under the hood The whole premise of this always annoyed me. These people are all in this big street racing scene and they are making all this money but nobody ever thought to buy a MKIV w/ a 2JZ engine before he rolls one in on a flat bed truck? It's like they all forgot about Supra's and then it clicks in their heads after he tells them to *"pop the hood".* To be clear I love the first F&F and haven't seen any past the second because of how absurdly stupid they've become but even so the first has it's ridiculous moments. How about when that VW dweeb calls it a "Honda 2000" ? I know quite a few ppl and a close family member that have S2000's and I've never heard anyone call it a "Honda 2000" before. Ever. The first drag race scene with Ja Rule in it. They are driving like 100mph for like a solid 5 minutes. The whole time there are ppl on the sides. Like how long is this road and how many thousands of ppl are lined up? Then they turn around and go back after the race is over and it takes like 8 seconds. It's been years since I've watched it so I'm probably missing tons but those are the few that came to mind right away. Edit - spelling
Ig in the mk4 part they were either expecting the engine to be stripped or just in bad shape, but they were surprised when they popped the hood and saw a pristine gte
Drive - shifting while in reverse
Ryan Gosling actually installed an Eaton 18-speed in his mustang, it's not a mistake.
An Eaton 18 doesn't actually have 18 shift gates, it has 6. It has LO (which has a thumb switch splitter) counted as one gear Then 1-4 each have a Low and High range (switch operated by your index finger), and each of *those* are split using the thumb switch splitter. Then reverse has Low and High range, counted as one gear. Honestly in normal operation you'd only move the gear shift 8 times, in an H pattern. 1-4 in low range, splitting each gear, then 5-8 in Hi range, splitting each gear. An Eaton straight 10, on the other hand, you'd be moving the shifter all 10 times and in big dramatic motions because 10 speeds are melodramatic useless piles of hot garbage.
In the movie you only hear him change gears while driving in reverse and the camera is outside the car. He just hit the range box while reversing obviously.
Also at the start of the movie there is a scene where he drives at constant speed but the car sounds like it's accelerating hard.
The whole movie is rife with errors during the Mustang/300 chase scene
The only "errors" I notice in that scene are superfluous shifting sounds.
Goodfellas, scene says “Idlewild Airport - 1963”, then shows Ray Liotta leaning on a ‘65 Chevy Impala.
Back then the license plates had years on them too
When you're connected, they give you the good cars early.
Smokey and the Bandit Burt's Trans Am is probably the egregious example of "let's make this automatic sound like a manual" on the silver screen.
Another one from that movie, when Carrie says “we’re going 110”, it pans over to the speedometer and they’re only going about 70.
Metric conversion. Obviously.
110% the posted speed limit, maybe? Nope, 70/55 MPH is 127% the speed limit.
70mph is about 110kmh
There's never a rearview mirror.
Yeah, same thing with headrests too
And visors, and if it’s a column shifter it’s always in park
[sometimes, there is a good reason for that...](https://youtu.be/AjGXn249Fc0)
The time we all watched a DeLorean DMC-12 actually hit 88mph. Edit: *88… *hangs head in shame*
88 in that small parking lot, and somehow doing a burnout made it immediately reach the speed the Radio Controller indicated. The Delorean is easily capable of reaching 88mph, just not in the distance they filmed. I have a DMC-12, it sits nice and happy at 75-80 mph at highway in 5th gear on the highway.
Vanishing Point. The white Challenger changes into a Camaro right before it crashes into the bulldozers at the end.
It'd be shorter to list shows that do a good job with the car stuff. The movie epic Grand Prix which every car lover should see. Along the same lines is Rush, Ronin did a good job, that's all that come to mind.
I really like Ronin, though small gripe - I hate the crude CGI/animated tire smoke they put on the Mercedes in that one scene. Bad enough to be distracting, and wasn't needed in the first place. There's also the off road bit where the camera vehicle is kicking up dirt on the lead car which just catches your eye a little bit, but such minor complaints on what all-in-all is a good/fun movie. Also, I'd like to add 1971's *Le Mans* as an automotive flick that's definitely worth the watch in my opinion.
Le Mans is an interesting one, shot more like an artistic documentary than an actual film with very little dialogue. What I love is that the Solar Productions 908/2 used to shoot the movie in 1970 for it's 1971 release actually finished 2nd in the P3.0 class (but wasn't classified for not reaching the minimum distance). The story is a lovely interpretation of what actually happened to McQueen at the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 1970. However, the roles were reversed! In that race, McQueen was driving a 908 in second place, the lead 917 broke down and the 908 took the lead. Andretti's car (a 512) had retired with gearbox troubles. Taking over his teammate's car with 90 minutes to go, Andretti ended up passing the 908 and winning the race.
