Many actors claim playing a villain in a film is much more fun than starring as the protagonist. “Bad guys” tend to have more interesting personalities, and this nature trickles down to the cars they drive on screen.
Almost without exception, the evil characters in movies have exceptional taste in cars. Unlike flicks where the vehicles themselves are possessed by the devil such as Stephen King’s Christine or the silly film The Car, these villain mobiles are essentially innocent bystanders. Still, the cars tend to take on this evil by association.
There’s nothing inherently nefarious about a Lincoln Mark III, but when driven by the heroin kingpin in The French Connection this black personal luxury coupe takes on a very dark image. The French license plates (and possibly French-mandated yellow headlights under the covers) only adds to this mystery of how this thing even got there.
For a ubiquitous, Camry-like Bad Guy Car you simply can’t beat a Mercedes, particularly a W126 sedan in black. Hell, even guy-you-love-to-hate JR Ewing drove one on Dallas. You can’t forget Eddie Murphy chasing one in Beverly Hills Cop:
Big Benzes also featured prominently in the Lethal Weapon movies, including a chase with a black Sacco masterpiece in the fourth installment:
My favorite car-and-villain pairing of all time? I simply can’t think of a better one than David Carradine’s character in Kill Bill and his ride of choice: A DeTomaso Mangusta.
This untamed beast with a Ford 351 Cleveland in back was a car that made Ferraris look like dainty little kiddie cars. Raw, iron fist performance under a beautiful but sinister-looking glove.
Enough of my Bad Guy Machines. What are some of your favorites?
Ain’t none’a you sumbitches said Sheriff Buford T. Justice’s poor, mangled 1977 Pontiac LeMans patrol car? The one where “Daddy – the top came off”? Hmph.
https://media.tenor.com/mnJVumt2MpYAAAAM/bandit-beuford.gif
Put the evidence in the car!
20-some hours since this post went up, and not a single mention of the Nova or Charger from Death Proof? How?
I had to look it up – the 1973 Chrysler Imperial that The Pin is chauffeured around in in Brick. https://cdn1.mecum.com/auctions/es0922/es0922-531941/images/1-1657817144008@2x.jpg
Spins round in big evil villain chair
“Good evening Double Wide Harvey Park. I’ve been expecting you”
“Please place Mr Park in the Mondial. Make sure to strap him in uncomfortably”
It HAS to be the Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre. I’ve loved that car ever since I first drove it in Forza Horizon 4 (lol). But seeing it in the movie is just iconic, and it’s a major shame it didn’t make it into production.
Not sure how many they built, I saw six of the orange ones out the back at JLR Classic, along with a couple of purple ones. Ian Callum’s company has turned of the ones in private hands into a road legal car.
68′ Dodge Charger-Bullitt
Honorable mention: black 1969 Dodge Charger, “Cannonball.”
Mister Eddy’s Mercedes from Lost Highway has always been my favorite villan car
https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_24185-Mercedes-Benz-450-SEL-69-W116-1977.html
Immortan Joe’s entire flotilla of crazed chrome-and-fire conglomerations in Fury Road.
Something about Casanova Frankenstein’s Corvette Limo speaks to me.
Link https://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/so-you-thought-the-four-door-trans-am-was-weird-how-about-the-oddest-movie-corvette-of-all-time/
The Alfa Romeo 159s used by Quantum to chase Bond in the opening scene of Quantum of Solace.
David Carradine’s Mangusta really takes my breath away.
Tommy Lee Jones had a cool beat up El Camino in Blown Away. That one always sticks in my brain even if I haven’t seen the movie in 30 years.
Pardon me, I get a little choked up when I see pictures of David Carradine.
My immediate choice is already taken but put me down as another vote for Gus Fring’s Volvo wagon. It’s a perfect choice for someone who has very exacting standards but also has major secrets to hide. Nobody would bat an eye if a guy who owns a successful restaurant chain rolled around in a G-Wagen or a Maybach, but that’s not who he is.
I see what you did there.
The black Mercedes-Benz W116 from Lost Highway!
https://pics.imcdb.org/0is810/losthighwaymercedes450s.6175.jpg
Beat me to it!
My favourite movie villain car has not appeared on any movie that I know of*, but if I had an evil empire to run, I’d be chauffered around in a black Tatra 603.
*One makes a brief appearance in Goldeneye. If you know of others, let me know.
Lemony Snicket!
The electric police motorcycles chasing THX1138
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=J5nmxHjPuvY
The only villians I care about fly around in multiple kilometers long spaceship.
The Overlizards have the best rides
Personally i’ve always been a fan of the various Acuras found in the Avengers franchise movie films. Not only are they from the indisputably best period for Acura, but they are also a logical pick for fleet cars for an American espionage agency.
This sounds like you negotiated the product placement. I found the use distracting and completely out of place.
What, nobody has mentioned Johnny Tran’s Honda 2000 with $100K under the hood?
Apologies if this has already been posted, but I love Casanova’s C3 limo in Mystery Men.
I just read all the earlier comments. Congrats to Data for posting this first.
Christopher Lee’s flying AMC Matador in The Man with the Golden Gun is one of my favorites. I loved the flip-over dash that changed from car to aircraft gauges and the idea that you could clip a backpack onto a normal car and it would somehow make a great aircraft.
AMC Matador Coupé | James Bond 007
That movie featured a lot of AMC products. And the spiral jump scene was, if I recall, originally developed by a daredevil stunt driver named Joie Chitwood (I’m probably butchering the spelling) and it was then borrowed for the movie. The Spiral Death Jump was a crowd favorite for a couple of years and the Bond movie scene gave it a much larger audience. If you look at just the right moment, you can see the little kicker wheel under the car that ensures a rigid connection between the car’s mass and the ramp’s acceleration to guarantee it’s spinning at the desired right upon liftoff.
Goliath from Knight Rider was a badass rig!
The cyclops was cool too, just not as cool. So was KARR.
The black Porsches driven by the Brochnoviatch in Condorman. Especially the slant nose.
Yes! That was my first thought as well. That movie is somewhere in the foundation of my love of Porsches.
I feel like the only people who would know this reference were born between 1965-1970
Check!
It is SO 80s Disney.
This is the answer. I still have this movie on VHS. The black 911’s and then the black speedboats made such an impression on me as a kid. How they start that scene, the peaceful townsfolk hear the engines in the distance and start panicking and hiding, then the 911’s show up. Getting goosebumps thinking about it.
The leader, with the ball bearing for an eye, was James Bond-level cool.
https://youtu.be/Z18LpIEA5ys?si=yD4YCtrl8Ispj81e
How about the Gold Train in Speed Racer?
Now there’s a blast from the past, and no mistake.
Well keeping with David Carradine how about Death Race 2000? Still more driver than car. But there was a Dennis Hopper movie with an evil semi driver unseen, and a Steven King book where machines came to life much better than the movie and who can forget the Futurama vampire car? Too many too chose from