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)
OK, so this is a fun assignment, and it has me thinking. Has anyone here read the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch? It’s a very fun urban fantasy detective series, but two things are important here: 1) America exists but is not part of the plotline and 2) using magic destroys any nearby digital electronics.
So in The Ley Lines of Pittsburgh, our heroes (crusty old mentor wizard and a couple wide-eyed recruits to Undercover Magic Policing) all need vehicles that will blend in, hold up to the mean streets, but also won’t strand them if they inadvertently cast fireball while standing too close to the engine.
Just wondering what would work, without getting too wacky with 4BT swaps or survivalist EMP retrofits. (Also, this has nothing to do with me having started working on engines when points and carbs were common.)
The Olds is your ride then, points ignition and a carb. Not a microprocessor to be found.
Doesn’t exactly blend in, but a paint job would at least make it classy. In The Rivers of London the crusty old wizard drives a ’60s Jag Mk2.
The young detective drives a fleet shitbox and has to call for a tow every once in a while.
The Scion.
It will be driven by a 24 years old programmer whose front is an accountability software development firm in Delaware, but really they investigate money laundering.
Sun Lo, the detective, was recruited by the owner of the agency after he wrecked Sun’s first car, a hand-me-down Cavalier. The firm also helped him buy the Scion, since Sun did not have insurance (the owner of the firm was DUI when his Tahoe smacked Sun’s Cavalier, hence the urgency to keep him in good terms).
Disgrunted with his Korean family that wanted him to become a doctor, Sun chose the Scion instead of any Kia or Hyundai. That will, later, protect his family from reprisals, because the security chief of a corporation investigated by Sun just disregarded that he could be of Korean origin and related to the medical-driven Lo family: “no Korean kid would drive something Japanese, period. Keep looking further, asshole, and don’t bother the doctors”.
The show will be named “Accounta”, after the firm that works as a front for Sun’s detective agency.
For more details, please contact me.
10/10 would watch that. When does the pilot air?
As soon as we sign the contract.
I could write the whole plot in a couple days after my exam on Wednesday.
LTD. As the hero says, you can probably drive faster with a stickshift but you can’t shoot, operate a radio or take notes with one. Of course the hero never does any of these things and drives like a granny, but that’s what the books they read say.
Nobody likes the Cobalt, so I’m going to try to make a case for it.
Our private eye is a Gen-Z former cybersecurity expert with an unnamed government agency. She’s set up her business in an urban loft, bringing in friends of hers with various skillsets to provide support, interpersonal drama, and quippy dialogue. The Cobalt belonged to her older brother who died under mysterious circumstances that she’s never accepted as accidental. Her friends regularly/meta-ly make fun of it exactly for how unstealthy it is, but she constantly defends it. It’ll end up being driven off a dock in season 2 and replaced with a crossover from whomever ends up providing sponsorship now that the show is popular.
(also, remember this is tv – the whole point is for you to notice the car, in-universe visibility be damned. Thomas Magnum had a GMC Jimmy and a Jeep Grand Wagoneer available to him at various points, not to mention ROBIN 2, yet he’d always fight with Higgins over using the Ferrari.)
As I recall, ROBIN2 was also a Ferrari, just not red. Dark blue maybe?
You mean the dark one that Robin Masters’ wayward nephew showed up in? Hmm…you may be right; I thought ROBIN 2 was the gray Audi 5000 that Higgins always drove, but it has been awhile.
Yeah, maybe I’m not remembering that right though. Wiki says it was Robin23. Not so sure about that…
In any event, my favorite TV motor pool! There was also originally a Jaguar XJ6 before Magnum arrived, and I think even a K-5 Blazer at one point.
Jonathan and Jennifer Hart’s does come in second, esp if you count the Ferrari Dino he drives in the pilot.
Agreed. Second place for me is the A Team. Sweet van & a ‘vette.
The LTD or Olds looks like one of the beater cars Dalton would buy in “Road House” so that his Mercedes SLC wouldn’t get damaged by the drunks who take issue with getting kicked out of the Double Deuce.
Can’t we just reboot Sledge Hammer from the ’80s and have him drive the Olds? I think that would be mint.
For movie character, Uncle Buck in the Olds. Shame John Candy isn’t with us, though. A true hero. Don’t change that interior, keep as-is and throw in a few empty bags of doritos.
Side note: it’s amazing how much of the J-Body remains in the Cobalt despite GM’s claim at the time that it was a complete departure from the Crapalier. Even the seats are taken as-is.
For me it was the fade into the background LTD.
I voted Scion, but I feel like the Cobalt would work as a lead character’s car in a different show like a Better Call Saul Suzuki Esteem kind of way.
I’m bored so I’ll play along:
LTD. Driven by Cordell Gunn, Jr., or as vile individuals who commit crimes against the postal service know him, Gunn, PI… Postal inspector.
