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Badass Driver

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Don't Try This at Home. Or anywhere, really.

Most people drive cars. Many are competent. A few are exceptionally skilled. And a minuscule fraction can do things behind the wheel that'd make your head spin faster than the driveshaft. These gods among wheelmen are a marvel to behold, with skill, timing, or luck so solid they can start and stop on farthings, drive through your coat closet without scuffing the drywall, pivot in place, or power-slide round entire municipalities. Such beings will often possess Machine Empathy, detecting when something's wrong due to subtle changes in how their vehicle is acting.

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 Cool Car. If they're part of a gang, expect them to be the Getaway Driver.

Compare Improbable Piloting Skills and Ace Pilot for the Badass Drivers of the skies and Badass Biker for Badass Drivers on two wheels. See also Drives Like Crazy, which is often either this or its exact opposite. See also Graceful in Their Element for when they're clumsy outside of a car. Female examples can overlap with Action Girls, thus inverting the Women Drivers trope.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • This is the entire premise of the (rather stupid) manga D-Live. The company the protagonist works for when not in school gives him vehicles and he bonds deeply with them and does impossible, incredible things. Even if he's never driven one of these before. Then they cite something that they didn't like, like he crashed whatever-it-was or got seen on the job, and screw him out of his pay. He never seems to catch on.
  • Edo-Natsu from Fairy Tail. But only as long as he is in the car, outside he is an extreme wimp. This is in contrast to the other Natsu, who is very badass normally, but suffers from extreme motion sickness.
  • Just about every single racer in Future GPX Cyber Formula, but Bleed Kaga in particular. His field racing background explains it a lot, since he uses offensive skills with his car, but he avoids using them unless in extreme situations.
    • Osamu in his Knight Shoemach persona isn't a slouch in the racing fields, either. He drives a very fast red and white car, is nicknamed "The Supersonic Knight" and is regarded in-story to be the best driver of the series (up until the SAGA arc).
  • Yuu Himehagi from Geobreeders. She can be a slacker that only smokes and sleeps, but when she has to drive, she does it extremely good
    "A driver's job is to drive!"
  • Gouzou "Mr. No-Brakes" Maguruma of Get Backers is a badass truck driver.
    • And let's not forget Ban Mido, who sucks at driving in a calm situation but is quite competent at driving across lakes, taking corners at 90mph, driving backwards, etc etc...
  • Togusa in Ghost in the Shell has this as his skill to lend to the Section 9 police squad. The rest of the team rely on him when they need to initiate a police chase. He's so good at vehicular maneuvering that he's the only one in Section 9 to evade the governmental forces at the end.
  • Mako Reizei from Girls und Panzer is probably the Patron Saint of Anime badass tank drivers. She is able to drive anything, anywhere, at ridiculous levels of expertise just by reading the owners manual. She tops everything by drifting a 30-ton World War II tank in ways that would make Bunta Fujiwara, above, gape with envy
    • Karina Sakaguchi, driver for the Rabbit Team, deserves mention. Her skill at driving her team's tank in close quarters is instrumental in their defeating not one, but two much heavier and more powerful tanks. The first by circling around corners so fast they get behind their enemy. The second by driving in reverse to escape the enemy tank while simultaneously staying as close as possible to it to avoid being targeted by its gun and getting it to drive itself into a river drainage ditch.
    • As expected from from a Finnish-inspired school, Jatkosota High is the most infamous among all of Sensha-do schools for both its excellent gunners and the insanely skilled drivers. Because their school is poor, the students compensate for their lack of firepower with skills (and some property stealing from other schools) that have been passed down for generations. Because of this, they excel on rough terrains like mountains or swamps. Former vice-commander of Jatkosota, Lili, dodges attacks from Kuromorimine by making her T-28 do a wheelie, something that is lampshaded as borderline miracle as the tank weights 28 tonnes. The current commander's driver, Mikko, makes full use of the BT-42's Christie suspension and already configured the tank for when the treads break. When the wheels on one side are shot, Mikko balances the tank on its one side and keeps driving until her gunner has a clear shot.
  • Gunsmith Cats:
    • Bean Bandit, including in the OVA Riding Bean.
    • Also Riff-Raff the Speed Angel; while not on Bean's level, she is considered one of the best professional drivers in the area.
    • Rally herself is no slouch behind the wheel either, though her true talent is with guns.
  • Being a manga about illegal street racing, Initial D is stocked full of these. There are three standout examples however
    • The protagonist Takumi Fujiwara is an 18-year old who has been drifting through the dangerous mountain passes of Akina since he was 13. Through rigorous training he has gained a near supernatural ability to control his car to the point that he regularly drifts just centimeters from guardrails in corners while maintaining perfect control of his car. Not only that, Takumi uses a heavily outdated Corolla sports model yet regularly beats opponents with much newer and more powerful cars. He only gets better over time and by the end of the series he can almost literally drive blind by turning off his headlights in the middle of the night to confuse opponents.
