History Main / ArtisticLicenseCars

** The King of Hatay is given a 1935 Rolls Royce 20/25 h.p. by the Nazis (donated by an American traitor) to convince him to lend them equipment and the tank (which he had modified with a turret). He calls it a Phantom II, but describes the slightly newer 25/30 h.p., and even uses the taxation horsepower rating.

*** The Phantom II had a 7.7 L straight six and a Rolls Royce-made twin jet downdraft carb, and never received a power rating. The 20/25 h.p. had a 3.7 L, an SU type carburetor, 25 HP rating (but actual output was closer to 70 or 80), and a 0-100 of about 14.5. The 25/30 h.p. had a 4.3 L engine (a bored out version of the 20/25's engine) and a Stromberg carb.

** There were no Kübelwagens in 1938. Ferdinand Porsche wouldn't develop them until 1940. Also, the two seen in the film are given to the Nazis by the Hatayan sultan along with the tank and trucks (they have the Hatayan symbol on them). This is likewise impossible, as Germany never exported the Kübelwagen.

* In the ''Website/{{GoAnimate}}'' video [[https://youtu.be/r9NMPBl39kM Dora Causes A Car Crash]], Dora is able to put the vehicle in reverse while the car is going really fast, making it go in reverse and crashing into another car behind them. In reality, this would merely cause the vehicle to slowly stop, as well as the transmission being damaged.

* ''WebVideo/NotJustBikes'': Points out that in GM's (in)famous World Fair diorama of the America of tomorrow that helped popularize cars and get popular support for the building of the massive highway systems in the U.S. and destruction of (mainly black) neighborhoods to build them the gracefully gliding cars didn't move like cars, they moved like trains without the delays and backups caused by having a bunch of individual vehicles on the road.

* AlcoholIsGasoline: Alcohol does have similar combustion characteristics to gasoline, though it is not as energy-dense and pollutes more. However, cars have to be specially designed ("flex fuel") or modified to run on so-called "gasohol" with an alcohol content higher than 10%; otherwise it can damage the engine.

* In the premiere episode of ''Series/GeminiMan'' "Smithereens", Sam Casey's truck is sabotaged by the nefarious mechanic "Carl" cutting one of the brake lines, which leaves him unable to stop the truck or slow it down once he gets back on the highway. Tractor-trailers use a pneumatic brake system, which —unlike hydraulic systems on passenger vehicles— uses compressed air to force open brakes that are normally clamped tightly onto the wheels under powerful spring tension, and you apply the brake by letting off some of that air pressure. In reality, cutting an air hose wouldn't keep Casey from stopping his rig; it would lock up the wheels to keep him from ''going''.

** Carburetors are generally not open-topped, but rather take in outside air through a scoop and pass it through an air filter and therefore would not be affected by the inspector leaving his sandwich on top of them. Even at time of airing, carburetors had mostly been phased out in favor of fuel injection outside of motorcycle and yard engines.

** The episode uses the bus to teach about the workings of gasoline engines, even though US school buses are almost uniformly diesels: there's a scene set in the cylinder where they have to clean peanut butter off one of the spark plugs, where a school bus would almost certainly have a glowplug instead.
** Speaking of the cylinder, the bus is depicted as having a one-cylinder engine, something unheard-of in anything bigger than a motorcycle. This one is likely just a simplification for the audience.

* In ''Anime/BlackLagoon'' it is explicitly stated that Roanapur is in Thailand. However, every car shown in the series has the steering wheel on the left side and traffic in and around the city drives on the right (like in the USA and China). In reality, Thailand's road rule is the opposite: traffic there drives on the left and most cars have their steering wheels on the right (like in the UK and Japan). It would make a lot more sense if Roanapur was in neighbouring Cambodia.

