Hoot Top 10 - Film and TV carsAt Hoot, we know finding a cheap online car insurance quote can be a pretty arduous business. No doubt you're feeling bogged-down with all the wacky company names and user IDs you've had to create, and the chances are that the only things you will have to show for it are a couple of none-too-inspiring motor insurance quote numbers. This is about the point at which many people give up and head back to the Yellow Pages for a couple of phone numbers. But wait - don't give up on a good thing, like the super-cheap online car insurance deals at Hoot. Take a break, relax, and see how you feel (we promise it'll be a change for the better). So put down the phone, and relax for ten minutes with a good book. Or, if there's not one handy, try reading the following Hoot Top 10. If you enjoy reading it even half as much as we enjoyed writing it, it'll put you right back on top of your game. The Hoot Top 10: Film and TV Cars
At Hoot, we love talking about cars - that's the reason most of us got involved in the motor insurance game. Even after a hard day sorting people out with cheap young driver car insurance, the average Hoot employee still has plenty to say on the subject, particularly when it comes to picking favourites. The following Top 10 is the result of several years' passionate discussion in the Hoot break room. Occasionally, people have had to raise their voices. Once somebody's hair was pulled. But we knew it had all been worthwhile when we finally agreed on this, the ultimate list of its kind (and to be honest, the hair-pulling incident would have happened anyway). So without further ado, we present: The Hoot Top 10 Film and TV Cars 10. 1974 Ford Torino ("Starsky and Hutch")
The classic 70's cop show was as much about Starsky's Torino as either of its human stars. Nicknamed the "Striped Tomato" by the decidedly unimpressed Ken Hutchinson, the bright red bodywork and distinctive white stripes proved so popular that Ford bosses ordered a run of 1,000 production models with the same paintjob. All 89 episodes of the TV series were made using just two specially customized Torinos. One was fitted with a roof camera so the people at home could view fleeing perps over Starsky's shoulder; the second, used for external shots and stunt work, had MAG wheels, oversized tires, air shocks and "hijackers on the rear end" (whatever that means). 9. 1968 Ford Mustang GT-390 ("Bullitt")
Peter Yates' 1968 crime thriller is a landmark movie in many respects: its gritty, very faithful reproduction of US police procedure; its rebellious cop hero at odds with his superiors; its brilliant jazz and percussion soundtrack. But the film is chiefly remembered for seven glorious minutes of car chase through downtown San Francisco, voted on many occasions "The Greatest Car Chase in Cinema History". As Lt. Frank Bullitt, Steve McQueen rags the above-mentioned Mustang over the hill-crests and through winding city streets and then out onto the highway in hot pursuit of the hit-men who set out to ambush him. Lt. Bullitt shifts-up 16 times in a row on a four-speed gearbox, but the car keeps on giving. Watch closely, and you'll see it lose six hubcaps. 8. Mk1 Austin Mini Cooper S ("The Italian Job")
The Italian Job's getaway sequence - unquestionably the highlight of the film - follows Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) and various camp accomplices as they make their escape from Turin with $4m worth of gold bullion in a trio of Minis. The chase (Croker's gang leave a trail of police Alpha Romeos in their wake) takes in as many Turin sights as possible, notably the shopping arcades of the Via Roma, the rooftop test track at Fiat's Lingotto building and the steps of the Gran Madre di Dio church - all of which the cars negotiate with ease. But their pièce de résistance is gunning it down a series of concrete sewer pipes on the way out of the city (not Turin in this case - the sequence was filmed near Coventry). The Minis' flight is all the more impressive when you consider the weight of $4m worth of gold bullion in 1968 - about 3,200kg. That means each of the 630kg cars had to tackle cobbles, jumps, steps and sewers with about one and a half times its own weight in gold in the back. 7. The General Lee (1969 Dodge Charger, from "The Dukes of Hazzard")
Named for American Civil War General Robert E. Lee, the Dukes star attraction was modeled on legendary southern bootlegger Jerry Rushing's car, a 1958 Chrysler capable of 140mph. Generally driven by Bo Duke (Luke preferring to slide over the bonnet and ride shotgun), the California orange General was built for dirt-track racing. In common with NASCAR stock cars and other racing vehicles that require a rigid framework, its doors are welded shut and everyone must get in through the windows - even Uncle Jesse, who has to be picked up and slid in by the boys. What makes The General truly remarkable is the number of car-killing stunts it survives in the course of Dukes' 147 episodes. The stunt team totalled 309 General Lee Chargers in the course of making the show - that's an average of two and a bit per hour-long episode. But the fictional General Lee somehow survives all the stunts without taking so much as a scratch. That makes it nigh-on indestructible. 6. Aston Martin DB5 ("Goldfinger", "Thunderball")
