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Beekeeper 1: To the Beemobile! Beekeeper 2: You mean your Chevy? Beekeeper 1: ...Yes.
"It's the car, right? Chicks dig the car."
It looks cool and goes fast. It may even be bulletproof and contain an assortment of weapons and gadgets. What is it? It's a Cool Car.
If you're lucky, it comes with a Cool Garage.
Sometimes, the car is cool enough that it actually can become a protagonist in the series — e.g. Knight Rider. The General Lee is arguably the main protagonist of The Dukes Of Hazzard.
Most Cool Cars, even ones that have no inherent super abilities, will be curiously immune to breakdown or physical damage. No matter what manner in which the hero drives, as long as he's determined to stay on the straight and narrow and fight for the forces of good, his car shows an Empathic Weapon's ability to never get scratched, dented or even dirty. For instance, the General Lee is used for innumerable jumps, but there is never any mention or evidence of the car's structural integrity being damaged on landing, which was addressed in Mythbusters. In reality, they went through a lot of General Lees and police cruisers on that show.
Driving a Cool Car is a good way to ensure yourself Rock Star Parking. When a car literally becomes a character, see Sapient Steed. Sometimes it's a Pimped Out Car.
Contrast The Alleged Car. Tank Goodness may be its father. If your Cool Car isn't actually a car but performs like one, it's Multi Track Drifting. See Weaponized Car for the versions with weapons bolted to them.
A really Cool Car can Fly.
Examples:
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Comic Books
Live Action TV
- The General Lee from the The Dukes Of Hazzard
- KITT and KARR in Knight Rider
- Emma Peel's Lotus Elan from The Avengers
- Ray's GTO from Due South
- Duncan MacLeod's black 1964 "Flair Bird" convertible Ford Thunderbird from Highlander The Series
- A different Ray's Corvette in Stingray
- The Dodge Viper in Viper
- The A Team had a cool black GMC van
- FAB-1, Lady Penelope's six-wheeled Rolls-Royce from Thunderbirds. While the original was only a model, it was actually built
 for the 2004 Live Action Adaptation. (Though in an egregious example of Product Placement, it was no longer a Rolls Royce but a custom Ford Thunderbird.)
- Miami Vice had many cool cars. Sonny Crockett first drove a black Daytona Spyder, then a white Testarossa, then a red F430 in The Movie.
- In another Don Johnson reference, the title character in Nash Bridges drove a 1971 'Cuda Hemi ragtop. There were only 7 of them made, one in each color offered on the Barracuda, of which 6 survive to this day. It's worth a couple million dollars at auction, pushing this into Improbably Cool Car territory.
- Speaking of Ferraris, there was of course the red 308 borrowed by Magnum, P.I.
- The Gran Torino from Starsky and Hutch Ironically, it was totally stock except for the stripe, which Ford later offered on several models - even the Pinto
- Gene Hunt's Ford Cortina GXL from Life On Mars
- One of the first things to go into the script, which had the working title of "Ford Cortina".
- Later, in Ashes To Ashes, Gene Hunt has a bright red Audi. "Fire up the Quattro!"
- The actual car is a 1983 Quattro (in 1981, the Quattro wasn't available in a native British format). Phillip Glenister admitted in an interview that the producers knew it, but They Just Didnt Care, because...well, it was a Cool Car.
- Sam Tyler's Chevelle SS in the American version.
- Steve Urkel's BMW Isetta, from Family Matters, isn't cool. In fact, it's so terrible and antiquated that it may punch through the bottom, wrap around to the top and become cool. Or maybe not. He thinks it's cool, anyway, but he's The Urkel.
- May be so uncool it's cool? You've never seen the action around one at a car show!
- Gladys Crabtree (aka "Mother") from My Mother The Car is likewise not a Cool Car.
- Accidental subversion: as part of a Product Placement deal, Hiro and Ando treat the Nissan Versa as though it were a cool car in Heroes — when unfortunately, it's just a mundane family compact. And being from Japan, they wouldn't even know it as a "Versa" — in Japan and Latin America, they call it "Tiida". (That last bit can be explained away by the fact that they read it in the ad for an American comic book. And it's a rental car bought in America.)