    • Takumi's rival Keisuke Takahashi, while initially quite unexperienced, quickly catches up with Takumi and by the end of the series Takumi admits he isn't sure if he'd win if he was going up against Keisuke. Compared to Takumi who uses flashy signature moves and a driving style purely refined for mountain passes, Keisuke utilizes a more traditional circuit racing techniques and more boring, but just as effective techniques combined with supreme tire management and pedal control. Keisuke also has great spatial awareness and at one point he taunts his opponent that blamed him for trying to cause a crash on a tight road where they were running side-by-side that he would have had at least 5cm of space to maneuver.
    • Takumi's dad Bunta Fujiwara is quite possibly the best driver in the whole series. He can four-wheel drift an 80's Corolla Hatchback, with ZERO counter-steer, at insane speeds. While lighting a cigarette. WITH HIS EYES CLOSED.
      • Early in Fourth Stage he also smokes Takumi in his newly-bought Subaru Impreza.
  • Fletch, Iono-sama's personal driver in Iono the Fanatics.
  • Yui Narumi from Lucky Star Drives Like Crazy, but there's no denying she's horrendously good at it.
  • Lupin III is often shown in chase scenes escaping from the police, expertly driving and pulling tricks while he does so. Although he's good, it's rather expected of a series that follows a thief as a Villain Protagonist. Why he's impressive is that he translates this skill into other vehicles as well, and as a Formula One Race Car driver.
  • Lolo "The Courier" Endive of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, whose second scene involves her effortlessly driving a bulky transport van as a high-speed getaway car, even if it means having to occasionally balance it on two wheels due to taking turns without slowing down.
  • One Piece gives us a nautical version in the form of new Straw Hat helmsman Jimbei. He surfed with the whole ship, hiding it in a tidal wave!
  • This is surprisingly a skill of the geeky, Non-Action Guy Martis in Pumpkin Scissors. In one episode, when he is in danger, this role is filled by an even more unlikely character, the cute Genki Girl Stecchin, who combines this with Drives Like Crazy.
  • REDLINE features a whole roster but the biggest standouts have got to be Sonoshee "Cherry Boy Hunter" Mclaren, who once dealt with an incoming missile by popping open her cockpit's hatch and shooting it out of the sky with a goddamned pistol, and "Sweet" JP, notable for never carrying weapons on his sled, preferring to win or lose by pure unmitigated driving skill, and sporting enough talent to drift circles around some of the other racers in the film to the point he can casually perform feats of racing that defy all laws of physics. Shame about his luck though.
  • The unnamed Bus Driver from Rosario + Vampire.
  • Joe "The Condor" Asakura from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman in both his superhero and civilian forms.
  • Straight Cougar of s-CRY-ed can not only turn any vehicle into a supercharged, pink race-car, but also drive it like you wouldn't believe. Yes, he Drives Like Crazy. No, he's not going to hit anything unless he MEANS to.
  • Speed Racer: He's a demon on wheels!
    • His long lost brother, Rex, ain't too shabby either when he takes the wheel as Racer X.
  • In Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, Rider proves just how badass her A+ Riding skill actually is during the Christmas Episode where Leysritt, a homunculus who is notoriously bad at driving, tries to drive the girls to Illya's castle but loses control of their van. Rider takes the wheel and not only gets the vehicle back on track effortlessly, but defies the laws of physics in the process of getting everyone to the castle.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman:
    • Freeway, a member of the criminal organization the Network and sometimes foe of Batman.
    • Batman himself is almost always an incredibly skilled driver. Of course, driving the Batmobile probably helps.
      • In Batman: Zero Year, Bruce learns to drive under the tutelage of a noxious getaway driver named Don Miguel, who fires a rocket launcher while driving. He once drove his car into an art gallery and stole four million dollars in artwork without ever slowing to under 30 miles per hour. However, since he's a murderer, once Bruce's training is complete, he clocks him and leaves him for the police to arrest.
  • Disney Adventures: Shortly before its demise, the magazine had a comic strip called Driver 10 about an entire organization of people with the innate ability to expertly control any vehicle at any speed who engaged in superspy adventures. Most of the Drivers had additional powers like Super-Strength or generating electricity to overload machines, but the hero, the titular Driver 10, had only his driving skills.
  • Doom Patrol: In Doom Patrol (2016), Casey Brinke's an ambulance driver known for driving like a crazy person, but always getting patients to the hospital on time.
  • Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes, the All-New Ghost Rider, drives a '69 Charger, and he participated in illegal racing. He's able to keep up with the best of them.
  • Hunter's Hellcats: In the early stories, Zig Zag was the team's expert wheelman: displaying the ability to remain calm and in the control while under enemy fire. In later stories (after Zig Zag vanished), Juggler usually acted as the team's driver, but he seldom had to demonstrate the same badass capabilities behind the wheel as Zig Zag.
  • Spider-Man: Razorback has the mutant power to, ahem, operate any vehicle at an expert level, just by getting at the controls.
  • Rush City: Diego Zhao (a.k.a. 'Rush') from The DCU mini-series. It helps that Diego is a metahuman with a heightened sense of awareness. This preternatural instinct affords him automatic awareness of his immediate surroundings.
  • Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Rita Novelle was not only one of the Holliday Girls, she was also a midget racer during college. When a fixer couldn't pay her to lose races he tried to sabotage her by paying other drivers to run into her, which didn't work until he'd paid the whole field to sabotage their own cars and set them off driver-less in a race. After she survived the collision she tried to show up to race the next day, only being delayed because she was abducted by the fixer she was stymieing and hadn't fought her way free yet.