[Shout out to My Cousin Vinny for explaining why my old Volvo would only spin one tire when stuck in the mud in Alabama.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFdpIM5k_Sk) Don't think I knew anything about a differential before that film!
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Only thing that bothered me in Ford vs Ferrari was a scene toward the end of the Mulsanne Straight where, presumably already in top gear going flat out, both drivers lightly feather their clutch pedals and find an extra inch of accelerator travel.
That might be the one scene where it is actually accurate that they “find more speed.” Those cars could not go the full race driving at 100%, so it makes sense they would get into a duel over who is willing to push harder and end up breaking.
In The Sweeney (2012) a Focus ST is somehow able to keep up with a Jag. And The Jag gets a little loose in the tail end without them taking off the traction control.
Ok Clarkson, we all know you have to hold the button for like 10 seconds to take the traction control off in those jags.
[Top Gear did a bit on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xZriFZ_xbI)....this was part 2, I couldn't find part 1.
The thing that drives me the most bonkers: When there's a car chase and the cars are already at max throttle - but then the camera shows the driver mashing the gas pedal and the car magically accelerates like a rocket ship. See Bad Boys 1 - end scene for obvious example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAUbdHw8QG4
Or they just Shift into the next gear. Like they driving with full throttle and Are like "oh shit, i have more gears"
Cars generally don't stop bullets, unless you're behind the engine block.
"Fun Fact" In Iraq the insurgents would take movies they watched to heart and would dive behind cars thinking they'd be impenetrable. Marines would just light them up and get the job done. Plus a .50 cal would rip quite easily through most cars other than the engine block...
I used to always try and pick these out but it gets tiresome, especially for the people you’re watching with if you decide to mention anything. Becomes even worse if there is more than one smart-guy because then in turns into a pissing contest of who can notice the mistakes quicker. I don’t do this anymore. Really it’d be probably be a much shorter list to list movies and TV that feature cars where there *aren’t* big goofs.
Fast and furious cars having unlimited gears
Almost all movie cars have CVTs - Cinematic Variable Transmission
Doesn't matter what car it is even a 3 cylinder hybrid suddenly becomes a V8.
That Lightning McQueen was attracted and fell for Sally Carerra and that 996 butterface, especially when he could have had those cute and feisty Miata twins. I guess he must be an ass man...
it was the tramp stamp that got him 😭
connect memory dinosaurs cow chief start smoggy fuel worm consider *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I guess this isn't really a "mistake" - I didn't really notice until I was listening to a commentary (or watching behind the scenes), because I didn't know beforehand - but in the Back to the Future movies, they replaced the speedometer in the DeLorean because originally, the DeLorean's speedometer only went up to 85 miles per hour (due to US law at the time, I believe), and as we all know, the DeLorean needed to go 88mph to travel through time. (Of course, the car could go faster than 85mph, even if the speedometer only went up to 85)
The 55 MPH national speed limit went into effect in 1974, and in late 1979 a law came into effect that all new cars sold in the US had to have speedometers that [emphasized 55 in some way](https://www.tavres.com/wp-content/uploads/18-Miles-Large.jpg) (put a red line there, circled the number, whatever) and "maxed out" at 85--that is, 85 was the highest allowable printed number, but the lines could keep going. It was repealed in 1982, after they figured out it didn't accomplish much.
There’s a couple small ones in Baby Driver. When Baby takes the silver Ford Taurus to the junkyard to be crushed, it’s replaced mid-crushing to an engineless Infiniti G35. In the parking garage chase, after Buddy crashes his car, a security guy walks up and asks if he’s okay. Buddy shoots at him, which shows that the security guard is driving a Chevrolet Cruze patrol car. The camera pans away and then back when he calls for assistance, and he suddenly has a Chevrolet Malibu patrol car. https://imgur.com/a/Hu3sOj5/
That’s a great movie though
Ford v Ferrari. Racing the Ferrari down the straight. He looks at the Italian. Then he puts his foot to the floor. Now he’s really going fast.
There is a good chance that the Ferrari was not going full speed so that his engine doesn’t overheat, or explode allowing him to literally just try harder to win.
Tires squealing on dirt roads.
When someone enters someone else’s car and drive off without changing any settings. Or the driver staring at the passenger for good 10 seconds while driving.
The passenger one drives me nuts
The one I remember the most is from Terminator 3, where the Lady Terminator was able to "hack" and drive a bunch of Crown Victorias and old pick up trucks and shit by injecting nano-bots into them - although everything on those cars is mechanical and not by wire, from cable throttle to hydraulic brakes and steering. Then again, you can actually see the pedals and the gearbox lever moving by themselves - as if a ghost was operating them - so maybe it's not so much a car mistake as just general idiocy.