- Used somewhat inexplicably in Torchwood, given that the titular organisation is meant to be a secret, making the decision to drive around in a very distinctive and eye-catching vehicle with the name stenciled onto it a rather strange idea.
- The 1967 Chevy Impala, known by fans as the "Metallicar," driven by the Winchesters on Supernatural. This editor would argue that it has achieved co-protagonist status, along with Sam and Dean.
- Some fans believe it to be sentient, as seen in this webcomic, which is quite popular in the fandom.
- The old Krofft series Wonderbug combined the titular Cool Car with a Secret Identity as an old junker of a dune buggy called "Schlep Car". The buggy's secret identity was so junky that even the letters on its license plate were crooked, while its superpowered form was sentient, had an actual face (made by its headlights and bumper), and could fly.
- Why Wonderbug would ever switch back to that old wreck was beyond me, even as a child of the '70s/'80s. There was an episode I vaguely remember, where Schlepcar got stuck on railroad tracks because he didn't have the power to drive over them. Um, how about hitting the magic horn, Barry?
- In Doctor Who the Third Doctor spent much of his time on Earth driving around in 'Bessie', an antiquated canary-yellow roadster which on first glance would look the furthest thing from 'cool' you could think of. It's quickly revealed, however, that the Doctor's constant tinkering and playing around have made it a super-powered car that anyone would kill to drive.
- He later traded up for a weirdly incongruous The Jetsons-style flight-capable bubble car, which rapidly acquired the Fan Nickname of 'The Whomobile'.
- Plus, an antique car fit rather well with his...let's say "classic" opera cape stylings.
- The Coyote in Hardcastle and McCormick.
- The Middlemobile [and other vehicles] from The Middle Man and to a lesser degree, both of Dub-Dub's mundane cars.
- The Mythbusters treat their cars as cool cars, when most are junkers they got because they knew they would be ruined. Various cars have been fitted with RC rigs, prompting Adam to point out that he and Jamie should cruise for chicks in them, while remaining in the backseat. Their very first myth involved a rocket car, and when speed is a factor in the myths, they tend to call on expert drivers and very cool cars to help.
- Angel's sleek black convertible.
- Which has nothing on Gunn's vampire-hunting truck.
- Giles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer initially drove a potentially cool but very run-down Citroen DS but after Spike wrote it off in a car chase he acquired a shiny red BMW convertible, which was seen as a sign of his mid-life crisis and ridiculed by everyone. And Oz had a van which occasionally got close to being the Mystery Machine.
- The Core Striker from Tomica Hero Rescue Force, which, due to its AI, also doubles as a Robot Buddy.
- Hurley's Volkswagen Bus, which he found in the jungle during the third season of Lost.
- The Equalizer drove a black 1984 Jaguar XJ6 Series III, much to the dismay of potential clients who naturally assumed his services were highly expensive.
- Stephen Colbert parodies this with his build-a-bear parody build-a-car workshop. It's a tank on monter truck wheels, has a sail and a sidecar attached to it,an American flag on the back and "You steer it with your balls."
- There actually is a shop like Build-A-Bear, only with model cars. It's called Ridebuilderz.
- In several third and fourth season episodes of The Man From UNCLE, Solo and Kuryakin got to drive an "U.N.C.L.E. car", which was a concept car developed from the Bertone Pirana.
- The 1962/4 Volvo P1800 from The Saint, driven by Roger Moore. When they decided to make the movie in 1996, the Volvo coupe had been so well connected to the character of The Saint that Val Kilmer drove the definitely less cool Volvo C70 because it was a Volvo coupe. How Did We Miss This One
- The Gerry and Sylvia Anderson live-action series UFO had Commander Straker's gas-turbine car (in reality an impossible-to-drive prop whose gull-wing doors had to be opened by an off-screen stagehand), the SHADO Mobiles (tracked armoured personnel carriers with radar sets on top) and the missile-bearing Lunar Interceptor. All of them just crying out to be made into Dinky toys.