    Fan Works 
  • In Crowns of the Kingdom, Minnie Mouse is this. She takes control of Tomorrowland's Monorail, an Atommobile, and a Jeep in the Temple of Mara throughout the fic and manages to be completely awesome each time.
  • In Intrepid, Taylor, due to her powers, proves to be an effective driver capable of pulling some outrageous stunts. She doesn't even have her license.
  • In Sixes and Sevens, Emily has a reputation among the higher-ups for having a lead foot. Michael experiences this firsthand when she turns a five hour drive from Taba to Amman into four. Later chapters see her making similar quick trips, deftly avoiding tails and gunfire, and even lose a pursuer by drifting through the city.
  • In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Jason Vaugn shows some pretty good driving skills during the chase from Ottawa to Toronto: He manages to pull a 180 degree drift turn immediately after having to swerve quickly to avoid hitting Mei, and also avoid oncoming traffic while driving in reverse, without even looking behind him.

    Films — Animated 
  • Lightning McQueen from the Cars franchise has a more literal example as he actually is a race car with mad skills.
  • Then there's Wyldstyle/real name Lucy from The LEGO Movie, who not only drives cool vehicles, she rebuilds them along the way.
  • Vanellope Von Schweetz and all the other racers in Wreck-It Ralph are Badass Drivers. Even King Candy/Turbo himself is one.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In The Art of the Steal, Crunch used to be regarded as the best Getaway Driver in the biz. He shows his chops when he loses two motorcycle cops who are pursuing him by not only driving into the subway, but through a train.
  • The title character from Baby Driver. And he does it all while barely hearing, given he uses headphones to cover his tinnitus.
  • The Batman (2022): Even though the Penguin's car is obviously slower than the Batmobile, Penguin is skilled enough to outmaneuver it several times and nearly kill Batman by getting other cars to crash.
  • Elwood J. Blues in The Blues Brothers. It takes a lot of gusto to turn a car around at the end of an unfinished bridge like Elwood did. He can even speed through the dark of the night and outrun dozens of police cars with his sunglasses on.
  • Jason Bourne, who is frequently forced to do evade hot pursuits in The Bourne Series movies.
  • Bullitt, to the point his pursuit of a bad guy is the quintessential car chase.
  • Though he doesn't start the film this way, Max from Collateral evolves into this when he stands up to Vincent and starts blowing through red lights, culminating in flipping the car intentionally in order to screw with the guy.
  • Kim, a professional stunt driver, in Death Proof. She gets into a murderous car duel with Stuntman Mike, another professional stunt driver (and Serial Killer).
  • Frankenstein in Death Race 2000. Also, Frankie's rival Machine Gun Joe Viterbo and other drivers.
  • Driver from Drive (2011): as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a Getaway Driver.
  • Eddie Shannon in Drive a Crooked Road. An amateur race car driver, Steve and Harold recruit him specifically because they need someone who can handle a car at high speed on a bad road with dangerous corners.
  • Ryan O'Neal's nameless character in The Driver; a Getaway Driver for robberies, whose exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught.
  • Evil Poacher Sunny in Fair Game, who uses 'the Beast'' to systematically demolish Jessica's house while she is inside it.
  • Godzilla (2014) features a invokedOne-Scene Wonder 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 Godzilla and the Navy, getting off the Golden Gate Bridge just before the massive Kaiju barges through it.
  • H.B. "Toby" Halicki as Maindrian Pace and Nicolas Cage as "Memphis" Raynes in Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), respectively.
    • In Halicki's case, this practically qualifies as Real Life, too, because he drove Eleanor himself all through the movie, including every single crash and stunt scene.
  • Italian race car driver Franco Bertolli is hired for his reputation as one in The Gumball Rally.
  • Herbie: Fully Loaded:
    • Lindsay Lohan played a budding Badass Driver.
    • "Max" had her moments.
    • Herbie "himself" manages to be a badass driver without needing a pesky human behind the wheel; even when segmented into two or more parts, the parts can also drive themselves.
  • The Liam Neeson 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.
  • A number of the characters in The Italian Job (1969), where it is necessary for them to pull the elaborate 'Mini chase'. They are capable of driving down outdoor staircases, across roofs, and through rivers.
  • James Bond, with every film guaranteed to feature at least one elaborate car chase.
  • One of Eggsy's skills before joining the agency in Kingsman: The Secret Service. He hijacks a car and manages to elude the police by driving backwards effortlessly a few miles. He probably could've gone longer, too, had he not swerved out of the way to avoid hitting an animal. He first appears in the sequel being forced to drive wildly.
  • Mellie Logan in Logan Lucky. The Caper relies on her ability to drive at 30 miles over the speed limit, and know the shortest route between any two places at a given time of the day.
  • Everyone in the Mad Max series. No, seriously, everyone. Given that the films are set in a Crapsack World After the End, it's a requirement to survive, so every character from the protagonists to the lowest-level Mooks are badasses behind the wheel of a car. The titular Mad Max himself is pretty damn good, managing to earn the title of "The Road Warrior" thanks to his skill with Car Fu and his constant wandering.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • If there's anyone better than Harold "Happy" Hogan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they can drive cars through time. His Monaco run must be seen to be believed; slaloming against the direction of the incoming race cars at top speed - much of it one-handed because Pepper is desperately trying to get the Mark V uncuffed from his arm. With the key in his pocket. Just for the sake of squee, the top speed of a Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé is 155 mph. The average speed of the Monaco Grand Prix is 158 mph. That means he was dodging cars coming at him at a combined speed of OVER 300 MILES PER HOUR. Jon Favreau may have made himself something of a Butt-Monkey in combat, but behind the wheel, he essentially made himself Chuck Yeager. More subtly, he also routinely keeps up during Tony Stark's driving adventures. Stark in a high dollar sports car, Hogan in a luxury sedan. From the dialog, it even sounds like Stark actively tries to lose him.
    • Katy Chen, introduced in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, 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 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 has to drive the heroes through a hostile bamboo maze, relying on directions from an unintelligible hundun being translated by a washed-up cloudcuckoolander actor - and she succeeds.
  • Niobe from The Matrix is regarded to be the BEST driver in both the Matrix and The Real World.
  • Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) in the Need for Speed movie. It then became Truth in Television though since Aaron Paul then proceeded to set the best celebrity lap time on the Top Gear (UK) test track.
  • There are not few of these in Ronin (1998), as evidenced by the against-traffic freeway car chase.
  • The hero of the Smokey and the Bandit films, who pre-dated The Dukes of Hazzard with the "moonshiner on the run from the law" character type.
  • Subverted in Snatch. with Tyrone. He's introduced as an experienced Getaway Driver, but doesn't really live up to his hype.
    Sol: He's a natural. Ain't you, Tyrone?
    Tyrone: 'Course I am. [backs the car into a parked van]
    Vincent: A natural fucking idiot!
  • Son of a Gun: Chris the Getaway Driver shows his worth as his slues the unwieldy Toyota Land Cruiser through a series of dangerous stunts while escaping the police at the refinery, including swerving between a pair of giant dump trucks at the open cut mine.
  • In Stand by Me, teenage hooligan Ace he plays chicken with a lumber truck and wins - while drinking a beer, and with his cronies shouting at him.
  • Burt Reynolds does it again as the eponymous Stroker Ace just a few years later. This time, he's a three-time NASCAR champion who is known for spectacular antics off the track as well, although we only see a few of these in the movie proper.
  • Samy Naceri as Daniel in the french Taxi movies does incredible things with his car at ludicrous speeds.
  • Just about every character in Torque, which is full of Badass Bikers.
  • Transit: Evers, the driver for the robbers, who drives at speed the wrong way along a freeway—including playing chicken with a semi—to catch up with the Sidwells.
  • Frank Martin (Jason Statham) of The Transporter series; a former Special Forces soldier who utilizes his skills as a private driver for hire.
  • Jackie Chan plays a version of this in The Tuxedo, in which he becomes a chauffeur for agent Clark Devlin.
  • Miško Krstić in Who's Singing Over There? can drive a bus backwards, blindfolded, over an unpaved road for several minutes without any problems.

