History Main / BadassDriver

* ''Literature/TheJuvieThree'': Gecko has been able to outdrive anyone in sight since his go-kart days, [[DecontructedCharacterArchetype which got bullied into helping his older brother with a robbery as a getaway driver.]]

* ''Literature/The39Clues'' has Nellie and one time,[[spoiler: ''Dan'']]! (OhCrap.)

* Tom Slick in his segment of ''WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle''.

The natural habitats of the Badass Driver include tracks, car chases, and anywhere where something with wheels is trying to be faster than something else. Often seen behind the wheel of the CoolCar.

Compare ImprobablePilotingSkills for the Badass Drivers of the skies and BadassBiker for Badass Drivers on two wheels. See also DrivesLikeCrazy, which is often either this or its exact opposite. See also GracefulInTheirElement for when they're clumsy outside of a car.

If they're part of a gang, expect them to be the GetawayDriver. Their counterpart in the sky is the AcePilot.

Female examples can overlap with {{Action Girl}}s, thus inverting WomenDrivers trope.

** And then there's Estonian badass UsefulNotes/OttTanak, who is considered to have taken the throne previously sat by compatriot and former WRC driver Markko Martin. His rally wins in Argentina, Finland and Germany speaks volumes, especially when he led the rally by over 46 seconds despite a half-spin that would've cost him the rally.

%%* Eriko from ''LightNovel/DragonCrisis''.

* Ryan O'Neal's [[NoNameGiven nameless]] character in ''Film/TheDriver''; a GetawayDriver for robberies, whose exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught.

* The Creator/LiamNeeson movie ''The Ice Road'' stars a bunch of truckers who are this by design (driving over frozen lakes is a very risky business!), sent on a rescue mission.

* Lightning [=McQueen=] from the ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' franchise has a more literal example as he actually ''is'' a race car with mad skills.

** When Doc needs a Badass Driver to support him, he turns to Judy.

* Players that mastered the beast named X2010 and its successor, X2011 from the ''VideoGame/GranTurismo'' series are this. 1500 HP, design to be exempt of every racing design rule, light as a F1 and turns like an piece of iron running towards a powerful magnet on its left. Cool car, but only properly driven by Badass Drivers.

** John Surtees. Yes, he only won Formula One title once, but he's the only man in motorsport history to be both a ''badass driver and badass biker'' at the same time by winning the 500 cc grand prix (the precursor to MotoGP with 500 cc two stroke engines. Keep in mind that two strokes are generally considered to be wilder in terms of power delivery than modern four strokes used in MotoGP) ''four times'' before moving to F1.

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Clark Jim Clark.]] Though his career was tragically cut short by a fatal crash in 1968, he is still considered one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time. He won two F1 World Championships, the Indianapolis 500, and was a three-time winner of the Tasman Series Cup. To this day, he is the only driver to have won the F1 World Championship and the Indy 500 in a single year (1965), and his record for "Grand Slams" (wherein a driver gets pole position, the fastest lap, leads every lap, and wins the race) is still unequaled. These are the only start of his badass credentials, however. He won the 1965 Indy 500 by over two minutes, becoming the first non-American to win that race since 1916. At the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix, his gearbox started to slip whenever he changed into fifth. He finished the race with one hand on the wheel and another holding the gear lever in place while doing 160mph in pouring rain, and won by ''five minutes''. In 1965, he was racing in an outdated Lotus and still managed to win the South African Grand Prix by thirty seconds while suffering from a slipped disc, defeating some of the greatest drivers of the day. At the British Grand Prix that year, his engine started to lose oil pressure partway through the race, putting it at risk of disintegrating when cornering. Clark's response? Switch the engine off and coast through the corners, then turn it back on. He won that race too, and collected the championship with a victory in Germany. 1965 was his best year, in fact; he won 31 of 63 races he entered, was on the podium 8 more times, and won the F1 Championship, Indy 500, both Formula 2 championships, and the Tasman Series. Most badass of all? He accomplished many of these feats while driving Lotuses, which are notoriously fragile and temperamental cars that have been the end of many good drivers. Clark's skill with his cars bordered on MachineEmpathy. One of his mechanics recalled a story where Clark came in from a practice lap complaining of a problem with his left front wheel, which no one could diagnose until the mechanic took the suspension apart and found that one of the bearings had ''just'' started to wear out, a tiny fault which no one else would likely have noticed. Many of the F1 drivers listed above, including Stewart, Hill, Senna, and Fangio, ''idolized'' him; Hill and Stewart were good friends of Clark's, and were devastated by his death. Fangio himself once stated that Clark was the greatest driver of all time, and Senna named Clark as his boyhood hero, declaring him the best of the best.