- The Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles in Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons (called the Rhino in Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet are similar to the SHADO Mobiles. There was also the Spectrum Patrol Car (the Cheetah in The Remake) Gerry Anderson really likes his vehicles.
- In fact, the first Supermarionation show was Supercar, which was all about a Cool Flying Car.
- The Black Beauty from The Green Hornet. In the TV show, a customized 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial with green headlamps. Generally stored upside down in Britt Reid's garage.
- The car from the show Automan. In the show it's a hologram so it apparently doesn't have to follow the laws of physics. Possibly the only car that could really use inertial dampeners.
- Semir's 3-Series BMW in Alarm Fur Cobra 11.
- Alex Tully's Dodge Challenger from Drive.
- Inspector Morse drove a Type 2 Jaguar, but for a while every policeman in a British show seemed to drive a classic car.
- The Prisoner - Patrick Mc Goohan's Lotus Seven, which, apart from the opening title sequence, only appears in one episode in the series.
- Get Smart - the Opel GT was nice and the Shelby Mustang very impressive, but Max's Sunbeam Tiger was the trademark car with lots of style.
- Say what you will about The Monkees, that wild custom GTO was pretty cool.
- George from Dead Like Me drives a Mustang that was owned by one of her reaps.
- Michael Weston's black '73 Dodge Charger is a pretty, pretty thing.
Anime & Manga
- Just about every single race car in the Future GPX Cyber Formula anime in its many iterations. The main car, the Asurada series of racers, was able to shapeshift, especially in its much later versions, had 6WD, rocket boosters, and needed an AI supercomputer to be driven properly. Its rivals over the years were just as colorful, including but not limited to:
- A family of electric-powered super-racers that leaned like motorcycles into curves.
- The Missionel series of cars, the final version of which looked like Unit 01 turned into an automobile.
- A windowless racer that had the driver lie in it like a closed-cockpit luge sled.
- The Ogre AN-21, which is the Super Prototype to the final version of Asurada thus far.
- The Mach 5 from Speed Racer is so goddamn cool it's even listed as a Super Robot.
- Rally Vincent's Shelby /GT 500/ from Gunsmith Cats.
- Misato's Renault Alpine A310 in Neon Genesis Evangelion certainly qualifies, even when it's so badly driven.
- In Riding Bean, Bean Bandit has a stylish car, called the Roadbuster, that not only has a high performance engine that can match most race cars, but it can orient its wheels to move sideways or extend brake blades for extremely rapid stops.
- The Sprinter Trueno from Initial D is a nice subversion: Takumi, arguably the fastest racer in the series, owns the second-most uncool car in the series, the AE86, while beating an armada of EVOs, RX-7s, and R32s Granted, it was heavily modified halfway into the series, resulting it larger horsepower and lightened weight. It proved so popular it pushed the AE86 Corolla coupes from "old used car" to "sought-after classic" almost singlehandedly - in Japan, it did this before the newest examples were even 10 years old! As a matter of fact, you can also see the original Hachi-Roku in Gran Turismo 4 (the Sprinter Trueno Shuichi Shigeno Edition), as well as in Need For Speed: Underground 2 and Carbon (the Toyota Corolla).
- It's really not a bad car, just considered outdated by the majority of racers in the series. Takumi's character model, the original Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya, started out with this car, and still considers it his favorite.
- The award for most uncool car of the series goes to Itsuki's AE85. Itsuki attempts to buy the same car as Takumi and gets ripped off with an authentic POS.
- Not necessarily Truth In Television. These now being 20-plus-year old cars and engine swaps being easier than extensive rust repair, condition is more important than original spec.
- In the Kirby anime, King Dedede starts with Escargon driving him around in a military ATV (complete with BFG), but eventually orders a huge old fashioned limousine loaded with gadgets and weapons (described as a 'Demon Beast On Wheels') for an episode of Wacky Racing. (in the same episode, Meta Knight races in an old-fashioned Formula 1 car, and Kirby in his spaceship) They crash spectacularly by the end of the episode, but they are seen driving around in the car for the rest of the series.
