Do you know Greased Lightning or Ecto-1? No? Then you definitely belong to a minority. These and other vehicles are known to the vast majority as the tin stars of legendary Hollywood strips.
What are the most famous movie cars of all time? A study commissioned by the British online license plate broker Click4Reg investigated this question. Subjects should assign a series of cars to their respective film appearances. A total of 38 vehicles were included in the evaluation. For the most popular 5, more than 80 percent of users were each able to name the right movie. The most unknown film car, the Alfa Romeo 1600 Duetto Spider, knew only 24 percent of the once legendary performance in "The Graduation".
By contrast, 82 percent were able to correctly rank the fifth. This is a sports car from the 70er years, which was recently seen more often in the media: The Lotus Esprit S1, whose wedge-shaped design bears some resemblance to the recent Tesla presented Cybertruck having. For the movie icon, this wit in the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" was called "Wet Nellie". Wet means wet and suggests a special feature, because Nellie could not only drive, but also swim like a submarine underwater. However, only in the film, because for the underwater shots, only a vehicle cover was used, which did not have the technology, as a submarine in the deep oceans on agent hunt to go. By the way, this case still exists today. In 2013, she bought a wealthy 550.000 dollar entrepreneur who expressed a desire to convert Wet Nellie into a real submarine. And here comes the circle: This entrepreneur is called Elon Musk, boss of the electric car manufacturer Tesla.
Fourth place, with an 83 percent attribution rate, was joined by an iconic US 50er icon: the Cadillac Miller-Meteor, who saw 1984 make his comeback as Ecto-1 in the movie "Ghostbusters". Miller-Meteor was a coachbuilder who once specialized in converting Cadillacs into corpses or ambulances. The basis for the Ecto-1 was the first-generation Sedan de Ville, from which Miller-Meteor forged an 6,40-meter rescue vehicle. As a ghost hunter-mobile one of these white giants celebrated a comeback. The rundown in the film vehicles offered in the mighty hold plenty of room for the extensive and whimsical equipment for ghost hunting. Although only a few of these Miller-Meteor conversions were ever produced, the film crews were able to raise and rebuild a total of three of them for the Ghostbuster series. Two restored copies are still owned by Sony Pictures. In addition, some replicas were built in the US. 2010 was sold at an auction for at least 80.000 dollars.
Also a curious conversion is the third place, the Greased Lightning from the film musical "Grease", which helped 1978 John Travolta to great fame. Basis for the wild Cabriolet was a Ford De Luxe Convertible from the year 1948. In the film, this is bought in a rundown state for little money and then rebuilt and restored. During the restoration work, various young men in workshop overalls dance in and around the vehicle, which gradually changes. At the end there is a red car with white lightning without a roof, but with white leather seats and a bonnet made of Plexiglas. Like the car, the film - just musical - just turned off slightly.
It was particularly easy to assign the Batmobile from the film series "Batman". The evaluation, however, does not name a specific one of the very different Batmobile. These have as the biggest common denominator a finish in black. In addition, the cars give a more or less defensive impression. The first Batmobile comes from the 60er television series Batman, based on the Lincoln study Futura. Incidentally, the original movie car was sold to 2013 for 4,2 million dollars to a collector. Subsequent designs of Batmobiles, however, could no longer be clearly assigned to a manufacturer, although, for example, under the Art Deco end-time racer from the 89er strip "Batman Forever" a vehicle platform from General Motors was used. Later Batmobile were stylistically staged with stealth bomber design or motorcycle aesthetics.
Definitely the same basis and probably therefore the most well-known blessing is the DeLorean from the film series "Back to the Future". 87 percent of respondents were able to assign the legendary Gullwing from Ireland clearly this theatrical strip. Despite the once-great Hollywood success, the base, the DeLorean DMC-12, was a big flop. Only 9.000 copies were built at the beginning of the 80er years. Actually, the DeLorean was considered a promising project, but was punished by car testers with destroyed reviews. The following sales problems immediately drove the manufacturer into insolvency. Nevertheless, the DMC-12 has since then been considered a cult vehicle whose status was largely cemented by the film's appearance as a time travel machine in the middle of the 80 years. It is not surprising that a good two-thirds of the once built copies of the DMC-12 still exist. Today is a coveted collector's item. This has even prompted a US company to recreate the DMC-12. At least, this project was announced several years ago, but no concrete results have yet been presented.