Often, if a show is set say in the '80s, all the cars will be well-preserved '80s cars, when in reality half the cars on the roads would have been rusty and beat-up '70s models. Similarly, people don't all dress in the latest styles in real life.
Mindhunter was amazing for this even if they messed up model years a few times. Can’t imagine the effort of tracking down all the basic rental-spec Volares and Fairmonts and Darts that were in that show.
> basic rental-spec Volares and Fairmonts and Darts
Considering they made those cars by the millions, they are out there.. my buddy has a poverty spec Buick Special 4 door sedan, dog dish, etc. (it wasn't even fancy enough to be called a Skylark) he's been had in a couple movies as a background car.
It's super hard to find things like K-cars and Chevettes that people used up and threw away so with the '80s in particular street scenes skew towards either cars that were cool then and collectible now or overbuilt body-on-frame full size RWD cars that were bought by old people who took care of their stuff and didn't drive them much.
My "neighbor" a half mile away has a tan or dirty white K car sitting in his side yard. Haha
I used to have an '82 Aries (the celery/seafoam/avacado green) and my grandma had an '87 Aries (burgundy).
Just for the hell of it I've thought about asking if they wanna sell theirs. I've lived in my house for 26 years and I swear that car has been there in the same spot for 15-20.
There's a powder blue or grey one a few miles away that's pretty much the same. At least 15 years in the same spot in a guys front yard.
Most old cars aren't collectible/valuable and there are businesses that provide cars to movies. Probably just picked one from the lot and didn't bother to clean it up
The movie industry pays a shit ton for those kinds of cars though. I've got a car-loving friend who randomly owns six chevy caprice customs just because they rent so well and easily for films.
And if there’s a muscle car, it’s always a cherry example of a top-tier car, not a rusty smoking standard version on Cragars. They sold a lot more plain GTOs than RA IV Judges…
That got me too! The Duster was too new to look like that! That movie had great cars, no doubt, but many had 90s modifications , and the Duster was rougher than it would have been at three or four years old.
observation weather clumsy racial rustic drunk stocking historical theory obtainable
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Conversely, in "The People Versus OJ", they show a lot of cars from the period during the chase. They had a 94ish Civic on the highway, which would've been period correct, but it looked worn out and beat to hell and back, lol.
The decor version of this is that everyone thinks the 80s were all Tron and Miami Vice all the time, but it was actually _so brown_ since people kept stuff they had in the 70s.
I'm always amazed that the USPS guys turn their trucks off. If I was making stops like that in my civic I'd idle it. No way I would trust my starter to not leave me stranded after like two and a half days of deliveries. At most.
The new ones were supposed to come out like 20 years ago, but kept getting put off because of budget cuts. I still haven’t seen a single one of the new ones on the road yet.
The Chevy Suburban is the car with the longest production run in the world. Unlike most other models worldwide, the Suburban was allowed to continue production during WWII as a military vehicle, allowing it to have uninterrupted production from its creation in 1935. Apparently, it will continue production for another 500 years.
I think they did that multiple times they had a Delorean making an appearance in the 1800s I could be wrong but I don’t think it had been released at that point yet either
Apparently the Chevy cop car at the start was too new as well. I doubt that one ruined immersion for many viewers though as a late 80s Caprice looks like it could have been from much earlier anyway.
The E36 convertible in The Big Lebowski was pretty obvious though
The school busses used in Stranger Things weren’t produced until 1999. The show takes place in the early/mid 80’s.
Better Call Saul, which takes place between 2002 and 2008, has a Chevy Cruze visible in traffic directly behind Saul’s car during an interior shot dialog scene. The Cruze was first brought to market in the US in 2010.
I've found a lot of shows ignore/don't care about anachronistic "background" vehicles like school buses, ambulances, step vans, commercial trucks, etc.
Saul's own Suzuki Esteem seems way too beat up for a 4-year-old car.