- In Wangan Midnight, Akio Asakura drives a heavily-tuned vintage Nissan Fairlady Z (known as the Datsun Z on this side of the Pacific Rim), known widely as the "Devil Z" for a very good reason.
- Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2 and its sequels let you drive a Toyota HiAce. Which is a van. That, like any other car, can be tuned to upwards of 800 horsepower.
- Lupin III's Fiat 500. Turbocharger, practically indestructible(It suffers a grenade hit and the only thing destroyed is the glass)...
- Roger Smith's Griffon in Big O definitely qualifies. It has survelance equipment, machine guns, a big beefy engine, and IT CAN CHANGE COLOR.
- Iina from Kokoro Library drives around in what looks like a Volkswagen Schwimmwagen, an amphibuous car used in the second world war by the German army. It has been adapted for civilian use, with its white color and the cute cat print on the seat covers. The huge rear propeller isn't only for show though, since it functions perfectly fine as a boat.
Film
- The Ford LTD from Men In Black appears to be uncool at first.
- J even notes that the MIB have "unlimited technology from around the galaxy, and [they] have to drive around in a Ford POS". He eats his words when it comes time to push the little red button on the stick shift...
- J's Mercedes in the sequel is a nice upgrade.
- The old police cruiser used by The Blues Brothers was emblematic of the brothers' style and situation. It survived the film's stunts, held together by the very will of The Almighty, until its mission was over. Then it fell apart on the sidewalk.
- The Fast And The Furious is a series runneth over with Cool Cars so hard, they're pretty much about this trope. Just pick a car, any car. Except for the Chevelle and the Ferraris, being the former apparently uncool and the latter portrayed as "already awesome", all these cars are rigged with the most powerful, badass engine upgrades in the world, enough to make them run like Formula 1 cars, and on top of that, all of them are equipped with bangin' sound systems, neon lights, all sorts of sophisticated control computers (except for the muscle cars, of course, which rely on good ol' humongous block), LCD monitors, and, of course, a lot of Nitro Boost. The list includes:
- Two sleek Ferraris (TFATF, 2F2F).
- Four Mitsubishis with an awesome paint job (all movies: two were Evolutions (VII and VIII) and two were Eclipses).
- Three RX-7s (all movies).
- A Dodge Charger (TFATF).
- A Chevrolet Camaro (2F2F).
- A 1970 Dodge Challenger (2F2F).
- An apparently old and rusty Chevrolet Chevelle (Tokyo Drift).
- A Dodge Viper (Tokyo Drift).
- Two Nissan Skylines (2F2F, Tokyo Drift).
- A Nissan Fairlady 350Z and Silvia (Tokyo Drift).
- A green Volkswagen Touran (Tokyo Drift).
- A 1967 Ford Mustang with a Nissan Skyline engine (Tokyo Drift).
- And the list keeps going on and on and on...
- Not Truth In Television. A racer would have stripped his car of everything but the bare essentials to lose weight. Not even rear seats are spared. Not to mention turning off the radio and AC for that little bit of extra power. A giant ICE system? Unnecessary weight and power drain.
- Unless You're a "ricer" (from "rice burner", derogatory slang for such a car, given that they are typically japanese).
- Except that the term "rice burner" typically denotes a car that has been made to look AWESOME: Big stereo, lots of Neon, custom paint, etc. While at the same time having very little or no engine or performance modifications.
- Herbie the Volkswagen Beetle from The Love Bug and its sequels. Even though the Última Edición version, with its marginal 50-70 hp, is the most powerful version ever made (a stock 1963 model- Herbie's Canon age- had 40 hp), it still manages to be as powerful as a stock car.
- Notice, however, that thanks to the Beetle's extremely light weight (~750 kg / 1650 lb) it is possible to turn an ordinary Beetle into something as fast as a stock car without having to use a huge engine.
- Pick a Bond film, any Bond film. The Aston-Martin DB5 from Goldfinger and the Lotus Esprit submarine from The Spy Who Loved Me are particularly memorable examples.
