Welcome back! It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another four-way shootout, and, yes, another silly scenario. I don’t think I’ve done this one before, but if I have, just humor me and go with it.
First, let’s see how yesterday‘s voting ended up. I thought the Ford’s lower price might draw more of you in, but that Olds is just a cooler car, and in better shape. I’d choose it too. There’s something decadent about a car that size with only two doors that makes it feel special, even if it’s not terribly economical or responsible.
As for its condition, I think I agree that it should be preserved how it is. It’s complete right down to the hubcaps, more intact than you’d expect from a sixty-one-year-old car, and it runs beautifully. Just seal up the surface so it doesn’t rust any further, and enjoy it.
In the description of the Fairlane yesterday, I mentioned that I could see it in a movie, with some grubby private eye behind the wheel. And I still think that could work. But it’s at best a supporting character vehicle, not the “hero” car. Casting the right car for a lead character is an art, and when TV shows get it right, you can’t imagine that character driving anything else. I mean, can you see Sam and Dean Winchester in a Cadillac Cimarron? Or Jim Rockford in a Mazda GLC? Of course not.
So, your scenario for the day: You’re in charge of casting the hero car for a new Netflix drama. It’s still in development, but we’ll say the main character is, in fact, a private investigator, somewhere in the desert southwest. The director hasn’t cast this lead yet, but because he’s a gearhead, he has put a lot of thought into the car and has narrowed it down to these four choices. The choice of car will help develop the character’s backstory, so it’s vital to get it right. The director trusts your judgment and will use whatever car you pick, and build the character around it. Here’s a quick recap of each car.
1983 Ford LTD
The case for it: Basic American sedans are a staple of the genre. Cars like this are what viewers expect to see in a mystery drama. They’re great for stakeouts, and they kinda handle like crap, which ironically makes them perfect for chase scenes – tires squealing, hubcaps flying, the whole bit.
The case against it: It’s a bit old and frumpy, not terribly relatable unless the lead character is in their 50s at least. Even then, it would have to be “Mom’s/Dad’s old car” or something. Also, early ’80s LTDs are getting a little thin on the ground; it might not be too easy to find more copies of it if you need them.
2007 Chevrolet Cobalt
The case for it: Small GM cars are accessible, in more than one way. Everyone has had some contact with one at some point, so it’s relatable. Two-door Cobalts aren’t incredibly common, but they’re still not too hard to find. And you can always paint them yellow to match this one if need be. Speaking of the color, it would absolutely pop on the screen.
The case against it: As great as the yellow would look on screen, I have always had a little problem with TV characters who are supposed to be able to slip in and out of situations unnoticed while driving really conspicuous cars. How are you supposed to sneak up on anybody in a rolling banana?
2005 Scion xB
The case for it: it’s another everyperson’s car, one that we all see all the time, but it’s a little more hip and cool than a Chevy Cobalt. Also, have you seen the rigs they have to put in cars to do in-car shots? You need a lot of room to fit cameras, sound gear, operators, and all that rigamarole. There’s a surprising amount of room in the back of these things.
The case against it: Everybody loves these things. As cool as it would be to see one in a TV show, you’d probably end up getting some serious hate mail if you wrecked too many of them. Put it this way –Â The Dukes of Hazzard went through more than three hundred Dodge Chargers, and a lot of Mopar fans still haven’t forgiven them.
1963 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88
The case for it: it’s just plain cool. It’s surprisingly photogenic even as it sits. And a good writer could come up with a fantastic back-story for it. This is the sort of car that could become a character in its own right.
The case against it: Go ahead; find another one (or two, or three) to use for interior shots, or for stunts. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Choosing this car would seriously limit the storyline possibilities, for fear of damaging it.
Now, keep in mind we’re not talking about a car that’s actually written into the plot; nothing like Knight Rider or anything like that. The show isn’t really about the car; it’s just the signature vehicle of the main character.
So your assignment, and you’ve got all weekend to work on it, is to not only pick the car, but describe the protagonist who drives it. Who are they? What kind of things do they investigate? How’d they get that car, and why do they keep it around? Bonus points if you give names to the character and show. Let’s have some fun with this.
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
Two miles from town, just beyond the reach of a Dollar General store’s parking lot lights, two stoned teenagers find a crude coffin and pry it open to discover the decomposing torso of an unidentified man. After two weeks of lackadaisical investigation, the local sheriff’s department has few leads and no ID, as the apparent homicide slides toward cold case status.
Carl Firehammer, private investigator, has just opened the bento box he packed for lunch when a woman who looks vaguely familiar walks into his office in town. She asks his rate and wants to hire him, but will not say why. Firehammer, already burned several times too many, refuses to take her as a client under these circumstances–but as she then reveals, the client is her brother, who’s in a federal pen out of state. She’ll pay Firehammer’s expenses to visit her brother and hear him out with no obligation to take the case. Before he says no, she counts out seven $100 bills and slides them into his pants pocket. His FRONT pants pocket. As the owner of a 2005 Scion xB, Firehammer is unaccustomed to such forwardness from women, and he knows with his mad mpg, the cash will be nearly pure profit. The heady blend of lust and lucre is more than he can resist, and as he parts the blinds to watch his shapely visitor slip her fox body into a dazzling two-tone ’83 Ford LTD, we know the hook has been set.
