Basic Trope: A car is rigged to explode when started.
- Straight: Bob walks to his car, puts his key in the ignition, and it explodes.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice wishes Bob a nice trip and laughs an Evil Laugh. A long shot shows him approaching his car. The camera focuses on the key in the ignition while Ominous Music plays. The car explodes with an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
- Every vehicle in the car park is rigged to blow when the target starts his car.
- Downplayed: Alice is pressed for time and sabotages Bob's car by planting a bag of propellant powder on the engine. The explosive itself probably won't kill him and it will take time for the engine to heat up enough to detonate it, although the resulting car accident might.
- Justified: The enemy is an ex-IRA explosives expert now working as a car mechanic, and wants to make sure nobody ever identifies the body.
- Inverted:
- Bob rigs a remote-detonated bomb to go off when he starts his own car, perhaps to destroy his office if he has to make a quick getaway.
- Alternatively: Bob's car is rigged to explode when he stops.
- Bob's car is rigged with a device that douses him in liquid nitrogen when he turns the key, freezing him to death.
- Subverted: Bob had found the bomb before time and moved it to his enemy's vehicle. They watch him drive off, and jump in their own car...
- Double Subverted: ...just to retrieve the remote control for the backup bomb they put in his glovebox.
- Parodied: Bob gets on a pushbike, kicks up the stand, and the bike explodes.
- Zig-Zagged: Every other car driven by a named character blows up when started.
- Averted: Someone waits near the car until Bob shows up, and Just Shoots Him.
- Enforced: It is a biopic covering the life of a mobster who died that way in real life.
- Lampshaded: "If only Bob hadn't turned that ignition key. Then he'd still be alive."
- Invoked: Mike the mob boss doesn't want a snitch going anywhere, so he sends some dodgy-looking mechanics to tinker underneath the guy's car when he knows he'll see them.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "Whew, when Big Tony gave me the keys to a new car, I kinda thought it would be a trap..."
- Discussed: "Fifty quid says the car explodes when I turn the ignition"
- Conversed: "So the Mafia supergrass is letting his girlfriend bring the car around for him. Sheee's dead."
- Implied: Background character Paul (Bob's car mechanic) is called in for assistance by the City's Ordnance Removal Unit.note
Back to External Combustion