[[folder:Film]]
* The "bat country" scene in ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'', the Shark is clearly in Park for all of the closeup shots of the interior.
* ''Film/TheFastAndTheFurious2001'' has the wrong wheels powered quite a bit, accomplished by either disabling the front wheels (by removing the CV shafts) on an all wheel drive Nissan Skyline, to filming a front wheel drive car doing a powerslide in reverse, then played backwards. The CV shaft removal bit is actually justified, since many tuners convert Skylines and other AWD cars to RWD that way.
* ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds2005'' showcases a massive EMP attack disabling all the cars in the area, but local mechanic Manny is able to get a 1992 Plymouth Voyager quickly running again by following Ray's advice of replacing the "solenoid". Any fuel injected car with electronic engine controls that had just been bricked by the attack would need more extensive repairs to its electrical system to run again - at the very minimum the Voyager's engine and body computers would have had to have been replaced and reprogrammed. Given how even parked cars got their electrical systems fried even though they were powered down and had their rubber tires insulating their bodies from the ground, its highly unlikely that Manny would have been able to locate a good SMEC and BCM for the Plymouth Voyager, install them and get it running again in the short period of time before the tripods attacked. Also, Manny showcases that the Voyager's starter was fried to a crisp by the EMP attack, which honestly defies explanation. You could argue the whole "replace the solenoid" line was simply an AssPull from the writers.
** To that point, the film depicts Ray as owning a 1967 Ford Mustang, a car that has no advanced electronics in its powertrain and likely would have still functioned after the EMP attack, even if it required popping the clutch to get it started in case the EMP fried the starter in the same way it fried the Voyager's starter. Ray could have utilized the Mustang as a getaway vehicle without requiring such an AssPull in the script.

* ''Film/TheLastStand''. Ahnold jumps a Corvette onto the guard rail of a highway, slides sideways like a skateboard, hops off and drives away.
* Near the end of ''Film/{{Speed}}'', the bus flies off an unfinished highway, without a ramp, and manages to land on the other side. ''Series/MythBusters'' [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters proved this completely impossible]]: it would have fallen no matter what, even with a ramp. The camera work at this part used a lot of rapidly changing camera angles to disguise what was really happening, but with high quality video and the ability to advance frame by frame, you can very easily see that for the filming sequence they very obviously used a ramp. The front end of the bus also appears to have been lifted by cables at the moment it leaves the ramp.
* ''Film/{{Wanted}}'':
** A CGI Viper and [=Lada1200=]/VAZ 2101 leap into the air without ramps, do barrel rolls, and otherwise handle in impossible ways. This is the film that [[ArtisticLicensePhysics gave physics the finger]], but still.
** Less excusable is that the (automatic) Corvette Fox drives at the end has a ([[DrivingStick manual]]) transmission taken from the aforementioned Viper in a rather obvious error.
* ''[[Franchise/{{Cars}} Little Cars]] [[Creator/VideoBrinquedo In the Big Race]]'' has a scene where Wrangler, one of the racecars, spits out a wad of gum on the racetrack. Somehow, one car manages to get stuck on the gum and can't move, despite the gum having very little to hold onto the tire with.

* The 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California in ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff''. Actually a fiberglass replica built on an MGB, it has a back seat (the real Spyder Californias were ''only'' available as a two seater), and an odometer with anti-tamper mechanicals to stop it from being rolled back (such devices were first mandated in the 1970s), which would not be on a 1961 model year vehicle.
* In ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'', the T-X hacks into, and remotely controls, two police Crown Victorias, an Econoline ambulance and a 1985 Chevy C-30 crew cab. None of those vehicles had the type of computers that would allow this. They all used cable-driven throttles, ignition cylinders that require a physical key to operate and mechanical steering with hydraulic boost. [[note]]In fact, the types of computer controls that might allow remote control (drive-by-wire throttles, computer-controlled ignition modules and remote start, self parallel-park) weren't commercially or, in the case of remote start, commonly available until a few years after the film's release. Even then, for obvious reasons, every car on the road is still designed with a purely mechanical or hydro-mechanical linkage between the gear shifter and the transmission -- it's impossible for a parked car to get into gear without someone physically manipulating the gear shifter.[[/note]]