We see Firehammer loading a bag into a suprisingly full xB and easing down a two-lane highway toward his appointment, his grim face lit by morning sun as the pilot episode of Man in a Box, the gripping new Netflix Originals series, fades to black.
The incarcerated brother, who goes only by Cobalt, claims to know who the murder victim is, why he was killed, and much, much more. As the series feeds viewers fragments of the interview over the next several episodes, we understand that Firehammer has taken the case of finding not only the murderer, but a container load of new old stock Cadillac XLR taillights that had been in his possession, with a street value of $6.5 million. As the series unfolds, we increasingly see flashback scenes of Cobalt and the victim, friends since childhood, together in Cobalt’s ’63 Olds Dynamic 88 as we and Firehammer gradually piece together a story of ambition, loyalty, and betrayal. Comic relief is provided by Firehammer always having anything needed for any situation, from firearms to a bumper bar for a Nissan Pao, in the back of his incredibly capacious Scion xB. But who, ultimately, is the Main in a Box?
Let me make the case for the LTD. I won’t vote for it to own it, I’m just defending it as a hero car.
It is in fact the ride of someone who is just barely above poverty but with a massive amount of debt, and the LTD is a “nice” car (compared to their current beat to shit seven layers of primer coated plastic bag over the left rear window 2003 Mitsubishi Magnum) they got for doing a basic job like cleaning some old man’s house. Not long after receiving it he LTD is stolen and used as a getaway car for multiple robberies before it’s found and impounded by the police. The main character gets a call from the impound lot and picks it up, leaving them about $1,500 further in debt, but the car oddly unmarred. It’s while pulling away from the impound lot that the main character thinks “There’s no way this could be my car” due to how fast it accelerates.
They bring it to a garage who marvels that the Windsor (yes, I know the car has an Essex V6, you don’t have to show that on camera) has been completely stripped of smog controls and fitted with a massive turbocharger. The mechanic makes a bet about a quick drag race, just for fun. Desperate for money the main character accepts, finding out that the LTD is in fact stupidly fast, explaining how the robbers got away so many times. Not knowing much about cars the main character sets up a deal with the mechanic where the mechanic will maintain the car and give the main character leads on where new street drag races are going to go down. From there things escalate further and further, with the one constant being that no matter how modified the LTD becomes mechanically, it always appears stock.
A harder hero car would be something like a Crosley CD, because not only is it weirdly out of place so many decades on, but it’s difficult to have it be anything other than an accessory to a character because of it’s odd size, difficulty to modify, and generally limited functionality.
The Oldsmobile would be great as a hero car. Lots of style and presence and easy to build a story around.
Sure,you may not find a ton of copies,but it should handle a few chases as long as you don’t wreck it.
The Oldsmobile. Why? Simple:
Uncle, Uncle Buck, Private Eye!
The only one that fits the best for a private eye is the Olds
It’s gotta be the Olds.
Lincoln Cabel (he never saw himself as a “Linc”) is a smart guy. A little too tightly wound, sometimes, but he always means well. He grew up in Riverside and as a proud local boy rejected Stanford for Pomona College but was quickly disgusted by the right-wing intellectuals around the campus at Claremont. He got into law school at Berkeley intending to fight the good fight, but he had to drop out after his first year when his accountant dad died. so he moved back home with his mom because they both can use help with expenses. The closest thing to an indulgence in his life is his Scion xB, which he bought off-lease in 2008 and keeps in immaculate condition despite the 200,000 miles he’s put on it criss-crossing the Inland Empire over the past two years. He hasn’t found himself a girl yet – he is a little awkward – but all in all he’s a good egg. Too bad the nonprofit housing agency where he helped people get through the ongoing foreclosure crisis just shut down for lack of funds.
But that’s not his only problem. His brother – sorry, half-brother, as both of them would insist on making clear – born of his mom’s brief first marriage to an LA cop has come back to town, and it’s not even Mother’s Day. Edsel (his mom’s idea – she insisted on naming her sons) Grain never got along with his straitlaced stepdad and moved in with his natural father when he was 15 and little Lincoln was six. Like his dad, he joined the LAPD, he’s loud, messy and a little lazy, he cuts corners, and he indulges himself a little too much, but he’s got a core integrity that takes a while to surface. But it breached when he got assigned to Rampart and saw the violence and corruption of those who were supposed to protect and serve. That made him speak out, and that got him canned, even with his now retired dad pulling every string he could reach. His wife had kicked him out long before, and he lost his apartment and his flashy Mustang pretty quickly what with no savings and not even unemployment insurance since he was fired for a trumped-up cause. His dad lives in a studio in the Valley but somehow manages to get a string of short-term girlfriends half the age of the Oldsmobile he drives around, so he’s packed everything he has left into the beige LTD he bought from a little old lady in Glendora and come back to Riverside at the age of 37 to start over.