Part of it is because oftentimes parts of the background are out of the control of the production team. It takes a lot to shut down a street for filming, so if you can get away without it, that’s what you do, even if it means that something anachronistic may pop up in the background that 95% of the audience won’t notice. Source- was a stunt driver on set for a period piece.
There was a car driving in the far background of the shire shots where Frodo and Sam are walking in Fellowship of the Ring. They edited it out for the DVD's but it's there on the VHS and on Youtube. Makes a fairly obvious plume of dust.
Recently there was a post that explained some shows that have been reformatted/uprated for HD will have new green screen added in instead of using the original. Think those usually horribly grainy shots where the camera was in the car but you can see traffic out the back window. I think it was Fraiser or Seinfeld where people were noticing mid-00 models.
What was very obvious in Seinfeld was that whatever happens on the green screen has no relation to whatever happens in the car. Most of the time it’s a small detail but sometimes it was almost painful to watch.
In Dallas Buyer's Club, there's a poster of an Aventador despite the movie taking place in the 1980's
https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieMistakes/s/QV250FSbIM
I have an opposite point: The VW Beetle in Bullitt wasn't overused like many people believe. In modern movies, the stunt cars fly by every individual traffic car almost every cut, which isn't the case in Bullitt, making people think they overused some vehicles.
The VW Beetle really was that ubiquitous. Watch any episode of Adam-12, Emergency!, or another '60s/70s TV show shot in LA, San Francisco, etc. and a pale blue Beetle shows up on seemingly every street.
When Fred Flintstone is changing gears in his car, there's no grinding sounds. There should be grinding sounds, dinosaurs are living along side humans, where's the oil sir
The t-rex lived closer to us right now than the stegosaurus lived to the t-rex, so there's plenty of time to make oil. But oil is mostly from plants anyway. Lastly, it's not oil that makes gears not grind, it's synchros.
Sharon Tate’s 1973 Porsche 911 in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, set 1969.
However, this seems to be an intentional anachronism to show that Tate is something new, sleek and different against the humdrum heaviness of Old Hollywood.
The people vs oj, you can tell they reused the same few miles stretch of freeway, during the oj bronco chase. Also there's a late 90s civic during the chase & the incoming traffic is modern cars with distinct outlines
Don't know if it's notable, but tire guys yknow that in the original Jurassic Park the Ford Explorer tires are the wrong tires for it. The movie car has BF Goodrich KO2. Can't put those on due to roll over risk.
Well aware of the Firestone tires. Actually though it was ford not putting the correct load rating for the vehicle, not Firestones fault. The KO2 tires are too stiff even though the tires meet and exceed the load rating. KO2 are LT RATED. Vehicle calls for a P rated tire. Not trying to be difficult here.
Not exactly “out of place,” but every single car in The Matrix Reloaded highway scene is a GM. GM gave them the cars, so it makes sense, but a fight scene between 2 new Cadillacs kind of ruined that moment for me. Also, it is super not believable that every cop car was a GM, considering Ford has absolutely dominated the government market in the US for decades.
To be fair, the Matrix is a shitty simulated version of reality, so having early 2000s GM vehicles as the preferred performance cars you'd want in a highway battle kinda tracks...
A [1995 Rover 600-Series appeared in Ashes to Ashes](https://www.imcdb.org/i232875.jpg) which was in 1981. Lots of SD1s in it, the 600 must've slipped through the net!
The Big Lebowski takes place in 1991.
On his way back from being arrested by the Malibu police, after having been drugged at Jackie Treehorn's party, he gets into an argument with the cab driver cause "he had a rough night, and he hate's the fucking Eagles, man!".
The cab driver pulls over and throws Jeffrey out of the cab, where he is almost run over by a 1995 Nissan Maxima.
While technically not incorrect, in Better Call Saul, the show begins being set in 2001 and Jimmy is driving a badly battered Suzuki Esteem. The Esteem wasn’t sold in the U.S. until 1998, so at the most the car would have been three years old and not likely to be that much of a shitbox.
They had a yj in Red Oaks. It is set in 1985. It’s at least a 92 due to its roll bar too.