As a child, he dreamed of becoming a rural letter carrier like his father, Cordell Gunn, Sr. He accompanied his father along his route, seated in the back seat of a brown ’83 Ford LTD. He watched with admiration as his father drove from mailbox to mailbox delivering letters and vital packages to the denizens of rural Nevada.
Unfortunately, a misdirected delivery changed the course of his life. On the day of Cordell Sr’s 39th birthday, a package arrived at the Gunn residence that listed their address and had “happy birthday!” written across the top. Cordell Sr. was a popular man so he assumed it was a present from one of his friends. He gathered his wife and son around to see what treasures were within. He opened the box. To his horror, Cordell Sr. immediately noticed the package contained a bomb set to explode 3 seconds after opening (in a cruel twist of fate, his neighbor at 1424 was a mafia boss in hiding who was targeted by an assassin who misread his address as 1420). In his final heroic act, Cordell Sr. protected his son from harm. Cordell Sr., along with his wife, died that day, leaving Cordell Jr. an orphan.
Cordell Jr. swore revenge. Cordell Gunn, Jr. vowed to become Gunn, Postal Inspector.
He attended the best law enforcement academies. He mastered, karate, muay thai, taekwondo, thai chi, and many other disciplines. He became an expert marksman with his powerful Smith & Wesson .500 revolver.
Today, he drives across the country in his father’s ’83 Ford LTD fighting all forms of postal crime. Letter theft. Package theft. Mail fraud. Mailbox baseball. Murder. No crime is too small, and no crime is too big for Gunn, PI.
He is ruthless. He is fearsome. He is relentless. Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night… will keep this man from kicking ass. If you even think of committing a postal crime, he will go postal on your ass. The last thing you will hear is his catch phrase “return to sender” followed by the loud report of his gun.
He is Gunn, PI.
Hell, I’d watch that: well done
Brilliant.
“Return to sender” is fucking brutal.
Fantastic. Slow hand clap gif goes here.
Sounds like Newman
“Of course nobody needs mail!”
It’s night in Phoenix. Oscar L. Desmond II, PI, is sitting in his car watching his client’s husband check into a motel with the floozy his wife suspected he was cheating with.
It’s not glamorous work, but it pays the bills. And on late nights like this, his 1963 Olds Dynamic 88 is a comfortable place to watch people do what they do. Oscar his name, the car, and the business from his father, who always liked to point out that is initials spelled OLDS. With a connection like that, how could he ever get rid of the car? Sure, it was creaky and, well, old, but the sunburnt patina just made it blend in with everything else in this town.
Not like that yellow Cobalt the receptionist drove.
Anyway, back to the business at hand…
I’m picturing an empty bottle of Jim Beam behind the front seats as well. After getting kicked off the police force after a distinguished career, but eventually marred by a few whiskey fueled bad decisions, he is now watching cheating husbands and relying on slime ball divorce attorneys for work.
Gimme the LTD. Bonus points if you have a bag of groceries where everything is labeled with the old generic labeling. You know, BEER on beer, etc. Because that LTD is generic as possible. I guess in a good way?
Dharma Initiative brand product? I remember those days – a whole aisle of plain black and white boxes: MAC and CHEESE.
Oblique, but Bud from Repo Man would approve of both. “Let’s go get a drink.”
OK, full disclosure, I’m cheating. I voted for both the LTD and the Olds, because this is a cop/PI buddy show! Starsky and Hutch, Crockett and Tubbs, Riggs and Murtaugh! What’s wrong with all of these? Serious lack of estrogen.
Title: “Desert Phyre”
Setting: Phoenix circa 1987
Lead characters:
Paula Phyreston – Promising young rookie kicked off the Phoenix PD after slugging a fellow cop who was getting handsy. Unfortunately for her, he was also the corrupt mayor’s son. Tries to make ends meet as a PI. She’s the Olds driver since she is unemployed with no money and these would have been dirt cheap in ’87.
Betty Butler – Veteran lt. detective on the PPD and friend of Paula. Knows about the mayor’s corruption but is savvy enough to play along while gathering evidence to bring him down. Trys to help Paula by sending work her way. LTD driver since that’s what stereotypical cops drove in ’87.
Weekly episodes cover a case of the week, plus a series arc dealing with corruption in the PD and Phoenix politics.
I’d watch that.
Me too!
A true sad sack would drive the Gettysburg Fairmont from a couple weeks ago. This man has just given up on life and only stays sober enough to hold a job.
Xb: neurotic, slightly sleazy PI. Like, he does paparazzi photos on the side to pay the rent. Dash is layered with old burger wrappers from the dollar menu. He was a cop, screwed up, sent down to parking enforcement, kept screwing up, and ended up on Roach Patrol. Busted for taking greasy burgers in exchange for a passing Health inspection, he was nicely asked to retire from public service and ended up working the divorce evidence circuit
-gotta get rid of the black wheels, though: stock steelies fit him better
One of them should be mismatched though.