Now the two are staring at each other across the living room and their mom Victoria has to somehow keep the peace. Both boys need something to do and all three of them could use some money, but the Great Recession is in full swing. So despite her concerns about the kind of work, she proposes starting a detective agency with what’s left of Lincoln’s dad’s life insurance. They can get licensed for not a lot of money and she’ll take care of the business side from her home office in the third bedroom where she used to work remote as a mortgage broker. The only problem is that the house is a three-bedroom, so the boys will have to share, something they didn’t even have to do as kids. At least her Cobalt is small, so all the cars can fit in the driveway to keep the HOA off their backs.
With recurring character Ransom Grain, Edsel ‘s dad, coming out when he can get the old Olds running to visit and advise the boys and catch up with the ex-wife he’s barely seen in 20 years, and “Elise” (not her real name), Edsel’s ex who brings the kids out to see their grandmother and commiserate with her about the stress of being the ex-wife of a cop.
Grain and Cabel. Thursday nights at 9:00 Eastern / 8:00 Central.
I stuck with the Scion.
If I’m the hero/frumpy PI in the southwest, the Scion is anonymous and most likely to have functional A/C.
Even Colombo’s humble Peugeot would have stood out a bit in LA in that era.
Can I just say that I would rather watch the selections on The Autopian+ than just about anything on TV right now? Interesting premises, layered (and diverse!) characters, and amazing car casting. Y’all are some real ones.
This is more a movie pitch:
It’s a different 1987. A darker, grittier 1987. So dark indeed, the camera lens is tinted extra grim-dark. With extra film grit added digitally.
Our man: Jack Russell. Code name: Thunderbird. Grizzled ex-Secret Service agent. A man who had it all, until a month before retirement. A flawless career of serving Presidents in their hour of need.
Until one fateful day.
President Walter Mondale returning from Andrews Air Force base. A shot rings out from a lone gunman. Jack Russell, pushing the President into the stately Ford LTD for cover. The President, shaken, survives, but blames Russell for the lapse. All signs point to the nefarious Soviet Union and its sinister agents. Russell out of his position in disgrace as the Soviet Union and United States hurtle towards World War III.
But Russell knows this isn’t the work of the Soviets. The scent goes further than that. But he’ll need help from his friend Volodymyr and Russell’s trusty Ford LTD to get to the bottom of this case.
A twisted game of double-crosses and intrigue into East Germany’s Stasi where Russell meets his match: A ruthless KGB liaison agent, bent on seizing power in the USSR. Vladimir Putin. But Russell’s bite is worse than his bark, and Putin’s about to meet his match as the clock ticks down to annihilation.
Last Thunderbird Down. Starring a de-aged Clint Eastwood.
My character is Matt Sherlock. He started as a police officer for LAPD and Rose up the ranks to become detective. But he began to have bad luck when he hit the midlife crisis point. He started to investigate a murder committed by ganbanger son of a city councilman. Rather than hit dead ends he turned in his badge and gun. He became a freelance insurance fraud investigator. The LTD was his dad’s. The perfect car for the job.
The olds all day long.
The LTD II could replace Axel Foley’s Chevy Nova on a Beverly Hills Cop sequel revival. Oh wait…
The yellow Cobalt would only really work in a kooky mystery/comedy like “Psych”. And “Psych” already exists.
The yellow may pop on the screen, but no self respecting PI wants to stand out like that (Magnum not withstanding).
As much as I want to go with the Olds, I’m picking the Scion. The protagonist is a 30 something woman who’s failed at everything else, mostly because she didn’t really try. She’s estranged from most of her family because of this lack of effort. She takes this job to be closer to her Grandpa (who drives the Olds). He was a PI of the Old School with the same lazy streak, but now isn’t doing so well health-wise. Her interactions with him have a rejuvenating affect, though. His name is Arthur, she’s Lizzy. The show is called Head Cases.
I miss tv like this. No season-spanning story arcs with constant this-changes-everything dramatic reveals, just good characters that you tune in to watch. Tv as a fun distraction, not a hobby.
I’m finding that kind of experience with some of the Star Wars shows on Disney+. The whole show is 6 or 8 episodes long. Tell one story, tell it well.
Yeah, I miss bespoke episodes.
The LTD, because this imaginary movie is a period piece. It’s 1993, we’ve won the Cold War and Pax Americana has begun, the economy is growing after the mild recession and people are feeling good. But our hero is in a different place. He saw some things in ‘Nam that no man should see, and the only thing that gets him going is Jack Daniels, Marlboro Reds, and justice for his clients. Maybe suburban dads want those expensive new soap bar Camrys and Tauruses, but his trusty $500 LTD is good enough for him.