It's the best Bond car, with the best Bond (Connery) at the wheel. The 007 DB5 featured a Swiss Army knife's worth of gadgets, which included: .30 calibre Browning machine guns behind the front indicators; retractable tyre slashers (think Ben-Hur); oil slick sprayer; smoke screen cartridge in the exhaust pipe; revolving number plates; and of course the famous passenger ejector-seat. A 1965 Corgi model of the same car which incorporated most of the above features (again most notably the ejector seat) went on to become the most famous toy car ever, and the biggest selling. The model remains in production to this day. The DB5 has got to be about the best motor you (or Q) could actually manufacture with today's tools and know-how. It truly is a masterpiece of British intelligence. 5. 1974 Dodge Monaco ("The Blues Brothers")
It's tempting to refer to this one as the "Bluesmobile", but that was the name of a Cadillac used as transport for the band in the days before Jake (John Belushi) was sent to prison. Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) traded it (for a microphone) sometime while Jake was inside, with the net result that he turns up on the latter's release date in old Mount Prospect police vehicle - the Dodge Monaco. "It's got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant," Elwood says. "It's got cop tyres, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is it the new Bluesmobile or what?" Anyone who's seen the string of insane stunts which follow over the course of the film knows that the Monaco is actually far greater than the sum of these cop-grade parts - it's an out-and-out magic car. It's also got the best cassette-tape selection in cinema history. 4. The Batmobile (five movies, 60's TV series, countless comics)
Doesn't really seem fair on the other cars, does it? The Bluesmobile had just 90 minutes to establish itself as a film car classic, whereas the Batmobile gets five times as much big screen-time, plus 120 TV appearances and enough comic-book pages to wallpaper the Batcave. As a consequence of its constant re-working (the 60's Batmobile was an old Ford concept car bought for $1.00 and given a lick of black paint; the 80's version looked great but was about as road hump friendly as a Dalek; its most recent incarnation looks like a cross between a Hum-Vee and a wheelbarrow) the Batmobile can be pretty much any car your imagination desires.
The cars do share a few common characteristics, however. All the Batmobiles have heavily-armoured chassis, muscle-car engines, mounted weapons and a computer hook-up to the Batcave. Oh, and quite often a helicopter (the "Whirlybat") in the boot. 3. Herbie (1963 Volkswagen Beetle, from "The Love Bug" and its four sequels)
You can talk about the star-quality of cars like the S&H Ford Torino and The General Lee outshining the humans onscreen, but Herbie is the first in this list to actually out-act somebody; namely Dean Jones, who played his driver in the first few movies. Herbie is an off-white VW Beetle with red, white and blue racing stripes and the number "53" on his bonnet. He has a mind of his own (not to mention a personal pronoun) and abilities - speed, manoeuvrability, jumping, etc - far beyond any other car on the racing circuit. He is an actor rather than a prop, and the only car in the world with his own passport. Disney acquired it for him in 1976, on the set of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. Herbie's most recent offering, "Herbie: Fully Loaded" saw the plucky VW back from a 25-year retirement to star alongside upcoming Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan, who he also out-acted. 2. KITT (1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, from "Knight Rider")
You could be forgiven for thinking that KITT was the love-child of Herbie and the Batmobile (Nos. 3 and 4, above), but in the TV series he was built by the Knight Foundation to fight crime and protect human life. KITT (an abbreviation of Knight Industries Two Thousand) started life as an artificial intelligence chip inside a US Government mainframe, but when designer Wilton Knight decided he had more potential as a vehicle the chip was grafted into the workings of a jet-black Pontiac Trans Am. The Pontiac had almost as many gadgets as the Batmobile(s), notably: "Molecular Bonded Shell" armour which made him invulnerable to anything but a direct hit from a rocket; an "Anamorphic Equaliser" which granted him full-spectrum sight (the signature pulsing red scanner in between his headlights); and "Turbo Boost", an afterburner that could either accelerate KITT up to 200mph or make him jump 40 ft into the air. But what's really special about KITT is that he can hear, see, speak, drive and, to be honest, act much better than his human partner Michael Knight (a pre-Baywatch David Hasselhoff). 1. De Lorean DMC-12 (from the "Back to the Future" trilogy)
"The way I see it," says Doc Emmett Brown in the original Back to the Future, "if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?" This was 1985, three years after the De Lorean Motor Company went bankrupt. In its seven-year history, DMC only made one car - the DMC 12 - and they only made about 8,500 of those. The DMC-12 was unreliable, impractical (try getting the doors open in a garage), underpowered and practically unavailable. Until Doc Brown got his hands on one (in fact six were used making the three films), the De Lorean had about as much style as an Asda tracksuit. But the Back to the Future franchise transformed the DMC-12. Everyone forgot that it was a hugely-flawed auto from a bankrupt manufacturer once writer/director Robert Zemeckis turned it into a time machine. True: time-travel brought Marty and the Doc nothing but trouble. True: it's the "Flux Capacitor" that makes time travel possible (not the DMC-12). But in the public consciousness, the De Lorean is chiefly remembered as the car that can travel through time. And no amount of personality, technology, magic or even paintwork can beat that.
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