* Anyone who can drive in the Monaco street circuit at top speed, barely centimeters from the walls qualifies. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8rS07ynQ0Q Take a look at some F1 onboard laps to see just how fast and how close it can get.]] You'd be damn sharp if you could just register what went past you. As Nelson Piquet put it, Monaco is like riding a bike inside your living room. As many people would remind you, Monaco would not have been approved for races had it been built today.

* ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}'' features a [[invoked]]OneSceneWonder bus driver who manages to drive his vehicle full of kids, including Sam Brody, through police and military barricades in the middle of an explosive skirmish between Franchise/{{Godzilla}} and the Navy, getting off the Golden Gate Bridge just before the massive {{Kaiju}} barges through it.

** The most famous biker of this kind is a Swede: [[http://www.ghostridermovie.net/ Ghost Rider]] (not to be confused with [[ComicBook/GhostRider this]] or [[Film/GhostRider this]] fictional one). He did similar things as the Black Prince, but as he had better bikes at hand, he took them to the extreme. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShacMAn_HK8 He managed to ride 68km of quite crowded six-lane motorway between Stockholm and Uppsala on a Suzuki GSX-R 1000 tuned to 185bhp in less than 15 minutes,]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0flRAlwrlc&feature=related reaching an average speed of 270km/h and often spending a minute or more at the governed top speed of 299km/h]]. He also did insane stuff with a 499rwhp turbocharged Suzuki GSX 1300 R Hayabusa streetfighter such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShacMAn_HK8 wheelies at beyond 300km/h on a runway as well as on a crowded motorway while weaving through the traffic.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9BofCzc80U Ghost Rider even redid the Black Prince's Périphérique Run as a tribute]]—and became the first to break the Black Prince's record.

* Any main character from ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious'' films. But especially Creator/VinDiesel. But then, it's ''Creator/VinDiesel''.

* There are not few of these in ''Film/{{Ronin}}'', as evidenced by the against-traffic freeway car chase.

** Katy Chen, introduced in ''Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings'', is also a pretty badass driver. Early in the movie, she discusses the challenges of valet parking, and soon proves that she does have genuine driving chops when she is forced to take over a bus after Shang-Chi's fight with Razor Fist ends up knocking out the driver (granted, she ends up [[DrivesLikeCrazy wrecking the bus and nearly every other car on the road]], but a lot of that's on Razor Fist). Later in the film, she [[spoiler:has to drive the heroes through a [[WhenTreesAttack hostile bamboo maze]], relying on directions from an [[TheUnintelligible unintelligible]] ''[[MinorlyMentionedMythsAndMonsters hundun]]'' being translated by a washed-up {{cloudcuckoolander}} actor - and she succeeds]].

* This is surprisingly a skill of the geeky, NonActionGuy Martis in ''Anime/PumpkinScissors''. In one episode, when he is in danger, this role is filled by an even more unlikely character, the cute GenkiGirl Stecchin, who combines this with DrivesLikeCrazy.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': Grif. Yes, ''[[BrilliantButLazy that]]'' Grif. Don't believe me? Watch ''Revelation'' episode 3.

%%* [[Creator/MattDamon Jason Bourne]], as shown in ''Film/TheBourneSeries'' movies.

Female examples can overlap with {{Action Girl}}s or {{Biker Babe}}s, thus inverting WomenDrivers trope.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]

* Creator/JackieChan plays a version of this in ''Film/TheTuxedo'', in which he becomes a chauffeur for an {{expy}} of Film/JamesBond.

** The most famous biker of this kind is a Swede: [[http://www.ghostridermovie.net/ Ghost Rider]] (not to be confused with [[ComicBook/GhostRider this]] or [[Film/GhostRider this]] fictional one). He did similar things as the Black Prince, but as he had better bikes at hand, he took them UpToEleven. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShacMAn_HK8 He managed to ride 68km of quite crowded six-lane motorway between Stockholm and Uppsala on a Suzuki GSX-R 1000 tuned to 185bhp in less than 15 minutes,]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0flRAlwrlc&feature=related reaching an average speed of 270km/h and often spending a minute or more at the governed top speed of 299km/h]]. He also did insane stuff with a 499rwhp turbocharged Suzuki GSX 1300 R Hayabusa streetfighter such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShacMAn_HK8 wheelies at beyond 300km/h on a runway as well as on a crowded motorway while weaving through the traffic.]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9BofCzc80U Ghost Rider even redid the Black Prince's Périphérique Run as a tribute]]—and became the first to break the Black Prince's record.

* Yui Narumi from ''Anime/LuckyStar'' DrivesLikeCrazy, but there's no denying she's horrendously good at it.

* Murrough from Creator/TherinKnite's ''Literature/{{Echoes}}''. He (illegally) drives manually (as opposed to using the automatic AI driver installed in all cars) through a city where the average highway speeds are 200+ miles per hour.