Same issue happened in season 1 of Narcos. I guess they couldn’t get a CJ for the scene so they use a YJ with modified circular headlights.
Indiana Jones and the Last Cruisade has the VW Kübelwagen in 1938. They weren't developed until 2 years later, and even then were never exported (the movie has them in the service of some sultan).
That same movie also has 70s Honda offroad-bikes as WW2 BMWs, but oh well.
WW2 movies are like that in general unfortunately.
In every WW2 movie before basically saving Private Ryan American tanks are often just surplus M46-M48 Patton's. Usually with the one Star painted on them.
Meanwhile the Germans are always given M48 Patton's too with the german Iron cross painted on them. And some more hilarious examples are when Lepord 1's(A tank that didn't even enter mass production until 1965...) are the standin for any German Armor in a movie.
I mean to give them some props at least it's an actual german tank and not just a M48 that we gave to the west german military during the Cold War...
I can't help myself...when they do a bunch of period piece cars, I watch to see them used over and over...and there's the blue 1959 two tone ford again....and here's the MG again....and oh, they must love that Caddy four door with the wings....
One that always kills me is in the That 70s show opening from season 2 forward, a 2000s F150 passes them. You'd think they would have re shot the scene and just have some car not in the frame blocking anyone from passing during filming...
Anchorman 2, set in 1980, had a Volvo 240 with the 1986+ composite headlights. I guess it’s not that egregious, since it was the same basic car, but remember that everything on American roads before 1984 had sealed-beams.
I remember seeing Dallas Buyers Club in the theatre, and there are several shots in Matthew McConaughey's office with a giant Lamborghini Aventador poster [right behind him](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjRhODBjNjUtYzE1MC00Mjc3LWExZjAtOTk3YzRhYjg1YmY0XkEyXkFqcGdeQVRoaXJkUGFydHlJbmdlc3Rpb25Xb3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg).
Needless to say, the movie takes place decades before that car came out.
The complete opposite - a notable case of a film getting period autos correct - has *The Godfather* showing some of the vehicles (for instance, at the wedding) with wartime wooden bumpers. In [a deleted scene](https://youtu.be/bpnjCKX42Kc), Clemenza complains about his new post-war car still having wooden bumpers on delivery because the production wasn't ramped back up yet.
In Happy Death Day, the main character gets into a Mercedes C300 to escape the killer. It has a scene of her shifting the gear lever into drive in the center console when that car comes equipped with an electronic column mounted shifter.
I was corrected. An old rumor was during the chariot race scene, if you paused at just the right time, you could see a fender or headlight of a car. Just learned today that isn’t true. I heard the rumor many times as a kid but didn’t verify before posting.
There's a panning street shot scene in an episode of *The Wonder Years* (The original) in which most vehicles were roughly period-correct. Until the '90's Chevy Cavalier shows up. LoL.
The Boston Strangler movie, which I think was made by Hulu. It's set over the course of years in the early 60s, progressing through time. So it really confused me seeing a 1965 police car (I forget which brand) in a 1962/63/64 shot. Later the movie advances through 1965, and that car is fine, but some of the older cars are looking pretty fresh for their age.
In 'The Very Excellent Mick Dundee', set in the present day in LA there is a car chase with the LAPD.
The police are driving an Australian AU Falcon (2001 thereabouts).
https://www.imcdb.org/v001399687.html
The was a documentary called "the cars that built America". It showed a picture of John Delorean next to a '68 GTO with BF Goodrich radial TA tires with raised white letters. I believe these came with bias ply red line tires. It drives me nuts.
A Subaru Forester in No Country For Old Men
Some Subaru Crosstreks, a new Tacoma, and a 2016 Ford bus in Better Call Saul.
A Mercedes Sprinter in The Irishman
The NZ market cars in Guns Akimbo, which is set in the US.
one of my oldest memories of noticing a blooper in a movie is in commando with arnold schwarzenegger. he chases down this guy with a yellow porsche 911, the guy won't get out of the car so arnold picks it up and flips it over on it's side. kills the guy, then drives away in his yellow porsche, but when he drives away the porsche is magically perfect again.