    Literature 
  • In Artemis Fowl and The Lost Colony, Doodah Day is regarded as a master driver and is capable of driving any vehicle with proficiency, so that he is even recruited for his skills. His pack also contains vehicle specific gadgets such as a nuclear battery to boost a vehicle's power, as well as a portable rear-view mirror.
  • Ciaphas Cain: The W40K universe has Gunner Jurgen, who is determined to make sure that Commissar Ciaphas Cain IS NEVER LATE! He will defy physics and all known road laws to ensure this. To add to that, he's gotten away with it, though this is most likely related to the fact the vehicle he's driving being a heavily armored war machine, and that his passenger can legally shoot just about anyone they meet.
  • Stan Murch is the driver for the Caper Crew in the Dortmunder novels, and is generally acknowledged as being the best wheelman in the New York underworld. His mother, who is a New York cabbie, is possibly an even better driver than Stan.
  • Murrough from Therin Knite's 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.
  • In one Echo Falls Mysteries book, Ingrid drives a pickup truck, despite being in middle school! Though she doesn't engage in any high-speed chases or anything, the fact that she is able to drive successfully at all is amazing!
    • Ingrid's grandfather as well, as shown in the climax of the 2nd book.
  • Forest of Boland Light Railway has two: Lobgob the inventor who designed, built and drives the train, and Shera Beg the goblin who steals it and uses it to infiltrate the gnomes' town.
  • The Juvie Three: Gecko has been able to outdrive anyone in sight since his go-kart days, which got bullied into helping his older brother with a robbery as a getaway driver.
  • Krishna from the Hindu epic Mahabharata is the Ur-Example as he wins the Kurukshetra war by driving a chariot for ace archer Arjuna.
  • In the 1980s Micro Adventure series (which mixed BASIC programming exercises with a second-person children's espionage story), the main character frequently has the help of Hot Wheels, a transportation specialist for the Adventure Connection Team. How good is he? In one adventure, H.W. manages to lose pursuit while driving a garbage truck.
  • Shane Schofield from Matthew Reilly's books took an offensive driving course to justify why he can bypass a blockade by sliding along a concrete guard rail.
    • Just FYI: the teacher of the course was an ex-stunt driver. And Shane was formerly a Harrier pilot.
  • The Kid in The Stand. "I got the reflexes. I got the timin. I got three-fiffs of a second." Said while swerving around wrecks on a highway at 95 miles per hour, drunk.
  • Believe it or not, Miss Havisham from Great Expectations is one of these mixed with Drives Like Crazy in the Thursday Next series. Her crazed driving scene is for the intent of getting bodice-ripper romances. No, really.
  • Phoebe Van Zant of Tracked is the daughter of a famous race driver, and a top street racer herself.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Angie Tribeca has David Hoffman, a dog. He ditches his partner just so he can do donuts in the parking lot.
  • The various driving instructors of Canada's Worst Driver all qualify as Badass Drivers to varying degrees. They certainly have to be, being their responsibility to educate others on proper technique. Though host Andrew Younghusband is supposed to represent the "average" driver when he demonstrates the various driving challenges on the show, it's obvious he's been improving over the last decade of this show. The show's contestants, on the other hand, not so much. Special mention goes to season 3 contestant Thomas, who went from Drives Like Crazy to Badass Driver by graduating, going on to become a racing driver, and winning his first race. Bad. Ass.
  • Nathan Fillion's character in Drive (2007); a participant in an illegal cross-country race.
  • The main characters of The Dukes of Hazzard: Bo and Luke Duke are two formerlynote  moonshine-running cousins who drive a customized 1969 Dodge Charger named (The) General Lee. Their skills save their necks many times when chased by the police or by the bad guys, and the entire plot of the first double-episode of season 3 builds on Bo's getting a job as a stunt driver on a travelling car show.
  • Formula 1: Drive to Survive: The main focus of the series are Formula One drivers, who are extremely good at their job by design as they wouldn't be able to qualify for FIA Super Licences without proving themselves.
  • In Healer, this was Moon-Shik's role during his pirate radio days.
  • Most of the Kamen Riders are Badass Bikers, but a few actually drive cars instead. Case in point, Black RX, Drive, and 3. Being Henshin Heroes, they are usually pretty damn good at it.
  • Knight Rider: Michael Knight. Although you could say KITT did most of the work in the series, the episodes where Knight is behind the wheel of other automobiles make his own abilities abundantly clear.
  • Dillon of Power Rangers RPM establishes himself as this in the first episode, when he drives through Venjix's barricade in broad daylight using his beaten up, old car.
  • Don't forget Jim Rockford from The Rockford Files. Of course, he is James Garner.
  • Capheus from Sense8 is a Matatu driver from Nairobi who's learned how to pull of some serious Car Fu. The rest of his Cluster soon learn to call on his skills when they're being chased. In one incident he managed to flip a Smart Car so it landed on its wheels and was able to keep driving for a while afterwards. There's also the time he pulled off a spin-kick with his bus.
  • Top Gear (UK): Some say it's Jeremy Clarkson, or some of the guests they've featured on the show... all we know is, it's really The Stig.
    • As a testament to how badass he is, he held the record for fastest time on the Top Gear Test Track in the Suzuki Liana for over five years, racing against a half dozen past and present Formula One drivers. The 'over five years' finally ended 11 July 2010, when Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello (himself an example of this trope) beat it by a single tenth of a second.
      • Now Sebastian Vettel also broke his time... Or rather old Stig's time! Some say that his lap times are around 57, 58 seconds...
    • The Stig is the most obvious one, but there's also Sabine Schmitz, the German racing driver from the Nürburgring. When Jeremy barely managed a full lap of the track in under 10 minutes in a diesel Jaguar (he got a time of 9:59), Sabine mockingly boasted that she could do that lap time in a van, got in the car and thrashed Jeremy's time (she got a 9:12). Later on, they challenged her to live up to her Badass Boast. Although she failed in her own self-imposed challenge, the fact remained that she did a lap of the Nürburgring in a Ford Transit van; unmodified except for the shedding of excess weight which constituted of the miscellaneous junk, the passenger seat and the Richard Hammond who was sitting in it at the time in 10:09.

    Manhwa 
  • Alex from the manhwa The Breaker. He is a transporter whose driving skill is described as god-like.

    Music 

    Pinball 
  • In Stern Pinball's Mustang, the player must prove himself to be a Badass Driver in the "Stunt Driver" mode.
  • Agent GK from Spy Hunter performs a bootlegger reverse to shoot an enemy car behind him.