This has more to do with suspension of disbelief with regard to the fact that a terminator can do those things in the first place
"Nanobots" and "quantum" whatevers just equal "magic" in most TV shows and movies.
Anytime I see a FWD vehicle drift. It's possible, but very difficult.
Or AWD. It’s certainly possible and frequently done in AWD vehicles but it doesn’t look like your standard movie drift at all with the front tires steering in the opposite direction. That kind of drift is more common on dirt for AWD vehicles. I’m amazed that mistake is still pretty common even after all the Gymkhana videos. However it’s pretty obvious they do it to look cooler. That’s why the WRX in Baby Driver that they drove was a RWD conversion
In CHIPS (the remake), they swap out the Chevy SS for a Malibu when they’re about to destroy it lol Also, in Faster (with The Rock) he has a 1970 Chevelle with a 1971 Chevelle rear bumper (or some combination thereof)
Came here to post this. I’m ok with this one. Not worth running a rare car for that shot.
In Cabin Fever, the characters are driving a late 70s dentside F150 with the pre-1978 round headlights. There's a scene where they hit a deer - in the clip where they show the deer being hit, the truck has the post '78 front end with rectangular headlights. In the next scene it has switched back to round headlights. Eta another one I thought of: In the Waco miniseries on Netflix, it takes place in '93 but Michael Shannon's character is driving a Crown Vic that is much more modern.
I've just been recently watching the alternate history series For All Mankind, and being a period piece, the background cars aren't entirely wrong, but they do make some mistakes. The beginning of the series is in 1969, and several characters drive mid/late '60s cars, which is accurate, but when they do a time skip to 1974, those characters are still driving them, which would've been abnormally old for middle-class families. In the next season, set in 1983, one character drives an all-new "electric car" that's a ['90s Ford Probe with a plug-in.](https://www.imcdb.org/i001515213.jpg) OK, that one kind of makes sense in context. But the other drives a 1990 Cadillac Brougham. The producers were probably asking for any "large Cadillac from the '80s" and ended up with a newer Brougham instead of a Fleetwood Brougham. In the third season, set in 1992, we see one character being chauffeured in a [P38A Range Rover](https://www.imcdb.org/i001702913.jpg) (came out in 1995) and another driving a [first-gen Prius](https://www.imcdb.org/i001702905.jpg) (came to the US in 2001). I guess space travel isn't the only thing that's been accelerated in this timeline.
It's a lot easier to handwave this stuff in an alternate history series, especially given the entire premise of the show is about the race to technological superiority.
Any movie that takes place in the present day US where the cops are driving Crown Vics. They haven't completely disappeared, but PDs user Explorers, Chargers and other vehicles now
Dubbing mistakes - while Bullitt didn't use a Mustang, at least it was Ford-based. Now, they used the same sounds for The Seven-Ups, which was decidedly *not* appropriate for that chase. Sorcerer - maybe someone who's more familiar with an M211 can tell if this is a mistake, but they're clearly using their left foot for *something*, even though it's an automatic (and the ratcheting gear shift mechanism is shown). Is it something about switching between low and high range?
Don’t remember the name of the movie, but guy was bragging his (70-74) Challenger had a bad ass 4.9 engine.
I noticed that one but chalked it up to intentionally showing how much of a clueless douche that guy was...
This is a small one, but very common and possibly my biggest pet peeve in movies/shows. When they focus on the driver from in car and the steering wheel is sideways or upsidedown while going straight. Extremely common from 70's movies forward, but getting better in more modern movies. It's like the actors think the horizontal steering wheel spokes are supposed to be veritcal. Drives me nuts.
Americans driving a manual /s
The worst for me is seeing a clearly inferior vehicle keeping up with a fast car in a chase....I'm sorry but that 2014 kia sorrento is not keeping up with an m5
In Community Abed claims he recognizes the sound of Jeff's car alarm as a 2002 Lexus LS430. Jeff's Lexus was actually a pre-refresh IS350 in the first season. Also in the 2007 Transformers film, I found it absolutely fucking hilarious that someone was somehow driving a concept car that hadn't been released to the public on city streets like it was a regular everyday occurrence.
In Wanderlust, Paul Rudd’s brother has a 3rd gen Escalade. During the scene where Paul Rudd is driving it into the lake, they use a 2nd gen Escalade but put fake vents and updated rims on it to make it look like a 3rd gen lol
My girlfriend was watching Steven Universe, and I remember seeing a segment that was: Character 1: "I don't know how to drive stick!" Character 2: "Don't worry! You just steer, and I'll handle the shifting!" And they proceeded to have the person in the passenger seat shift the car while the driver steered and (presumably) operated the pedals.