The Most Famous Cars in Pop Culture

Cars You Can’t Forget

Cars are woven into our lives not only because we need them for transportation, but also because of popular culture. Cars have become characters in TV shows and movies, referenced throughout the history of music and cinema. One of the earliest and most famous songs about a car was “In My Merry Oldsmobile” by Gus Edwards in 1905. Rock and roll “hijacked the automobile” in the early 1950s and peaked during the era of The Beach Boys with approximately 1,500 songs about cars. The first movie about cars was called “The First Automobile” and was about the car replacing the horse. But the first real car to appear in a movie was a Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie, in 1968’s The Love Bug. However, the Volkswagen Beetle is not on our list. We are looking at car models that have been used or referenced repeatedly in popular culture.

Chevrolet Corvette

The Chevrolet Corvette is one of the most referenced cars in music. Most of us know Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and, going back further, it is referenced by The Beach Boys in “In My Car”. It appears everywhere and in every genre of popular music. Pearl Jam gave us the funny lyric, “Forgive the dude who traded his soul for a Corvette, Thinks he’s getting the girl, All he got was a mechanical friend.” The Corvette has also appeared in songs by Aerosmith, Kid Rock, Marilyn Manson, Bad Company, and Bob Seger. It’s not just old white dudes who use the Corvette name; it’s mentioned in Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and in LL Cool J’s classic “Going Back to Cali.”

Ford Crown Victoria

This is probably the most recognizable car because it’s the most popular in movies and TV shows. As of 2010, someone counted as many as 2,358 big and small screen appearances for the Ford sedan. It’s not just cop cars and taxis, though. The Crown Victoria has been introduced to the used car market as the most common, both for its cheapness and durability, and for being easy to modify. This means that it gets a lot of “starring” roles in movies and shows, and is probably also the most wrecked car in popular culture.

Ford Mustang

This is the second Ford on our list and it is very rarely relegated to the background in any feature film. In many films, it is the hero car, from the cult classic and Hollywood remake of Gone in 60 Seconds to the landmark film Bullitt. The green 1968 Ford Mustang GT driven by Steve McQueen is a true cultural icon, selling at auction for $3.74 million last year. The original car of the hero of the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” was a 1971 Mustang with a 1973 Mustang grille painted in school bus yellow. In the blockbuster, Nicolas Cage’s Mustang was a 1967 Ford Mustang fastback in Dupont Pepper Gray, decorated as a Shelby GT500 with a custom body kit. The Mustang also participated in “Goldfinger”, “I Am Legend”, “Death Race”, “Ricky Bobby: King of the Road” and many other places.

Dodge Charger

Another mega popular product of Hollywood television and cinema is the Dodge Charger. The most recognizable are the bright orange 1969 General Lee from the TV show and movie The Dukes Of Hazzard and Domenic Toretto’s 1970 drag car from the Fast And Furious franchise. The car that battles Steve McQueen’s Mustang in the Bullitt chase through San Francisco was a black 1968 Dodge Charger R/T. Wesley Snipes’s vampire Blade drove a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T. Going back further, NASCAR aspiring character Peter Fonda drove a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 440.

Range Rover

The Range Rover appears a lot in popular culture. It is one of the most referenced cars in rap music, and it is the vehicle of choice for the bad guys in action movies. This is especially evident in the James Bond films. Bond himself has driven a Range Rover on more than one occasion, as has Max Zorin, played by Christopher Walken in A View to a Kill. In Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond chases the Range Rover on his BMW motorcycle, while in Casino Royale, Skyfall, and Spectre, all the bad guys drive Range Rovers and Land Rover Defenders. Even Goldfinger drove a Rover in the 1968 film of the same name.

Austin Mini

You can’t talk about cars in popular culture without mentioning the original Mini. Not only was the Mini an incredibly well-designed small car, it was also a fashion icon in the 1960s. It was so influential in fashion that the miniskirt was named after it, by London designer Mary Quant in the 1960s. The Mini has appeared in numerous TV shows and films, and is often featured.

Mercedes S-Class

According to statistics, Mercedes is the most mentioned brand in music. Mercedes used Janis Joplin, who sang in the advertising campaign: “Oh, Lord, buy me a Mercedes-Benz, All my friends drive Porsches, I gotta fix that”