    Roleplay 
  • Dino Attack RPG had several characters that fit this sort of character.
    • Among the founding members of Dino Attack Team, Viper - being a former racecar driver - fits the role.
    • It certainly helps that a number of PeabodySam's characters participated in racing championships before the Dino Attack.
      • Heck, two of them are literally father and son sharing the family name of "Race" (King Joseph and Prince Samuel Race).
      • Surprisingly, the elderly pirate Greybeard is another example, having participated in the same racing championship as King Joseph Race.
      • By extension, even though we never get to see them behind the wheel, A5T3R-01D and Sir Robert Batrick also count.
    • Montoya is shown to not really have what it takes as a small-time criminal... until he's put behind the wheel (in a flashback he was shown to be the getaway driver for the failed heist on Dacta Corp., and subsequently had to navigate a freeway while trying to shake off a relentless assassin climbing over his car trying to kill him).

    Tabletop Games 
  • Apocalypse World has an entire playbook dedicated to this trope, appropriately named "The Driver". In addition to a bunch of Mad Max allusions, the Driver gets a customized car (or four, with upgrades) that has its own stat block and can essentially be used as a weapon in high-speed combat.
  • In Atomic Highway, this is the job description of Road Warriors (battlecars) and Haulers (trucks), two of the five vehicle-focused Pursuits (the others being outriders, autogyro pilots, and "raiders" who get whatever's available). Atomic Highway being the kind of game it is, there's an entire chapter dedicated to taking commonly available vehicles like family sedans or medium trucks and bolting on the requisite armour plates, guns and rams, just so the Road Warriors and Haulers get to ride the post-apocalyptic highway in style. And violence.
  • The Speed Demon in d20 Modern Urban Arcana is a Badass Driver with supernatural enhancements to his ability to drive his or wreck vehicles other than his own.
  • Vehicle Riggers in Shadowrun can not only be a Badass Driver, they can drive 4, 5, 6 vehicles at once!
  • The orks of Warhammer 40,000: Each one is seven feet of Blood Knight, and their vehicles are as tough as they are, being cobbled together from looted vehicles or whatever bits and pieces of metal the mek had lying around (and still working, if not outperforming the original), and drive at breakneck speeds at minimum. There are orks considered batshit insane by other orks known as the Kult of Speed, who tend towards a "brakes are for cowards" mentality.
    • The White Scars Space Marine Chapter are normally associated with being Badass Bikers, but any one of them can make a vehicle dance when behind the wheel. In one episode during the War for Armageddon, several of them hijack an ork airplane and fly it back to safety, despite none of them being trained pilots and ork technology being next to impossible for non-orks to operate.

    Video Games 
  • Pretty much any sandbox game with driving in it (Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Crazy Taxi, Saints Row, Total Overdose, etc) requires badass driving to complete the missions on time.
  • First-Person Shooters that have drivable vehicles almost always require this.
  • Sgt. Moody from Call of Duty, who runs a little Peugeot through the German lines with his two subordinates to send an information to the American HQ. In United Offensive, he did the same thing with a Jeep through the freezing forests around Bastogne, this time with the help of an M2 heavy machine gun.
  • Devil May Cry 5 has Nico, who supports the heroes as both transporter and a mobile shopkeeper. And by mobile, we mean that no matter where Nero calls her, she will show up, even if it means speeding off a ramp or breaching out of concrete floor. She also occasionally runs over demons who get in her way, even saving a muggle this way at least once.
  • Euro Truck Simulator features the player as an ordinary truck driver, who is encouraged to obey the rules of the road... but as they progress through the game's skill system, they unlock longer and more dangerous routes, until they eventually are hauling perishable, fragile and dangerous cargo across the whole of Europe on strict time limits and in foul weather, making them a Mundane Made Awesome instance of the trope.
  • Friday Night Funkin': In Week 4, one of the Dearest family's nameless henchmen drives the car throughout the entire level. Even though it takes place on a busy freeway and Mommy Mearest is standing directly over the windshield, he never crashes the car or even makes a mistake.
  • Pretty much all the racers in the F-Zero franchise, especially Captain Falcon.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has the characters mercilessly mock your driving. At one point, they tell you to go to driver's ed. And then you do. Harsh. Admittedly, it's an advanced driving school, and those classes teach you how to be an even more badass driver (even in-game, as every 100% earned on a test increases your driving skill by an amount that would take about half an hour – as in real time half hour – of nonstop driving), so that softens the blow.
    • Franklin in Grand Theft Auto V has the special ability to slow down time and greatly improve his handling as a driver. He also starts out with the highest driving stat of the three protagonists.
    • Taliana Martinez from the same game, picked up in a random encounter, is a Badass in Distress when you meet her. She's barely survived a car crash after a heist Gone Horribly Wrong and needs to get to a friend's house. Completing the random encounter will let you unlock her as a driver for the story's heists. Not only can she ace any of the heists you bring her on, she only charges 5% of the heist's cut, making her the best getaway driver in the game.
  • Players that mastered the beast named X2010 and its successor, X2011 from the Gran Turismo series are this. 1500 HP, design to be exempt of every racing design rule, light as an 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.
  • Mention the name 'Greger Huttu' in sim-racing circles and expect an awed silence and people asking why the guy isn't in Formula One yet.
    • Top Gear Magazine did an article putting him in a Star Mazda open-wheeler. While the skill is certainly there (he was quickly setting some very quick times), the physical fitness required of actual racing wasn't.
  • Halo requires badass driving if you want to survive for long in a light vehicle like a Warthog or Mongoose in multiplayer mode. Preferably with a passenger able to shoot at your opponents, but for those moments they can't...
  • Starting in Jak II: Renegade, Jak became one of these, with Daxter showing at least potential. In Jak X: Combat Racing, everyone who was playable became one of these by default, even Pecker.
  • Kerbal Space Program gives us Jebediah Kerman. He could be on board a craft that is falling apart around him and he'll keep on smiling. When Kerbals were given classes and stats to level up, Jeb was unsurprisingly put into the Pilot class.
  • In Liberal Crime Squad, any liberal with enough points in driving skill becomes this.
  • Joker in Mass Effect can do ridiculously awesome things with a spaceship, in this case, the Normandy. Joker is another Non-Action Guy due to his brittle bones medical condition. He is also snarktacular. Anyone who doubts that he fits this trope obviously hasn't seen what he does at the beginning of the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2.
    • Throughout the series, it's shown that Shepard is actually highly skilled at either driving or piloting various forms of ground vehicles and aircraft. Unfortunately this fact is often overlooked since everyone else considers Shepard to be utterly dangerous when they get behind the wheel.
  • Milo of Wheelman and its film sequel.
  • The protagonist of Zombie Driver as he drives around a zombie-infected city, running down everything in his path, just to save survivors trying to escape.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Fate Series has a whole Class comprised of Badass Drivers, the Rider Class. Various examples of their vehicles include, but aren’t limited to; Pegasi, mammoths, luxury cars, horses, chariots, pirate ships, hippogriffs, dragons, themselves, men, and the Trojan Horse turned into a giant mech. Their riding skills also allow them to handle other vehicles with superhuman skill, from modern vehicles to ancient beasts, with varying degrees of success.
    • To a lesser extent, Sabers usually have a low-ranked riding skill, making them Badass Drivers as well.