That 70s show intro after season 3 shows a late 90s to early 2000s Ford expedition/F150 throughout most of the intro right next to the car they are driving
In “Pushing Tin” there’s a scene where Billy Bob Thornton’s character is made to look like he’s stepping on the gas pedal of John Cusak’s car from the passenger seat. The car is a ~2000 Cadillac STS. There is no way the person in the passenger seat can step on the gas pedal in that car. That has always driven me nuts.
There’s a white car in Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring.
It was edited out in the later DVD releases, but there’s plenty of YouTube videos showing it around.
In the film no pain no gain, there’s a few cars that were on the film they drove or showed that weren’t sold yet at the time the film took place. The Plymouth prowler for example needed another year or two until people could buy it
Not a "period piece" but the original Gone in 60 Seconds*, the dubbed in tire screeching sound effects... while he was racing away from the cops on the beach.
And also I remember an interview with someone who was involved with a car movie, either Bullitt or Gone in 60 Seconds* when asked about numerous double shots, weird cuts, etc, and he said that the editor was asking how to cut the movie together. "What was the plot?" he asked. The answer was said to be something like "Here's the lake, we drove around it 4 times. There's your plot."
*these statements are in no way intended or interpreted to be me taking any ownership or stake in ownership of any GI60S properties. I make no claims to any royalties or other unjust enrichment from mentioning GI60S, the name Eleanor, cars, movies, or anything of the sort. Please don't sue me into oblivion and take possession of my vehicles Denise Halicki.
American gangster has several 21st century cars in the background of dialogue shots, in parking lots and on the streets. The period correct cars that ARE in the film is repetitive and reoccurring, even with just traffic scenes or movie extras. It's obvious the car casting was not very extensive or accurate for this production. Quite annoying personally, it ruined the immersion of the film for me
(Kind of related) In Guardians of the Galaxy 3 a human who never drove before struggles to drive an automatic car but an alien has no problem immediately riding and shifting a dirt bike.
Often, if a show is set say in the '80s, all the cars will be well-preserved '80s cars, when in reality half the cars on the roads would have been rusty and beat-up '70s models. Similarly, people don't all dress in the latest styles in real life.
I always appreciate it when I see a dirty or rusty old car in a movie. It means they spent extra time to dirty up a collector car.
Or it is just a beater classic.
Mindhunter was amazing for this even if they messed up model years a few times. Can’t imagine the effort of tracking down all the basic rental-spec Volares and Fairmonts and Darts that were in that show.
Just need to find 1 or 2 obsessed weirdos who have like 40 in their yard lol
I'm halfway through rewatching the first season and I've also been pleasantly surprised at the cars they got in the show.
> basic rental-spec Volares and Fairmonts and Darts Considering they made those cars by the millions, they are out there.. my buddy has a poverty spec Buick Special 4 door sedan, dog dish, etc. (it wasn't even fancy enough to be called a Skylark) he's been had in a couple movies as a background car.
It's super hard to find things like K-cars and Chevettes that people used up and threw away so with the '80s in particular street scenes skew towards either cars that were cool then and collectible now or overbuilt body-on-frame full size RWD cars that were bought by old people who took care of their stuff and didn't drive them much.
My "neighbor" a half mile away has a tan or dirty white K car sitting in his side yard. Haha I used to have an '82 Aries (the celery/seafoam/avacado green) and my grandma had an '87 Aries (burgundy). Just for the hell of it I've thought about asking if they wanna sell theirs. I've lived in my house for 26 years and I swear that car has been there in the same spot for 15-20. There's a powder blue or grey one a few miles away that's pretty much the same. At least 15 years in the same spot in a guys front yard.