- This troper would include the 1967 Casino Royale where David Niven drives a suitably old-school Bentley roadster.
- The DeLorean in the Back To The Future film trilogy. The version in Back To The Future The Animated Series had even more gadgets attached.
- The real-life DeLorean is probably the coolest car ever made, at least in terms of aesthetics. Its gull-wing doors required far less room to open than regular ones, for example. Beyond that, however, it was a perfect example of The Alleged Car. It was horribly unreliable — the "stainless" steel body suffered from staining, the windows would occasionally fall out when the gull-wing doors were opened, and despite the perception that it's fast, Road & Track clocked its 0-60 mph speed at 10.5 seconds — slow even back then. These problems were obviously exaggerated in the movie, especially in that it always fails at the most inconvenient moments, but they are mostly Truth In Television.
- And the Lamborghini Countach? A DeLorean on steroids.
- The Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters and its related material. It may be a bit of a subversion, as the model of car used was shown to be old and junky, yet it is still considered a cool car due to its visually striking appearance.
- On the other hand, the Ghostbuggy—preferred mode of transport for the other guys—is an uncool, beat-up old jalopy. At least until it decides to transform into an airplane, speedboat, snowmobile... "Did I mention it ''also'' travels in time?"
- "The Last of the V-8s" in the first two Mad Max films.
- The titular vehicle in the horror movie The Car. Just because the thing is a driverless Satanic serial killer doesn't mean it can't be cool.
- Every car driven by Will Smith in I Am Legend.
- Bullitt's incredibly badass 1968 Ford Mustang 390 CID Fastback, although it sports no gadgets or gimmicks, is one of the oldest ones in the book.
- Steve McQueen could only out-cool the Mustang by using a real racing car - hence the Le Mans movie in 1970. His timing was fortunate since the Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512, two of the coolest cars ever and frankly the main reason for watching the film at all, were outlawed by new rules in 1972 and Le Mans cars were much less cool for many years.
- Eleanor from Gone In Sixty Seconds. That is all.
- The LooneyTunes: Back in Action movie had a double subversion of this trope. The first car Brendan Fraser and Daffy find in Timothy Dalton's garage is a beat-up old Gremlin which barely makes it out of the driveway. About a minute after they leave, however, the floor of the garage flips over and a stereotypical spy car is revealed, complete with Bond-esque musical sting.
- Michael Korben's Lotus Esprit in If Looks Could Kill.
- Ferris Buellers Day Off:
Cameron: The 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love. It is his passion...
Ferris: It is his fault he didn't lock the garage.
Cameron: Ferris, what're you talking about?
Ferris: Whoo!
Cameron: Ferris, my father loves this car more than life itself.
Ferris: A man with his priorities so out of whack doesn't deserve such a fine automobile.
- The pedal cars from Bugsy Malone. What kid wouldn't want one of those?
- The green Gran Torino from well... Gran Torino is an awesome car that kicks off the plot for being too damn cool (aka Theft Bait)
- Billy's Chevelle in Carrie is a very Cool Car. Shame that Carrie blows it up.
- Say what you will about Son Of The Mask, but you must admit... that car Tim (as the Mask) drives at the end, when he's trying to catch up with Loki to get his son back, is made of 100% insta-win awesome.
- The titular hero of Disney's Condorman persuades the CIA to build him a Bond-esque racecar that: starts out disguised inside a rickety truck; boasts rockets, mines, a flamethrower, and a blast shield, among other toys; and converts into a hydrofoil for ocean travel. He gets a Cool Boat later in the film, too.
- Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie had plenty of these.
- Subverted in 2008's Get Smart. The Tiger Sunbeam he drove in the first few seasons was part of a Cold War museum display, and after his Prison Break Smart takes it to try to catch the bad guys. Unfortunately, though, it runs out of gas shortly thereafter, leaving him needing to find other transportation. (Other cars from the series, an Opel GT and Volkswagon Kharmann Ghia, also appear in the movie.)