    Webcomics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja's titular Dr. McNinja, with a car, a motorcycle, and a private jet in the most recent arc, but this might be a given considering the general craziness of the series.
    • The current story, Army Of One, hand waves it nicely.
    • When Doc needs a Badass Driver to support him, he turns to his receptionist Judy. Who's a gorilla.
  • Liz from Dead Winter borrows Patrick's car.
  • Kamikaze Kate from Misfile.
    • Ash is a pretty good case of this as well. Consider this: When Ash and Kate race the second time, Ash is driving a car that, as Kate points out, "is almost as old as you (Ash) are". Kate herself was driving a freaking Jaguar (and a modified one at that).
    • Ash has progressed a lot by the time of the race against Sheldon.

    Web Original 
  • The Driver from The Hire, BMW's short film advertisement series. But then he's played by Clive Owen.
  • Wheelman from Metro City Chronicles. He can drive across the country in a matter of hours and drive up the sides of buildings. His powers basically revolve around the ability to do impossible stunts with cars.
  • Red vs. Blue: Grif. Yes, that Grif. Don't believe me? Watch Revelation episode 3.
    • In the S9 flashbacks, Agents Maine, York, and ultimately Tex give Grif a run for his money. It takes a whole Warthog full of balls to catch someone falling off a building in your car, about as much to ram a truck that your buddies are fighting on with said car, but what Tex can do on that motorcycle probably violates laws of physics.
  • Whateley Universe: With all the gadgeteers and devisors on campus (both students and faculty), it is no surprise that some specialize in Cool Cars. Perhaps more surprising is that a few are really, really good with them. There is even an auto club on campus, the Gearheads.
    • One of the teachers, Ms. Metal, is known to have several 'speed courses' around campus. Security procedure is to e-mail the tickets to her after the fact, as trying to catch her only encourages her.
    • Another teacher, Mr. Donner, was a minor Super Villain called Hot Rod before he was given a special parole to teach at the school. He's the faculty advisor for the Gearheads club.
    • Among the students, there is Skids, whose mutant powers involve incredible driving skills, and the ability to psychically improve her vehicle, even while she's driving it.
    • Loophole, being a Gadgeteer Genius Wrench Wench of the Southern-fried variety, has the ability to deeply understand machine she touches, including vehicles. She is the premiere member of the Gearheads club, and the terror of the local street racers.
    • Eldritch has a similar Instant Expert talent from her role as an Ultimate Blacksmith (though it appeared even before that; he had previously had the callsign 'Highjacker' because of this). In the few times she's been shown operating a vehicle in combat, has demonstrated some incredible driving and piloting talents, even while in the middle of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

    Western Animation 
  • Asami Sato from The Legend of Korra qualifies. Demonstrating her amazing driving skills during a tense chase scene where she is blinded by smoke bombs. She not only manages to tail her quarries but manages to shock a couple into submission.
    • She's not just badass on the roads. She does the same thing on motorboats and in the sky with biplanes.
  • Coop in Megas XLR, who naturally kicks it up to Car Fu when he gets a hold of hyperadvanced technology.
  • And from the same people, Motor City's main cast is full of them, but The Hero Mike stands out in particular.
  • In Steven Universe, Stevonnie manages to keep pace and nearly beat Kevin, a much more experienced driver who none of the teen residents of Beach City could beat. Stevonnie would later use these skills to pilot a spaceship.
  • Lance in Sym-Bionic Titan, particularly in the "Roar of the White Dragon" episode. Notably when street racing Mike Chan (who could also be this trope) and when outrunning a Mutraddi, while still managing to pass his driver's test.
  • In Thunder Cats 2011 Panthro is this in his highly-customized Thundertank. He's even up for a game of chicken with the occasional giant war machine.
  • Override and Hot Shot from Transformers: Cybertron are quite proficient. Being a Badass Driver is a requirement to become the planet Velocitron's leader, for the Transformers of Velocitron decide such things by racing. Override is the leader at the start of the series, and in the final episode when she abdicates to captain one of the ancient starships for the Space Bridge project Hot Shot wins the race to determine her successor.
    • A special mention should go to the fact that Hot Shot, unlike the many other Velocitronians who were racing for planet-wide supremacy, did not even know that leadership was the prize for winning the race and he won thinking there was nothing to win. He just likes racing.
    • Oh, and he won in his bulkier, heavily armored Mid-Season Upgrade form!