Perfect: a junkyard wheel that had been covered in purple PlastiDip. He shot it with cheap silver spray paint to match, but that’s flaking off now, so it looks leprous
PI in the desert southwest, like Albuquerque maybe? [I actually spelled Albuquerque from memory and got it right on the first try! -ME]
Of all the cars up there I can only see Mike Ehrmantraut rolling in that LTD, possibly the Olds, but most likely the LTD. He’d shoot whoever tried to put him in a bright yellow Cobalt.
It was between the LTD and Olds for me as well. The LTD is actually more sad sack than the Olds.
Yeah, both are old and wornout but the Olds at least still has some charm. The LTDs rolled off the line with zero charm.
That’s my exact point actually. The LTD (I owned one in HS/College) has negative charm. The Olds speaks of what it could be, faded glory and a better past. The LTD just is.
Scion xBoxcar for the win. It’d be an interesting bit of characterization. The Cobalt feels too tryhard, the LTD missed its’ casting call for the Beastie Boys Sabotage video, and the Olds is too much work to restore and write around, unless you’re specifically aiming for folks wanting to see a big v8 coupe on screen again.
The xB invites questions: Why’s it gray? Why the 20 year old defunct brand’s attempt to be hip? Is it a lovingly kept ex’s car (that the hero still pines for) or even just grandma’s ride, given to the next generation?
Older PI type? They use it to appear like a grandpa in a grocery getter. A younger dick can be shown buying it from a shady car dealer near their alma mater and make it their Columbo Peugot 503.
Ahh Sabotage, possibly the greatest music video of all time. I had to clue in my now 19 daughter a few years ago.
LTD, this is a period piece taking place roughly 30 years ago. In the early ’90s this car would have been invisible and plenty others like it still on the road. What the perps don’t know is that Sam Shoe has grafted in all the good bits from a totaled Mk VII LSC for a bit more shove.
Driving an LTD 30 years ago is the same red flag as driving a Crown Vic or a Charger with a pushbar is now.
Everyone is going to notice him immediately and suspect he’s either a cop or a wannabe cop. If that’s the aim of it, then cool!
2 tone with wire wheel covers? I actually owned one from 1993-1996 (HS/College). It was 100% invisible. You looked out for plain Jane Crown Vic’s and Caprices.
This may be a generational divide thing because I grew up with the P71 CV as the cop car. I am aware a non-luxury Panther platform was offered, but enough to even have two-tone colors offered and not be instantly pegged as Jeremy Dewitte is blowing my mind a little.
In my area the local cops drove all drove Chevy Celebrities, with some M body Dodge’s. County and State Troopers all drove Crown Vic’s. This was ’80s suburban Pittsburgh. Never saw the Fox body LTD as a cop car here.
This is the little LTD, the forgotten Fox body. The Panther was the Crown Victoria by this time and maybe the best selling cop car ever.
I have the Crown Vic seared into my brain. 80’s through 2010’s.
You’re right. I assumed LTD = LTD Crown Vic and didn’t pay attention to the photos. I’m vaguely remembering the fox-platform as a cop car somewhere though. wtf?
National Lampoon’s Vacation certainly, maybe ET too.
E.T. came out 3 years before the Fox LTD existed. Those were all Fairmonts.
Thanks, been decades and could not exactly recall. Both Fox platform cars.
Ford only sold roughly 10K police Fox LTDs so they definitely weren’t as prevalent as the Crown Vic.
In which case I think the beige LTD is the way to go. It will blend in and be easily forgotten.
Private investigators always seem to encounter angry people, so there could be a running gag where the car accumulates cosmetic damage from one case to the next. And because the car is made of metal, we could see the hero wielding a hammer to knock the various bits back into shape.
The TV Hero, being a private eye whose clients seldom pay up, has his office in the xB. And sometimes lives in it.
If the top was cut off and replaced with aging canvas, Columbo could rock it, especially since there’s no Peugeot in this Showdown.
The Olds, hands down. Just tape a bunch of cats together, or whatever.
I didn’t want to vote for the LTD, but I did
I feel like someone daily driving a 60 year old Oldsmobile is already coded as both “cool” and “authentic” in a way that a Cobalt or Scion driver probably isn’t.
A couple establishing shots of our world-weary hero sliding out from under the car on a creeper to talk to his partner about the latest case or see his HS age kids coming home would tell me all I need to know.
Nothing puts the emphasis on drama more than arriving in a rolling banana. Time to embrace the chaos.
Crusty old guy, his family was murdered which led him to the drink for a few years, he lost nearly everything, but became obsessed with helping others find closure after he was able to find the killer. Now sober, he lives outside the law, breaks more rules than not, but always gets results for his clients. The Olds was the only car in his price range after all that went down, and he even lived in it for a bit.