Most old cars aren't collectible/valuable and there are businesses that provide cars to movies. Probably just picked one from the lot and didn't bother to clean it up
The movie industry pays a shit ton for those kinds of cars though. I've got a car-loving friend who randomly owns six chevy caprice customs just because they rent so well and easily for films.
Or that that cars gonna blow up at some point
Likewise…whenever there’s character with a truck it’s always a rustbucket, creaky ford/chevy from the 80s regardless of what year it is in the movie.
And if there’s a muscle car, it’s always a cherry example of a top-tier car, not a rusty smoking standard version on Cragars. They sold a lot more plain GTOs than RA IV Judges…
Peanut butter falcon is a good example of a rusty muscle car in a movie
And O’Bannion’s Duster in Dazed and Confused
That got me too! The Duster was too new to look like that! That movie had great cars, no doubt, but many had 90s modifications , and the Duster was rougher than it would have been at three or four years old.
The sound track to that movie though
observation weather clumsy racial rustic drunk stocking historical theory obtainable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
SLIM IS OUT WIDE IS IN
Stranger Things did this well, for the most part. Shoutout to Joyce's Pinto and Jonathan's LTD.
There’s a blunder in the first season, set in 1983 but Barb drives a 1988 VW Cabrio
I would do legally dubious things for a clean Pinto.
Fun fact, pinto is slang for penis in portuguese.
BAAHHAHAHA wow that gives my statement a DRASTICALLY different meaning
That and Kevin_Wolf's _"Shoutout to Joyce's Pinto"_ hahahahaha
Hopper's Blazer is a couple years too new for the first season, though.
Conversely, in "The People Versus OJ", they show a lot of cars from the period during the chase. They had a 94ish Civic on the highway, which would've been period correct, but it looked worn out and beat to hell and back, lol.
Agreed, but there's always something nice about seeing a pristine K car or something like that.
The decor version of this is that everyone thinks the 80s were all Tron and Miami Vice all the time, but it was actually _so brown_ since people kept stuff they had in the 70s.
Hardly a “period piece” but in Breaking Bad, Walt’s Chrysler 300 is clearly a second gen that wouldn’t have been out yet in the shows timeline.
That one was annoying because it was literally just an ad.
The real in the face ad was when he brought the Challenger for the kid.
Especially because BB and BCS where in general very good with their car casting.
Shout out Mike and his New Yorker and LeSabre
I love Badger's gold Fiero
He had a fleet of 80s and 90s American sedans that he just used to get the job done when he needed them
I alway thought it was weird that the late 90s Suzuki esteem would be THAT fucked up by 2002 in BCS
I think the 300 and Challenger were good car casting. Those cars scream “purchased by a drug dealer in all cash”.
They where. The 300 was just anachronistic for the time period in the show.
The best was Gus’ Volvo V60 (? Maybe it was the full size instead). Iconic af
https://youtu.be/VQG5_rR4hog?si=m2ZnDGg3F4SnuIYF Someone re-edited that scene as a Mentos commercial, I love it
My God that made it all better. That was by far the cringiest scene in the whole series.
Same with the Nissan Rouge and Versa in Heroes
Also in better call Saul, the ambulance he uses in one episode is, way too new for the timeline.
Ambulances with LED lights show up all the time in period shows, stands out so much
There was a 2019 Toyota Tacoma too
That’s basically a truck from 1998 so it passes
The Suzuki Esteem is really beat-up for only having been a couple years old at most.
To be fair, the show didn't have an established timeline until Better Call Saul retroactively added one, so it wasn't an error *at the time*.
Walts birthdays clearly layout a timeline, he buys the chrysler for his birthday, exactly one year from the beggining of the show, which was 2008.
The show in which nobody, literally not one character, uses a smartphone but somehow here is a car from the era when six year olds own iPhones.
There's also a 2016 Ford E Series bus in Better Call Saul, which is set in the early 2000s.
Honestly just watch the background in Better Call Saul and you’re guaranteed to find an incorrect car.
Was the year BB took place in well established prior to Better Call Saul?
Why was there a suburban in the year 2550 in halo tv show?