- Frank Martin of The Transporter has used a few these, including a one-off manual BMW E38 750i—or 735i; depends on the interpretation of Tarconi's accent—(the first film), an Audi A8 L, a Lamborghini Murcielago (both in the second) and a W12-powered Audi A8 (the third movie).
- Xander Cage's car in xXx is cool squared. Not only is it a '67 Pontiac GTO, it's also stuffed with enough weaponry and gadgetry for more than half a dozen James Bond movies.
- The Wraith. An unnaturally cool car.
- Malloy's car in Con Air.
- In Angel's Revenge (aka Angel's Brigade), the team of "angels" puts together a van that looks like a rip-off from the A-Team, except that this movie was made before the A-Team.
- Death Proof features several cool cars, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, Chevy Nova.
- The Gumball Rally and ''Cannon Ball Run" movies: Cool cars in cross country races: Some were just born cool (Shelby Cobra, Ferrari Daytona, Lamborgini Countach) while others (The souped-up Dodge Amubulance) had coolness thrust upon them.
- Sam Lowry's car in Brazil - actually a Messerschmitt KR200 - is cool in a similar way to the Steve Urkel / Family Matters example mentioned in Live Action TV, and sometimes shows up at UK car shows.
- Don't forget the Jet Car from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. I mean, Banzai drove it through a mountain!
Video Games
Western Animation
- Megas XLR features a 1970 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda, that also functions as the head and cockpit of a giant robot.
- On Transformers, a disproportionate number of the original Autobots transform into cool cars, even those for whom it is not thematically appropriate, like Techno Wizard Wheeljack. Jazz, for example, transforms into a Pontiac Solstice, while Barricade transforms into a Ford Mustang squad car. A Hummer H2 was first considered for Optimus's vehicle form, but the creators decided to keep him a Peterbilt trailer truck.
- In the 2007 movie, Bumblebee actually alters his vehicle mode (from beatdown vintage Camaro to a custom concept car version) mid-movie just to impress his human companions. This might apply to many of the Cool Car Autobots — just because you're a heroic living machine on a mission to save the planet doesn't mean you can't want to look good doing it.
- Jazz even acknowledges it in Animated... His first taste of Earth's culture is his new vehicle mode, and he digs it.
- Subversion: Ben 10 has the main characters traveling across America in the Rust Bucket, which comes with all the special gadgets but blows the Cool Car vibe by being a rusty-looking old RV.
- Played straight in the Time Skip Ben 10 Alien Force, where the team rides around in Kevin's muscle car, which resembles a Dodge Challenger (either the old or the new one) more than anything else. And then in the Season 2 Finale, the car turns out to be stuffed with just about every piece of alien tech the team has come across. And it is awesome. And then subverted again when Gwen's brother owns a car dubbed "the Awesomemobile" that is decidedly unawesome.
- Darkwing Duck had a variation on this, in the Ratcatcher, a "cool motorcycle" designed to match and expand Darkwing's superhero aesthetic. It rarely evinced Cool Car gizmos and options, and due to the slapstick nature of the cartoon, it often crashed or suffered damage, but DW's sidekick Launchpad McQuack could be counted on to tirelessly fix it up each time in the show's Cool Garage, Darkwing Tower.
- Danger Mouse had a sleek yellow matchbox-sized Flying Car, with jetplane-style wings.
- Madame Foster's car from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, aside from being a Pontiac Firebird, also was once picked up and thrown back onto the road without sustaining damage. It also survived Bloo driving it, a miracle in itself.
- Cars, in which every single character IS a Cool Car. Lightning McQueen is a NASCAR stock car, Sally is a Porsche 911 Carrera, and even the senile Model T Lizzie is cool.
- Tell that to Mater, the old, beat-up, rusted tow truck.
- Cheerfully subverted in Wacky Races, where most of the cars are goofy and incredibly uncool. Ironically the coolest car belongs to Dick Dastardly, who never wins.
- Is that really a spoiler?
- C.A.R. in The Replacements, who is more intelligent than several of the human characters.
- The Gadgetmobile from Inspector Gadget, which has transforming gadget-powers like its owner.