    Real Life 
  • Most (if not all) drivers involved in forms of professional motor racing. Formula One, IndyCar, NASCAR, etc. They go absurdly fast around incredibly tricky tracks and small mistakes can lead to dire consequences, although increased safety equipment has reduced the risks. Plus, they have to race and beat a whole field of equally skilled drivers.
    Alain Prost: Ayrton has a small problem. He thinks that he can't kill himself.
    • Wait a minute, isn't The Stig a real life example?
    • The Late, Great Niki Lauda. Yes, he crashed and burned horribly, but they say he got back into the cockpit of a Formula One racer when he was still smoking.
    • Dale Earnhardt. Some say that he could see how the air moved, which is why he was so damned good on super speedways. He was nicknamed "The Intimidator." That just about says it all.
    • Special points to Graham Hill, the only person in history to win each of the big three of motorsport: Formula One World Championship (or the Monaco Grand Prix specifically), Indy 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours.
    • 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 FormulaOne1.
    • NASCAR drivers Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison after crashing into each other on the last lap of the race and getting into a fight in the 1979 Daytona 500. Even before they got into the fight they were some of the toughest drivers of their time.
    • Jackie Stewart. To use the biggest example of his badassery, he won the 1968 German Grand Prix at the 187 corner Nürburgring, in the pouring rain, by more than four minutes! With a broken wrist! If that's not badass driving, then nothing is.
    • Nigel Mansell, to the point that the Tifosi nicknamed him ''il leone" (The Lion) because of it. There is a huge list of injuries that he has suffered, only to jump right back in the car and carry on against the advice of several medical professionals. Add this to some insane overtaking manoeuvres and simply never giving up. Pushing your car over the finish line to salvage points and then fainting after? There's a reason he is one of Britain's most successful and endearing drivers.
    • Many Formula One drivers (including Senna himself) consider Juan Manuel Fangio to be the absolute greatest example of this trope. Having won the Formula One championship five times out of eight, with four different teams, this fact is hardly ever disputed. The 1957 German Grand Prix is the example to show this as Fangio - on a Maserati - quickly got a lead of nearly 40 seconds ahead of the two Ferraris that were trying to catch up with him. A disastrous mistake at Fangio's pit stop halfway through the race made him leave the pit stop around 45 seconds behind the Ferrarisnote . No problem for Fangio, who broke the lap record 9 times in the remaining 10 laps (he cut the time difference with the lead driver by a third in the first lap), and ended up getting his final Formula One race win.
    • 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 Machine Empathy. 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.
    • A.J. Foyt, one of the winningest drivers in IndyCar history. He won four Indy 500s (only three other drivers have accomplished that: Al Unser Sr., Rick Mears and Hélio Castroneves, all badass drivers themselves), won 138 USAC races (the most of any driver), and in the 1964 Champ Car season, won 10 of the 14 races, a record that still holds to this day. He also managed to find success in NASCAR, including a win in the 1972 Daytona 500.
    • Richard Petty, the winningest NASCAR driver in history with 200 career wins and 7 Championships over a 34-year career, including 27 wins in 1967 alone (including 10 in a row). His 200 wins is a record unlikely to ever fall: The winningest active driver is Jimmie Johnson, who in 19 years has won 83 races.
    • Tazio Nuvolari, who before World War II was considered the fastest man alive. Most notable is his victory at the 1935 German Grand Prix, AKA "The Impossible Victory", where he won with an Alfa Romeo P3note  against such superior competitors as five Mercedes-Benz W25note  and four Auto Union Tipo Bnote , cars so much more powerful the racing officials had only brought a German flag and the record of the German national hymn for the award because they couldn't expect anyone but the German cars to get in the top three. In the end Nuvolari not only won, but the only German who actually held his own, Von Brautnisch, did it by pushing his Mercedes-Benz so hard the tires gave out in the final lap, and provided his own flag for the award ceremony.
  • Anyone who can drive in the Monaco street circuit at top speed, barely centimeters from the walls qualifies. 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.
  • Rally Racing drivers in general. Circuit racers run in engineered purposely-built and well-mantained tracks, but Rally drivers drive really fast in narrow and curvy public roads, in multiple surfaces like gravel, mud, and snow, while exposed to the elements, having to juggle attention of the hazardous roads with hearing the pace notes from their navigators at the same time as they try to set the fastest time on a stage without crashing. The rally discipline demands a wider diversity of techniques as a result, meaning that the discipline heavily favors adaptability and natural instinct where the handbrake will also be a very important tool to thrive in this discipline as it also becomes a means to powerslide through hairpins (Group B rally cars, instead, due to their primitive technology, pretty much required the drivers to perform the Scandinavian Flick to achieve the same effect of entering powerslides on hairpins, compared to modern rally cars that can initiate powerslides easily with the handbrake, meaning that Group B rally cars were much harder to drive, and in the vast majority of cases on stages where times could be compared to modern rally cars, much slower than modern rally cars). The stages can also be featured in varied weather conditions and either on the daylight or at night, meaning thata consistent pace more often than not is what will make the difference between of who gets to set the fastest time on the stage, and who gets to retire from an accident that totaled the car. The margin of error is almost non-existent as a result, as the smallest mistake can potentially send the car off the road, straight into crashing on a tree, rock, or even falling off the cliff in some case. As a result, several Formula One drivers have outright stated, publicly, that the rally discipline is on another level, and how much they genuinely admire and respect rally drivers. Needless to say, this is arguably one of the hardest motorsports disciplines because of those factors, as drivers have to constantly adjust their driving for the different surface types, weather and visibility while having to follow the co-driver's pacenotes.
    • They didn't name Colin McRae one of the greatest rally drivers of all time for nothing. Sure, he only won a single World Championship in the WRC, but his penchant for flamboyant, pedal-to-the-metal driving and carrying on after a car-mangling accident earned him quite a following. It helps that the video game series he starred in gave him even further recognition especially in Europe where rallying is more popular.
    • And then there's Estonian badass Ott Tänak, 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. Tänak went on to win the 2019 World Rally Championship, breaking the winning streak of Frenchman Sébastien Ogier.
    • Finnish driver Kalle Rovanpera gained notoriety as the youngest World Rally Champion to date at the age of 22. As the son of former WRC driver Harri Rovanperä, he went viral in the late 2000s when he took up rallying at an age where kids would content themselves with either a child-sized Power Wheels or model cars.
    • Speaking of Ogier, this French badass scored six consecutive wins from 2013 to 2018, and another two championships in 2020 and 2021, taking the place of compatriot Sébastien Loeb, who is arguably the undisputed king of the dirt with nine WRC titles.
  • Take a look at the onboard cam at night at the Le Mans 24 hours, and you'll see just how little of the track ahead is barely visible to the drivers. Sometimes you don't know a corner's coming until they actually take it.
