History Main / HassleFreeHotwire

* Implied in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', as stationary cars can be stolen and start up just as fast as ones taken while running. In the fourth installment, the player can see the protagonist duck under the dashboard to start the engine whenever he jacks a car outside of a mission. The DS version of ''Videogame/GrandTheftAutoChinatownWars'' requires work on the touch screen to hotwire a car. Still, the trope is played straight. In ''IV'', the hotwiring process is mostly automatic once you press the gas button, but if you keep hitting it, your character will do it faster.
* In ''Videogame/AloneInTheDark2008'', Edward can get in to any car around Central Park, pull a few wires out and there's a little minigame for you to get the right pair together. Can be slightly difficult when you've got a few enemies bearing down on you though.

* Averted in most of the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games because the protagonist never actually hotwires anything. Except for the fourth installment, where the trope is played straight, as the player can see the protagonist duck under the dashboard to start the engine whenever he jacks a car outside of a mission.
** The DS version of ''Videogame/GrandTheftAutoChinatownWars'' requires work on the touch screen to hotwire a car. Still, the trope is played straight.
** ''GTA IV'' is also playing the trope straight. The hotwiring process is mostly automatic once you press the gas button, but if you keep hitting it, your character will do it faster.

* Chev Chelio hotwires a car in ''CrankHighVoltage'' with the usual movie method of ripping out wires in the car and connecting them.
* In one of the ''PoliceAcademy'' movies, Zed (a convicted criminal turned police officer) hotwires a car by ripping out the appropriate wires and ''biting them''.

* In ''My Stepmother is an Alien'' the alien starts "borrowed" cars just by touching ignition locks.

** Arnold's Terminator never ''hotwires'' anything, he does one better. He smashes and rips away the steering column cover, along with the lock cylinder, and then turns the ignition lock shaft with his fingers, which was clearly shown in the first film, and then repeated again in the second. Incidentally, due to it's strength the whole process literally takes it 5 seconds, about as fast as most people take to start a car with a key.

* [[Film/TheBourneSeries Bourne]] hotwires a car really really fast in the trilogy. He's hurt, people are chasing him, and he still does it in less than ten seconds.

[[folder: Truth In Television]]

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hotwire_grandtheftauto.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:360:[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a50818ebfda9678f259f8cddc848c1c0.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:360:Who needs keys when you can just use a screwdriver?]]

[[quoteright:360:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a50818ebfda9678f259f8cddc848c1c0.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/800px-CarWires.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:This was supposed to be easy!!!]]

->"To hotwire a vehicle faster, repeatedly press LT or RT."
-->--On-screen tip, ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''

->'''Stewie:''' Quick! Hotwire the car!\\
'''Brian:''' "Hotwire"? I don't even pump my own gas!
-->-- '''''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'''''

[[folder: Film]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{WALL-E}}'', Captain [=McCrea=], someone who's never done anything in their entire life, including standing, is able to hotwire the ship's public address system in a second with no thinking. One can argue that, since he's the captain, he should know a thing or two about the ship, but, then again, he needs help turning the pages of a book, so... yeah.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Planet51}}'', Chuck is able to hotwire an ''alien'' car with pretty much zero hassle. Later on Lem is able to do the same despite only having watched Chuck perform the hotwire once (though his case is ''slightly'' more realistic given that he's likely to be more familiar with hovercars than Chuck).

* In ''WesternAnimation/StitchTheMovie'', Stitch hotwires not only Cobra Bubbles' car, but Jumba's ''spaceship''.

** He did go on a massive ArchiveBinge earlier, looking up all sorts of things out of sheer childlike curiosity. It's easy to believe some technical information took root, especially since being massively ignorant does not necessitate him being stupid.

* ''TheTerminator'' can hotwire cars with relative ease; justified in that he's got nifty programming, but this ability is still played for laughs when John shows him that most people keep an extra copy of the key in the visor.
** Actually Terminator never hotwires anything, he does one better. He smashes and rips away the steering column cover, along with the lock cylinder, and then turns the ignition lock shaft with his fingers, which was clearly shown in the first film, and then repeated again in the second. Incidentally, due to it's strength the whole process literally takes it 5 seconds, about as fast as most people take to start a car with a key.

** The film was an example of ShownTheirWork, as the creators actually researched the correct way to hotwire the cars in question.

