Sometimes, Movie Cars Are Wrong For a Reason
This article first appeared in the May/June issue Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine, and as part of the first-ever HDC Days from June 21 to June 23, Hagerty Drivers Club members will be eligible for some amazing deals, cool contests, and epic events and experiences. Not an HDC member? Sign up today!
An old college friend stopped in a few weeks ago, and over beers, he started ranting about cars in movies. He had just watched a recent period pic called The Hill about a disabled boy who overcomes adversity to play baseball and, while he liked the film, he was put off by some apparently flagrant mismatches between the 1960s time period and the cars. His rant building steam, Jeff went on: “Somebody needs to tell these directors that if the scene is in 1965 and a guy who is supposed to be somebody pulls up in a shiny ’59 Cadillac, it’s wrong! Back then, nobody drove around in a six-year-old Cadillac if they could afford a new one!”
His point might be picayune and it may only matter to a small minority of the viewing audience—the ones married to spouses who are always shushing them to be quiet and stop going on about that one green Beetle that keeps reappearing in the Bullitt chase sequence—but he’s not wrong. Cars are important to film because they are the one prop that instantly dates a scene. If the cars have high roofs, wheel spats, and bustlebacks, you’re in the 1930s or ’40s; chrome swaddling and tailfins, the 1950s; straight edges, the 1960s; landau tops and pea green paint, the 1970s. Used correctly, old cars efficiently and effectively transport us as well as the characters back in celluloid time. Used badly, and it’s like watching Napoleon pull out an iPhone to find Waterloo. It takes you right out of the moment. People are still complaining about those kit Cobra replicas with the modern mag wheels that appeared in Ford v Ferrari.
I called Jamie Kitman, a man of seemingly a dozen careers, including writing for this magazine as well as running a business that procures cars for film shoots. I asked him why directors often seem to pick the wrong cars. Do they not care or do they just not know any better? A bit of both, was his answer, and money can dictate what four-wheelers get cast. A lot of people involved in production have very strong opinions, and, “some of them know what they’re talking about, some of them don’t,” he said. “And some are constrained budgetarily or logistically, or they’re shooting in a place that doesn’t have a wide supply of cars readily available.”
The better productions can afford to be accurate where cars are concerned, he went on. “I worked on [The Marvelous] Mrs. Maisel, which was all about its cars, and they were pretty sensitive to the cars being right. The propmaster knew enough to know there was a right and a wrong.” However, Kitman often finds himself confronting blunt stereotyping about what a particular era was like (no, not everybody drove triple-tone pastel tailfin cruisers on whitewalls in the ’50s) or a simple lack of knowledge about cars. Once, a producer called Kitman wanting an MG TC for a scene, and Kitman was able to match her up with a car. “Then, three days before the shoot, she called and said, ‘Just checking; it’s an automatic, right?’ And we said no, and she said, ‘Can you find me an automatic one?’ And we said no, automatic MGs didn’t exist in 1948. And she said, ‘Well, can you make it an automatic?’” Of course, said Kitman, if you give me a month and $30,000. “So they said never mind. That’s the sort of thing that happens.”
Kitman can find himself immersed in the details of the characters. “Occasionally you’ll find yourself saying, ‘Based on what you’ve told me about the character, what you’re asking for is completely wrong.’ And they may or may not hear me.” A big challenge is scenes set in Europe but filmed in America. Since the 1970s, the cars imported into the U.S. have tended to be the larger models, not the small hatchbacks that carpet European roads, and “they often have really big bumpers, which is a dead giveaway to the cognoscenti.” So Kitman keeps a ready supply of small, plebeian Euro-gerbils for such scenes, though sourcing right-hand-drivers is always a challenge. “We’ve had double-decker buses towed from the Carolinas to be in TV shows,” he told me.
The takeaway: If car flubs happen on screen, don’t assume it’s just because the director doesn’t know a tailfin from a turbo. Sometimes they can’t afford or can’t find exactly what would be correct. And sometimes, as in the case of Bullitt, Smokey and the Bandit, and a few others, the cars deserve their own Academy Awards.
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In “Cisco Pike” a 70s Gene Hackman & Kris Kristofferson flick mixed up a 53 Olds with a 72 Malibu interior shot…bad editing, but I noticed. Filmed in the Venice Beach California area it’s amazing how the properties developed from small homes to mansions.
Just saw an article in the latest Vintage Truck magazine…the 1951 Ford pick up used in Sanford and Son survives and is owned, and driven, by fans.
Too bad more tv/film cars weren’t saved.
The Cartridge Family bus reportedly ended up on a hippy commune.
The Challengers from Vanishing point were turned back to Dodge, that the Bullit Mustang survived is a minor miracle…even if they were neglected and “lost” for decades.
None of the “star cars” of Adam 12 are around, though the ’72 Dodge pickup with utility body from “Emergency” is in s LA museum.
One of the Rockford Fire bird’s sold in 2020 for close to $100k, many of the Magnum PI Ferrari 308s (he used several) survive. Better documented are the various Chargers used in the Dukes of Hazzard.
The “Mod Squad” drove a Mercury woody for a year, then replaced with a Mopar (Challenger?) and the Mercury was written out of the show by going over a cliff.
A similar fate befell the paddy wagon used in “Ironside” (which apparently was a new custom rig with period front body work).
Full custom cars built by the likes of Barris or Winfield survive…everyone knows the Batmibile, but fewer know “My mother the car”, Mankind’s Toronado roadsters (first season before he started buying Mopars), even an authentic looking 1914 Stutz Bearcat from the 1971 series “Bearcats!”
But even the lost everyday cars have their fans…
What would a Mayberry police car, or Carol Brady’s mopar wagon be worth?