- The Movie subverts this at the beginning, when Gadget goes to jump into his car. It looks like he's going for the red sportscar, and pulls away in the '70s jalopy.
- Danny Phantom has the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle AKA the RV.
- Brock Samson of The Venture Bros drives around in a '69 Charger, and while it doesn't have all of the technological gimmickry of the typical Cool Car (aside from built-in parachutes), he has dropped it out of planes, jumped incredible gaps, and slaughtered an entire battalion of mooks with it. Clearly his is the Badass Normal of cool cars.
- However, the customised Jensen Interceptor that he briefly drove after losing the Charger did have all kinds of technological gadgetry, which it showcased during his encounter with Herr Trigger. Looked pretty cool, too.
- Spoofed in Justice League when the Flash decided to buy an incredibly gaudy van that he dubs the "Flashmobile." As quoted above, the uselessness of a car to the fastest man alive is not ignored.
- It's a van, so it has...other uses. As Green Lantern says, you don't want to know.
- The A Vs from Beetleborgs and many of the rangers cars from Power Rangers Turbo.
- Speed Buggy. (Scooby Doo as a talking car).
- Kim Possible drives a car that can travel in Hyper Speed and drive under water. And it looks really cool. By the end of the series, it can fly.
- The Turtle Van.
- Strangely however, this was only on the show. The toys and video games referred to it as the "Party Wagon" (a pun on "paddywagon")
- Benny the Cab in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- Most of the cars from MASK.
- Gear from Catscratch
- In one episode, Wile E. Coyote has a "spy car" with many features modeled after James Bond's Aston Martin DB 5.
- Possibly copying the aforementioned Wonderbug, Hanna-Barbera's Wonder Wheels had a similar junky motorcycle transforming into the titular sentient super-vehicle, though its driver also got a change of outfit during the transformation.
- Another Hanna-Barbera example is Wheelie from Wheelie And The Chopper Bunch
- The Ruby-Spears series Turbo Teen deals with a human who turns into a cool car.
- All the vehicles from Batman Beyond, even the ones that are portrayed as mundane.
Literature
Web Comics
- Misfile is chock full of cool cars, virtually every single character has one. The fact that almost every character is a street racer probably has something to do with it. However, it's also realistic in that many of these cars weren't inherently cool: they're the sort of cars High School kids could actually afford made cool through modification for their "Run what you brung" street races.
Music
- Rush's "Red Barchetta", itself inspired by Richard S. Foster's short story "A Nice Morning Drive".
- Ironically, a car built as solidly as the one described in the short story would be a greater, not a lesser, hazard to its driver since a vehicle with a fully stiffened body will collapse around the largest void space - that being the passenger cabin. Oops. Crumple zones exist for a reason.
- Prominent in Rap. According to Xzibit, his first album introduced him on the scene, his second album established his place, and his third album paid for his car.
- ZZ Top's Eliminator hot rod.
Web Animation
Webcomics
Real Life
- Jay Leno owns an awesome collection of these. He also owns a lot of cool motorcycles too. In fact....Jay has a rather Cool Garage in general. Jay Leno's Garage shows this to the extreme. In case of doubt, fire up Gran Turismo 4 and look at his Tank Car.
- Liberace was fond of these, and often had them decorated in his signature gaudy style (including, yes, a rhinestone-covered car).
- The Tornado Intercept Vehicle, built by IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey so that he could drive into a tornado, film it, and survive while doing so.
- Stephen Fry drives around in a London black cab (don't ask how he doesn't get people hailing him all the time). Perhaps realizing just how cool the idea of Stephen Fry as a cabbie is he even took one on his recent American travelogue.
- There's something about British actors- Rupert Grint's daily driver is an ice cream truck.
- Top Gear has the Cool Wall, where new cars 'coolness' is rated by Clarkson and Hammond. One of the rules is that any car actually owned by the presenters must be uncool. Hence the Fiat Panda 1.4 being halfway across the studio at the 'Uncool' end - James May has one.
- They also featured at least two whole episodes where they tried to destroy a red Toyota Hilux pickup truck, but in the end the car kept going every time they restarted the engine. Eventually, they decided with an unanimous decision that the car needed more than a cool wall for its legacy, so they set it on a plinth where it's still on display today.