* Chev Chelio hotwires a car in ''CrankHighVoltage'' with the usual movie method of ripping out wires in the car and connecting them. The fact he knows how to hotwire a car can possibly be justified, since he ''is'' a hitman, but not entirely since what hitman ''really'' needs to know how to do that?
** A hitman who's got to get away quickly and doesn't want to damage their primary vehicle.

* In the episode "Flight" of ''Series/PrisonBreak'', Sucre sings the song quoted above when attempting to hotwire a car. It doesn't work, however: turns out the car is missing its engine.

* Played straight and somewhat plausibly in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' when Giles hotwires his clunky old Citroen in "Dead Man's Party".
** Not only is it an older car, it's implied that Giles, being a FormerTeenRebel, has a ''lot'' of experience hotwiring cars. He even says that it's "Like riding a bloody bicycle"[[note]] an old saying meaning it's something that, once learned, you never forget[[/note]].

->''"Red's the juice. White's the ground. Strike 'em together and we blow this town..."''
-->-- '''Sucre''', ''Series/PrisonBreak'', "Flight"

That's where this trope comes from. When needed, everybody can hotwire a vehicle at any time. All they need to do is yank the protective covering off of the wires, rip out two of the wires and connect them together.

-->--'''''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'''''

-->--'''Sucre''', ''Series/PrisonBreak'', "Flight"

* A bit averted in ''National Security'' when Martin Lawrence has to hotwire a car carried inside a semi trailer with a bit of struggle of having to know the design and the model year.

** IIRC, he did go on a massive ArchiveBinge earlier, looking up all sorts of things out of sheer childlike curiosity. It's easy to believe some technical information took root, especially since being massively ignorant does not necessitate him being stupid.

* The kids from ''MaximumRide'' are all able to hotwire cars with ease, thanks to training their adopted dad Jeb gives them. While Max tells the readers that it works nothing like how it is shown on TV, she refuses to go into specifics for fear of inspiring a bunch of readers to steal cars.

* Averted in {{Animorphs}}: Rachel discovers that jamming a six-inch-long grizzly bear claw into the ignition and turning works just as well as the key.
* Alice hotwires some very expensive cars when she and Bella are in Italy in ''Breaking Dawn''.
* Averted in the StephenKing story ''[[Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes Dolan's Cadillac]]''. Not only does the narrator have trouble making it work (even after being shown how it's done), but King says in a note to the story that he deliberately wrote that scene incorrectly to avoid giving car thieves specific instructions on how to hot-wire.

* In the episode ''Flight'' of ''PrisonBreak'', Sucre sings the song quoted above when attempting to hotwire a car. It doesn't work, however, as it turns out the car is missing its engine.
* ''PrisonBreak'' again, throughout series two and four the characters have little difficulty commandeering and obtaining vehicles undetected.

** Not only is an older car, it's implied that Giles, being a FormerTeenRebel, has a ''lot'' of experience hotwiring cars. He even says that it's ''"Like riding a bloody bicycle"'' [[note]] an old saying meaning it's something that once learned, you never forget how.[[/note]]
* Nearly every episode of ''Series/TwentyFour''
* Played with in the ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' episode [[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E13TRACKS "T.R.A.C.K.S."]] Coulson and Ward are evading some enemies in an Italian vineyard when they find a small truck. They prepare to hotwire it, only to find that the ignition wires are already exposed, so they only need to reconnect two wires to get going. It is later revealed in flashback that their partner May had previously hotwired it to facilitate their escape. The trope is still played straight given how it's a hassle-free "connect two wires and go" setup.

* Also, in ''Videogame/AloneInTheDark2008'', Edward can get in to any car around Central Park, pull a few wires out and there's a little minigame for you to get the right pair together. Can be slightly difficult when you've got a few enemies bearing down on you though.

* In ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' [[GadgeteerGenius Molly]] can [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100629.html hotwire alien spaceships.]]

* In the {{YouTube}} series [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEd93hGd0xA An Emo Life]], one of the characters hotwires at least one car and an ''airplane.''

* [[RenAndStimpy Ren]] does it, only to realize that [[OhCrap a policeman is in the car and looking at him]].

* Real life joyriders and twoccers do manage to hotwire cars with what seems to less skilled onlookers like unfeasible ease and rapidity. It's partly due to the amount of practice they have, and partly to the petty-criminal trait of not caring about collateral damage which often causes non-criminals to overestimate the difficulty of overcoming physical security measures.

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