  • Any race car driver's skills are fairly easily transferred to street cars, be them open-wheelers or modified production cars. Therefore, pretty much all competent race car drivers are capable of badass feats behind the wheel. One example of such a driver showing off on YouTube is Ken Block.
  • Prohibition gave rise to an illegal and dangerous, but quite economically rewarding, activity: dodging the police while hauling contraband moonshine on modified cars. The famous "Bootlegger's Reverse" was named for just one of the maneuvers that such drivers would pull. What happened to all of those skilled drivers after prohibition ended? They formed NASCAR. See also Junior Johnson.
  • "Precision drivers" like Russ Swift, who's skills include parking cars with a handbrake turn, and on one clip imitating the movie 'The Driver' using the walls of a car park to knock bits of the car off.
  • The land speed record overlaps with Improbable Piloting Skills, since the driver who steered Thrust SSC to 763 mph was Wing Commander Andy Green of the RAF.
  • Le Prince Noir (The Black Prince), a French motorcyclist, became famous in 1989 for riding one whole "lap" on the Parisian Périphérique expressway. Despite heavy traffic and a layout that's far from perfect for high speeds, he reached an average speed of 190km/h and top speeds beyond 250km/h. Don't forget that this was when stock motorcycles were limited to 98bhp.
  • Speaking of speeding in Sweden, there's also Getaway in Stockholm. High-performance cars with cameras mounted on them tease the police in Stockholm to chase them, let themselves be chased but not caught for a while, recording the chase with said cameras, and then head for an expressway where they escape at speeds out of reach for Swedish police cars. Like Ghost Rider, the drivers of these cars cannot be convicted thanks to the very special Swedish traffic laws.
  • The whole mounting-a-camera-on-your-ride-and-flooring-it-on-public-streets thing is Older than You Think, by the way. The French director Claude Lelouch already did it on an early August morning in 1976 in his short movie C'était un rendez-vous. He mounted a camera on the front end of his Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 and raced the comparably heavy and cumbersome luxury sedan through the streets of Paris. Although this was indeed released as a sort of movie, this does qualify for Real Life because absolutely nothing (except dubbing the engine sounds with a Ferrari 275 GTB) was edited, not even sped up, absolutely no special effects were applied, no preparations beyond mounting the cam on the Mercedes were made, and there wasn't even really a script except the route.
  • This deserves recognition. Extra badass point for the fact that he was driving an IFV.
  • Sabine Schmitz, the most badass female driver ever lived. Has done around 20,000 laps of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and crashed "many times, can't count actually". This being a circuit that's 13 miles around which there continues to be fatalities on a yearly basis. On Top Gear she blew past motorbikes and sports cars...in a VAN. Which halfway around the lap "got no more ABS". And they say Danica Patrick is making headlines...
  • Speaking of female drivers, there's this hilarious hidden camera prank where unsuspecting men went on a blind date with a ridiculously attractive female stunt driver. Once they got behind the wheel of her Mustang, she pretended to be The Ditz who couldn't drive a stick shift. She then drove the car to an empty lot and proceeded to scare the shit out of them.
  • Jalopnik.com's hoon of the year, Bill Caswell. Enters a WRC Mexico rally race against $400,000+ cars driven by the likes of Ken Block (see "showing off on YouTube", above) with a $500 19-year-old rear-wheel-drive Craigslist car and no crew. Finishes third in class, and ahead of three cars in the aforementioned $400,000+ WRC class.
    Have four hours to sleep, most sleep have had in a week. Car is perfect. Fuel pump fixed by the side of the road. Fixed rear sway bar. Changed to fresh tires. Fabricated new hood tie downs with a borrowed welder — had to borrow a larger generator to run it, too — b/c mine cracked off. Trans brace was held on with only one nut left and loose and halfway undone. Got lucky.
  • You can't leave Ponce, the Minority Racer, out of the list of BA's. This Mexican-American underdog race car driver has managed to compete and finish several world class races in multi-motorsports such as the world championship of extreme rock crawling at UROC Supercrawl 2006, two consecutive WRC events in Mexico without any prior rally experience in 2008 and 2010, the King of the Hammers race in 2011, and recently contacted to drive on the same team with Paris Dakar legend Jutta Kleinschmidt and Michael Podologar to help the team place and finish the GORM 24hr race, alias the Nürburgring of Offroad. in Germany.
  • Tom Cruise, who did all the driving stunts himself in Jack Reacher.
  • Rowan Atkinson. Yes, THAT Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson is a car aficionado and competitive racer in real life, and does most of his own stunt driving. For a time, he was the fastest "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" on Top Gear. Even his most buffoonish characters become badass drivers when they get behind the wheel.
  • Keiichi Tsuchiya. He isn't called The Drift King for nothing. He's so badass that he himself appeared (though not completely) in a special episode in the anime version of Initial D as the one talking to Bunta Fujiwara on the cellphone for advice. Not only that, but he was the inspiration for the character Takumi, Bunta's son. Though his glory years are now far behind him, he's still a Cool Old Guy.
  • On the subject of drifting, Kunimitsu Takahashi. He is called "the father of drifting" for having innovated the technique in the racing world during the 1970s. He was a former Formula One and Grand Prix motorcycle racer and was the first Japanese racer to win a motorcycle Grand Prix in 1961. Tsuchiya himself learned some drifting techniques from Takahashi and later became the drifting legend as we know nowadays.
  • Kazuhiko "Smokey" Nagata, founder of Japanese tuning firm TOP SECRET promoted his brand by trying to hit 300 kilometers per hour on public roads around the world, even spending a few nights in jail for it. His vehicle of choice a highly modified, V12 powered Toyota Supra that was outputting over 1000 horsepower, long before companies like Bugatti had even dreamed of doing so.
  • Ross Dolan of the Death Metal band Immolation works as a truck driver for his day job. Now, being a truck driver alone is generally a sign that you're quite competent and know the ins and outs of the road like few others do; furthermore, given that his CDL class also allows him to drive passenger vehicles of a certain weight class, he was able to bail Nile out on a 2010 US tour when their own driver ran off mid-tour, as said passenger vehicles included buses. In fact, it's likely that if Immolation hadn't been on the bill and/or had not been in the vicinity of the rest stop that Nile was stranded at, they may have actually had to drop off the bill.
  • The late Rudy Uglenhaut, a former engineer for Mercedes Benz and the father of the famous Mercedes Benz 300SL ''Gullwing'' and 300SLR Formula 1 race car. He was an engineer yes, but he also happened to test his race car himself and made faster lap times than Fangio mentioned above.
  • Scandinavians, in general. The Scandinavian countries are covered 5 to 7 months per year in snow and the countries are located between 55th and 70th latitudes of North, so the weather can be truly awful, and distances between towns are long (with notable exception of Denmark). The driving conditions and climate simply weed out any unskilled drivers. Most Scandinavian cars are stick geared, so Improbable Driving Skills come as an extra bonus.
    • The same applies to Scandinavian sailors as well. It has been claimed some 90% of all navigational safety devices (spar buoys, beacons, lighthouses) of the world are located either in the Swedish or Finnish archipelago.


 
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