- Black Sheep Hit: "Drive" was their highest-charting single by far (#3 in 1984) but was one of only a handful of slow ballads the band recorded. It was also sung by Benjamin Orr, who sang lead on many of the band's early hits ("Just What I Needed", "It's All I Can Do", "Let's Go") — but most of the later hits were sung by Ric Ocasek.
- Breakup Breakout: Both Ocasek and Orr went places with their solo careers, but each only had one Top 40 hit in the U.S. Ocasek's ballad "Emotion in Motion" hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in 1986, while Orr's "Stay the Night" hit #6 on the same chart in the same year.
- Colbert Bump: Ric Ocasek's appearances on the Trope Namer and Late Night with Conan O'Brien earned the band a lot of younger fans.
- Creator Backlash: The band members expressed dissatisfaction with the cover of their first album. They preferred Dave Robinson's design, the black-and-white collage that was used for the inner sleeve after their record label intervened.
- Creator Killer: Door to Door was such a critical and commercial failure that the band broke up one year after its release.
- Executive Meddling: Elektra Records replaced David Robinson's original album design for their debut with a picture of model Natalya Medvedeva. Robinson's design was used for the inner sleeve.
- He Also Did: The steering wheel seen on the cover of the band's self-titled was created by special effects artists Robert Short (Splash) and Chris Walas (The Fly (1986)).
- Referenced by...:
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency, main antagonist Kars is named after the band.
- Car Seat Headrest's "Just What I Needed/Not Just What I Needed" prominently samples the eponymous Cars song in its outro, combining it with a snippet of Pavement's "Cut Your Hair". The song ended up being pulled for this reason, as Ric Ocasek's publisher approved the interpolation on the sole condition that the lyrics be unaltered; when they discovered the change, they forced Car Seat Headrest to recall and destroy all unsold copies of Teens of Denial. The band quickly put out a new version of the album that rewrote the offending song to omit the Cars and Pavement quotes, renaming it "Not What I Needed".
- Romance on the Set:
- Ric Ocasek met his future wife, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, after she featured prominently in the music video for "Drive." The couple were married over 25 years and had two sons, Jonathan and Oliver. They separated in 2017 but were apparently on good enough terms for Porizkova to help care for Ocasek at his home while he recovered from surgery the weekend of his death.
- Candy Moore, the model featured on the cover of Candy-O, and David Robinson briefly dated after the photo shoot.
- Shrug of God: With regards to the interpretations of his rather oblique lyrics, Ric Ocasek has gone on record as saying he doesn't care what fans make of them.I'm not going to destroy your dream...the lyrics mean whatever you want them to mean. And I'll agree with you.
- Similarly Named Works: Contrary to what newbie taggers on peer-to-peer sites may think, this band has nothing to do with the song "Cars" by Gary Numan. Nor, obviously, with Cars.note Kars' name did come from them, though.
- What Could Have Been: The band got offers for record deals from both Arista Records and Elektra Records. The band went with Elektra because of their lack of other New Wave Music acts, hoping to stand out more.
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