* Bollywood again: this time, in ''Film/ThreeIdiots'', the SmugSnake Chatur brags of his 'new Lamborghini, 6496cc, very fast'. He's talking of the Murcielago, but on his phone, shows an image of a Diablo, a decade-old Lamborghini, at least 500cc less, and surely not so fast.
* Bollywood is called so because it is the film industry (like Hollywood) in erstwhile Bombay (now Mumbai), but they still make obvious mistakes pertaining to Mumbai's traffic rules. They mention southern/central city districts, but show autorickshaws (three-wheeled mini taxis) there, which do not ply in the city districts, beyond the suburbs.
* Towards the climax of the British movie ''Film/{{Doomsday}}'', the main characters find a getaway vehicle that was [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece stored inside an underground bunker...]] [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality because the plot said so.]] The car was stored there for at least [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture twenty-seven years]]. Even if it were fresh off the assembly line, most of the car parts wouldn't work from lack of use. The metal would become stiff and the rubber in the tires would start to rot, among other things. The gasoline in its tank would also have gone bad many years previously.

* ''Film/AliGIndahouse'' has 2 such mistakes:
** Ali's Renault 5, a car made between 1982 and 1990, has an [="RE58ECT"=] numberplate. This is impossible, as numberplates with "58" as the 3rd and 4th character only apply to cars first registered in late 2008 and early 2009, which, in fact, is over 4 years after the film's premiere. However, it could well be a personalized plate ''and'' the film was made in 2002, before the 58 number plate launched, so that could easily explain the 58 plate.
** The film shows car electrical systems in models like the Volvo 940 and Vauxhall Nova as able to cause an electric shock. Such devices actually use electricity under a voltage that poses absolutely no danger to a human. However, the film does rely on RuleOfFunny, so that explains why this bit of ArtisticLicense was taken.
* In ''Film/EagleEye'', references of DrivingStick are made when Jerry yells at Rachel to "Use the clutch" when the latter is driving the Porsche Cayenne Turbo that they're in. The Cayenne Turbo is available exclusively with an automatic transmission (Initially a 6-speed, and then an 8-speed unit from Aisin for the first and second-gen respectively, and then the now-ubiquitous [=ZF=] [=8HP=] 8-speed unit for the third-gen). Only certain non-Turbo models (Such as the base V6 model for the first and second-gen, and the V8 GTS trim) have been offered with a 6-speed manual transmission.
%% * ''Film/{{Torque}}'' is basically ''The Fast and the Furious'' [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace on two wheels]], with added CGI and even less regard for keeping the stunts within the bounds of the physically possible.
* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'': Andy's mom drives with Molly in the passenger seat. It's illegal to have a baby in a car's front seat.
* Gloriously Subverted and outright discussed in ''Film/MyCousinVinny'' where automotive knowledge becomes a major plot point. While testing Mona Lisa Vito's car knowledge, the Prosecutor asks her a highly technical question about a classic car ("what would be the correct ignition timing be on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet with a 327 cubic engine and a 4-barrel carburetor?"). Anyone into classic cars would be fooled into thinking this was a writer's error and anyone not into cars at all would not notice the problem. Vito instantly declares the question is a trick question and explains the problems with the question (A '55 Bel Air couldn't possibly have an engine that was first introduced in '62 and didn't have a 4-barrel carburetor until '64). Then she gives the correct answer assuming the Prosecutor's mistake.
* ''Film/{{GoldenEye}}'': Bond's Aston Martin [=DB5=] would never be able to keep up with the Ferrari F355 as shown in the movie.
%%** Q did it
* ''Film/JurassicWorld'' and its sequel, ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' both depict the Jeeps and Ford Explorers from [[Film/JurassicPark the original film]] as nostalgia bait in scenes revisiting sites from the first park. Somehow the vehicles still recognizable, and in the first case, ''drivable'', despite last being maintained more than twenty years ago and sitting out in the tropical jungle climate since then. They should have all rusted into scrap in the humidity long before then.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', the streetcars in the movie show the driver holding a steering wheel. Streetcars run on rails and cannot turn freely like a bus.
* Although ''Film/{{Harlequin}}'' is set in the United States, all the vehicles are right-hand drive due to the whole thing being [[CaliforniaDoubling filmed in Australia]]. In addition, several of these vehicles are models that are not sold in America, most notably several Chrysler Valiants.