In many movies where they are filming someone driving a vehicle from the windshield/hood, I see the mistake of the column trans shifter in ‘Park.’ Perhaps it’s pretty but as a car guy I notice details like that.
Oddly, I can’t recall the year (57?) of the Chevy in “Hidden Figures” but I can remember the ladies roaring along with a police escort. The shift lever is all the way up, obviously in Park, at high speed.
You’re right about the Chevy being a ’57 and about the shift lever, too. I like the movie very much, but what I find quite annoying is when the ladies’ car malfunctions in an early scene, the police officer pulling up drives a ’64 Ford Custom sedan – in a movie set in 1961.
Another big car-related gaffe that stands out in my memory occurs in the British 1980 movie “The Mirror Crack’d”, which is set in 1953 Britain and features Tony Curtis playing a big Hollywood producer showing up in a 1959 Cadillac convertible.
In the movie “Ice Road” the star is driving a Peterbilt. There is a part in the beginning of the movie where it was shot in the cab of the truck. The cab shot was a Volvo not a Pete. Again it’s petty but I immediately caught the mistake.
In contrast to all the whining about details that only .1% of viewers will notice, here’s a story about a TV show that got it right. In the British TV series “Endeavour”, DC Morse drives his boss, DI Fred Thursday, in a 1956 Jaguar MK I 2.4. The car is owned by a fellow who rents it for weddings, etc., and is, of course, immaculate. The producers of the show “age” it with a light coating of dust (completely reversible) to make it look more authentic as a daily driver.
I have three Packards and four older Corvettes and have been asked to have some of the cars in movies and TV shows. I also live in Atlanta, the current media production capital, so I practice in declining these offers. Friends of mine who do business in movie cars have told me many stories of what has happened to their car stars. The worst of them are cars destined to be driven by featured actors, unless their names end in Newman,
Garner or Dempsey.
Absolutely. And is this the Dave Brownell who masterfully edited for so many years the much missed “Special Interest Autos,” far from replaced by the down-home “Hemmings Classic Car?”
We know of a ’30 Packard convertible sedan left momentarily unattended, only for the owner to return and see one of the clueless stars and several hangers on piled into it, driving it around the lot, graunching the gears.
In the in-car picture car shots in Adam 12 showing Malloy and Reed in the front seat, the windshield is only partially cut away. There are several cars repeatedly parked in the street scenes, notably a gold ‘69 ish Torino, green Mercury wagon and a brown ‘67 Mustang. In some closeups, make and model names are covered with silver reflective tape.
Two recent ones I noticed. In ‘Archie’ the miniseries about Cary Grant, Dyan Cannon is shown driving a first year red Mustang convertible. Unfortunately, it’s portrayed as occurring in 1962-63. Kind of hard to do.
And in the recent Seinfeld movie ‘Unfrosted,’ there is a brief shot of a W108 Mercedes parked in front of Kellogg’s in 1963. That’s too early.
There’s also a late Mad Men episode where a woman turns up in a W113 Pagoda SL. Again, it’s a year or two too early by the reckoning of the timeline in the show.
The 1993 movie Dazed and Confused is one of my all time favorite movies, with cars like the 1970 Chevelle SS, 1974 Trans Am SD455 and my favourite of course, Kevin Pickfords orbit orange 1970 GTO Judge it’s hard not to watch this movie if your a muscle car fan.
While reading the article about directors sometimes not always being able to access the car of choice I understand but when there is are scenes like in Dazed and Confused where there is a red 1970-73 Firebird in the High School parking lot that has Camaro rims on it from 1984-85 era yet the movie period is from 1976, thats when I shake my head.
Having the preferred car is one thing but for god sakes make sure the car at least on the outside is period correct for the era in which the movie takes place.
I wish I could have a couple of cars or trucks from Mayberry. Andy’s 61 Ford police car would be nice or the 55 Ford pickup you see parked out front would do. Also any Chrysler product from the Beverly Hillbillies. (Even Jed’s truck that Jethro drove with the rope seat belts. I loved the high rumble seat for Granny.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maesil” did not get the cars right. Her wealthy in-laws drove an 8 year old Packard and her parents had a 1957 Chevy with a modern aftermarket continental kit. The cars i. The background at the diner were also way too old. There were other inaccuracies with the vehicles, too. E.g., the talk show host’s wife get into a car with wheelcovers from a year that is in the future.
I’m that guy who catches most of the automotive mistakes. My wife is a movie nut and actually likes my input. I can often overlook possible mistakes because a car is too old if it is in good shape. It depends on the character. If he or she is an average Joe then quite possibly they have an older car that they looked after. My real beef is when I see rotted used-up old cars in a field or junk yard that wouldn’t be old enough to be worn out in the time frame. Two come to mind right away; A Christmas story, the vacant lot that Ralphie and his pals hang out in in 1940 is full of Model As that look like they were stripped and abandoned 30 years prior. Another is Stand by Me when the kids are in the wrecking yard (Chopper) there are vehicles in that yard that wouldn’t have been built at the time of the story.
i’ve driven a show car in tv/film for 5 years now and have been in the industry for 25. aside from that i’m an L.A. native, driven cars my entire life, and am more than familiar with photos going back to the 30s from L.A. and every other state with numerous cars in them. FACT: for any year on the streets the cars on that street or freeway are mostly NOT the current year. there are a significant number that go back mostly up to 10 years prior, and still a decent percentage going back another 10 years. for whoever was complaining about a 59 caddy in 1965, i just have to laugh. for most tv/films in which i’ve had my 68/69 ford ranchero, the project is based usually a good 10 years+ after 1969, which is both smart and accurate to reality.
O don’t think I’d let Paul Newman or James Garner drive my car.
Ever hear of the Corvette in a snowbank urban legend?