- Clarkson and Hammond revealed in series 14 that they think the car company that has made the most great/cool cars is... Lancia. Considering they made the Stratos, Delta Integrale, Monte Carlo, Gamma, Fulvia... and went rallying with most of them, you can see where they're coming from.
- Alex Roy's Team Polizei BMW M5. Very possibly the coolest car on the planet - it did go non-stop from NYC to LA in 31 hours without being busted after all.
- Not only is President Obama's official car really tough, but his Secret Service escort vehicle is even more badass with popout gatling gun turret! Just check this baby out!
- This custom car was built around a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. That's right, it's a car powered by the same engine as a Spitfire. Here it is on Classic Top Gear.
- As was this '55 Chevy, with the ol' Merlin running 3 thousand Horsepower! Here's a video of it.
- Just to complete the Rule Of Three - other performance car projects focus on modding the injection or swapping engines. Charlie built himself a Rover with a Merlin tank engine. Windscreens are for other people.
- The crown for aircraft-powered cars probably goes to Quad-Al, a dragster with FOUR Allison V-12 engines, totaling 12,000 horsepower. Unfortunately, the car was never completely finished, and never raced. Instead, it was sold off to a guy named Tex, who was promptly shot to death before he could finish it himself.
- This Troper has heard that a particular model of Porsche uses an air-cooled engine which, by pure fluke, is the exact right size and shape, with exactly the right mountings, that it can be used as a replacement engine in the original Volkswagen Beetle if the rear shock were strengthened slightly, resulting in a Beetle that can out-accelerate many sports cars.
- The Porsche family (Dr. Ferdinand Porsche and his son Dr. Ferry Porsche) founded both companies and are responsible for Beetle and the 911. In addition, they both use air-cooled flat engines and have shared technology for years, and will soon merge. It would be surprising only if the VW couldn't fit a Porsche engine.
- This particular stunt is used succssfully by the protagonist robber in one of the Parker novels by Richard Stark (i.e. Donald Westlake).
- The Ford Nucleon◊ Awesome But Impractical turned Up To Eleven, and dosed with a lovely green glow.
- The Citroen DS was a car so revolutionary that Citroen was worried that its future models wouldn't live up to its coolness. It had, in 1955, power steering, aerodynamic cornering headlamps, front-wheel drive, crumple zones, collapsable steering columns, disc brakes, and a hydropneumatic, self-leveling suspension that gave it an unbelievably smooth ride (and wound up saving Charles de Gaulle's life from an assassination attempt in 1962 — the car had suffered two flat tires from bullets but was still able to escape at high speed thanks to this unique suspension system) — all features that would take decades to show up on other cars. Plus, its aerodynamic outer body design was so slinky and smooth that it would inspire Perverse Sexual Lust out of almost anyone (it is, after all, a French car). It would later be ranked as the third most influential car of the 20th century (behind only the Ford Model T and the Mini), and it is still, in some aspects, a car way ahead of its time.
- The Lunar Rover/Moon Buggy. Makes one kinda miss NASA's old Scavenger World aesthetic.
- Two words: Bugatti Veyron. Three words: Mansory Bugatti Veyron. Four words: Bugatti Veyron Bleu Centenaire.
- Further, the mother of all hippie buses.
- Racing cars in general, such as Formula One and Le Mans cars.
- The older electric cars could be heart-stoppingly ugly, but some of the newer ones are certainly cool looking at least - the Aptera 2 Series, which looks like it was made for George Jetson, and the Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car that managed to impress Jeremy Clarkson (a man who is usually rather disdainful of electric cars).
- For those too lazy to dig up links:
- And while we're on the subject of electric cars, just about anything John Wayland races, such as the White Zombie.
- Many official cars used by heads of state fit into this category. The limousine used by the President of the United States is a monster, fitted with 5-inch thick armor plating that could take anything short of a direct hit by an anti-tank round, yet can accelerate and move faster than most commercially-available vehicles.
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