* In ''Murder With Peacocks'', protagonist Meg is familiar with the trope of removing a car's distributor cap to temporarily disable it. Needing to keep her best friend from leaving town without choosing and getting fitted for a wedding gown, Meg enlists friends to help her stage a daring midnight raid on her car. But first, they have to figure out, with Meg's own car, where exactly the distributor cap is, how to get it off, and then [[NiceJobBreakingItHero how to get it back on properly]] so that her car will be drivable. Which is all a lot more complicated than [[LampshadeHanging the movies made it seem to be]].

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'':
** In "The Bris", George's car is in Park during the drive to the hospital.
** Jerry's Saab 900 in "The Bottle Deposit". After Kramer and Newman pack groceries under the hood because they had bought so much they ran out of space elsewhere, Jerry mentions the AAA guy told him it was "this close to sucking a muffin down the carburetor." Saab 900s are fuel injected. When the police find a similar model chopped up in a a garage, he refers to the "angle of the V6" and says it was turbocharged, which a woman mentions is her 9000. Saab never offered either the 900 or 9000 with a turbocharged V6. Jerry then says his is a 900S, but the car Tony is driving when Kramer finds him is the higher up 900SE.
** In "The Money", Morty and Helen claim to never use the Northstar System in their Cadillac Fleetwood. The Northstar System is another name for the Northstar V8 engine, which was never available on any Fleetwood; the Fleetwood was only offered with a Chevy [=L05=] 350 in 1993 and the Chevy [=LT1=] 350 in 1994-96. Earlier in "The Cadillac", they are seen driving without a license plate or a temporary registration, required by Florida law.
* One episode of ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' had a Marine vet who lost his right arm defusing an IED steal a motorcycle from a dealership and drive off with it at speed. Now granted, he had one of the fancy electronic prosthetics, but even so it's highly unlikely he would even have been able to get it moving, seeing as how 99% of stock bikes have the throttle on the right handlebar (the new prosthetics are a definite improvement over the plastic arm with a hook/claw at the end, but they're not ''that'' good). Overlaps with ArtisticLicenseMedicine--the POI is also shown ''aiming a gun'' with the thing.
* An ubiquitous one is an actor moving the steering wheel even if they're driving on a straight road. In many Driver's Ed classes the instructor has to explain how the car will continue to follow a straight course even if the wheel isn't moved.
** A good example of this is in the pilot of ''Series/TheRockfordFiles'', where James Garner is vigorously rocking the steering wheel back and forth, even though he's driving on a straight highway. This is especially funny because when they cut to the car he's chasing, the other actor has his hands in the 10 and 2 positions and keeps them there.
** Also parodied in the DVD GagReel of one season of ''Series/BurnNotice'' when Creator/JeffreyDonovan starts pretending to turn the steering wheel back and forth while the car is sitting still between takes.

* ''Series/MissionImpossible'', when the story is set in a Soviet Bloc nation, frequently used [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_Marathon Checker A12 Marathons]] in place of Soviet cars, most likely meant to represent [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaika_(car)#Specifications_and_history GAZ M-13 Chaikas]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ-21 M-23 Volgas]] (M-21 with the V8 and automatic transmission of the M-13). Both vehicles were available only to KGB and Soviet officials and not common folk (though the Chaika could be rented for weddings and special occasions, and the four cylinder standard trans M-21 could be bought by anyone), and were therefore definitely not available to Hollywood filmmakers. The three cars look nothing alike.
* In ''Series/{{MASH}}'', a character tries to leave the camp to get back to his unit by hotwiring a Jeep, and in "Abyssinia Henry", Henry gives Radar the keys to a Jeep. Jeeps, like all military vehicles, were expected to be used by anyone at any time, so they had a pushbutton ignition switch instead of keys, which could easily be misplaced or lost in the field.

* In ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' Pilot episode: when Cromartie scans Cameron's truck outside the Dyson residence he identifies it as a 1988 Ford F 150, the truck is actually a 1996 Ford F 250.
* In the ''Series/MacGyver2016'' episode "Guts + Fuel + Hope", Mac and Riley are sent to Georgia ([[UsefulNotes/GeorgiaEurope the country]], not the state) to recover a truck of liquid oxygen for a children's hospital after a rebel attack caused the driver to abandon it. At one point, they are spotted by the rebels and get into a [[ChaseScene high speed chase]] that reaches 120 km/h. Except they're in a European-style cab-over semi, which has a [[PowerLimiter speed limiter]] that prevents the accelerator from working if the truck is going over 90 km/h, and Mac didn't mention removing it when modifying the truck for going off-road. Also, during the chase, Mac has to fix a leak on the trailer, which reveals it's missing the placards stating that it contains a class 2.2[[labelnote:*]]non-flammable gas, which oxygen is [[ArtisticLicenseChemistry contrary to what Mac states]][[/labelnote]] hazardous material.
* ''Ted's Top Ten'', a British KidCom set in Northern Ireland, showed a 2013 13 registration plate on a Volkswagen Passat B5.5 stationwagon in its HalloweenEpisode. The Passat B5.5 was in production from 2000 to 2005, so it couldn't have been in production then, unless it was a grey import (and even if it was, it would have had a Q-plate denoting unknown, unless the owner could prove its history); this overlaps with ArtisticLicenseLaw and ArtisticLicenseHistory. The Passat B6 would have been the proper 2013 model if they had shown their work, but presumably this show either did it for RuleOfFunny or it's in an AlternateHistory where the 2000-2005 Volkswagen Passat B5.5 was produced for longer than in our timeline.
* ''Series/TheHardyBoysNancyDrewMysteries'' episode "Silent Scream" has Joe Hardy calling the Bureau of Motor Vehicles for information on a license plate number, and the BMV tells him that the owners are staying in the same hotel as the Hardys. Aside from the fact that no BMV in the world could possibly know that, they also would not release information over the phone to regular civilians, and there are strict paperwork procedure that the cops would have to follow to get the information.
* An episode of ''Series/FamilyMatters'' has Urkel and Myra go to a scenic lookout to make out when Urkel accidentally drives his BMW Isetta over the edge of a cliff. Since the car's only door opens over the cliff, they're forced to escape through the sunroof. After the escape, Urkel comments that he's glad he paid the extra four hundred dollars for the sunroof. In actuality, the sunroof was standard equipment on the Isetta to give an escape route in case the front door is not an option, the very reason depicted in this scene. Either somebody goofed or Urkel got swindled.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Forza}} Motorsport 4'' and every subsequent game in the series it has appeared in, the rear-wheel-drive Bugatti [=EB110=] SS is depicted as all-wheel-drive, which only the base variant had. The only game in which the car appeared with its correct rear-wheel-drive drivetrain has been in ''Motorsport 3''. AWD SS models exist......as the '''Dauer''' [=EB110=] (Dauer Sportwagen purchased the remaining parts and inventory of the [=EB110=] SS from Bugatti, and the Dauer-produced [=EB110=]'s were SS models but with AWD.)

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Homer accidentally cut the rear brake line on Marge's station wagon while doing... something underneath (and supporting the car with a wicker basket), which causes the "Brakes Cut" light to illuminate while Marge was in the hill district of Springfield [[note]]This isn't too far off from reality. There is an actual light the alerts the driver of a loss in hydraulic pressure, but it lights up as soon as the pressure drop is detected.[[/note]] and somehow prevents the front brakes or emergency brake from being engaged.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'': [[Recap/TheMagicSchoolBusS2E8RevvingUp "Revving Up"]] uses the bus to teach about the workings of gasoline engines (the part in the cylinder where they have to clean off the spark plugs is a bit of a giveaway), even though US school buses are uniformly diesels. Also, even at time of airing, carburetors had largely been discarded in favor of fuel injection outside of motorcycle and yard engines. Granted, these are hardly the most outlandish things about Ms. Frizzle's school bus...