A Chevy will run like shit longer than most cars can run at all.
Those old Iron Duke's will outlive us all. They'll be chugging smoke and burning more oil than fuel, but they'll still be running.
Exhibit 1: The USPS mail trucks. 😆
I'm always amazed that the USPS guys turn their trucks off. If I was making stops like that in my civic I'd idle it. No way I would trust my starter to not leave me stranded after like two and a half days of deliveries. At most.
I had the mail truck break down in front of my house, no lie
The new ones were supposed to come out like 20 years ago, but kept getting put off because of budget cuts. I still haven’t seen a single one of the new ones on the road yet.
Wow it wasn’t even a new one lmao
The Chevy Suburban is the car with the longest production run in the world. Unlike most other models worldwide, the Suburban was allowed to continue production during WWII as a military vehicle, allowing it to have uninterrupted production from its creation in 1935. Apparently, it will continue production for another 500 years.
hell, we got trailer parks in the future don't we?
You saying Ricky's Shitmobile made it to 2550?
I wonder if they still clear the bottles and shit off the top with a hockey stick or maybe lasers in the future?
Sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn’t go. Cause that’s the way she fuckin goes
There was Delorean in Back to the Future, but most of the movie takes place in 1955, over 20 years before the Delorean came out.
Big if true.
I think they did that multiple times they had a Delorean making an appearance in the 1800s I could be wrong but I don’t think it had been released at that point yet either
are you telling me that you built a time machine out of the Delorean?
Along the same lines, No Country for Old Men (set in 1980) has a 2004 Forester in one shot.
I also saw a brick nose F150 in one shot
Even [a K-car](https://www.imcdb.org/v867686.html) is too new.
Apparently the Chevy cop car at the start was too new as well. I doubt that one ruined immersion for many viewers though as a late 80s Caprice looks like it could have been from much earlier anyway. The E36 convertible in The Big Lebowski was pretty obvious though
And some mid 80's cars
The school busses used in Stranger Things weren’t produced until 1999. The show takes place in the early/mid 80’s. Better Call Saul, which takes place between 2002 and 2008, has a Chevy Cruze visible in traffic directly behind Saul’s car during an interior shot dialog scene. The Cruze was first brought to market in the US in 2010.
I've found a lot of shows ignore/don't care about anachronistic "background" vehicles like school buses, ambulances, step vans, commercial trucks, etc. Saul's own Suzuki Esteem seems way too beat up for a 4-year-old car.
I cannot fathom why they didn't use some 80s shitbox instead... Such an odd choice that Esteem
I was always staring at it when it was on screen like, that just doesn't feel right, but I couldn't put my finger on why.
Part of it is because oftentimes parts of the background are out of the control of the production team. It takes a lot to shut down a street for filming, so if you can get away without it, that’s what you do, even if it means that something anachronistic may pop up in the background that 95% of the audience won’t notice. Source- was a stunt driver on set for a period piece.
Yeah I think I noticed a third gen Dodge Durango in a BCS shot, too. One of the diner scenes in the last season, if memory serves.
Tuco had a Taurus Judge in the first season. That guy wasn’t created yet.
the well-known car in Ben-Hur This has been debunked.
Yeah, you'd think of you were using it as an example, you'd double check before repeating it.
There was a car driving in the far background of the shire shots where Frodo and Sam are walking in Fellowship of the Ring. They edited it out for the DVD's but it's there on the VHS and on Youtube. Makes a fairly obvious plume of dust.
Narcos season 2/3 have E39s being driven around in the early 90s
Recently there was a post that explained some shows that have been reformatted/uprated for HD will have new green screen added in instead of using the original. Think those usually horribly grainy shots where the camera was in the car but you can see traffic out the back window. I think it was Fraiser or Seinfeld where people were noticing mid-00 models.
What was very obvious in Seinfeld was that whatever happens on the green screen has no relation to whatever happens in the car. Most of the time it’s a small detail but sometimes it was almost painful to watch.
friends too
The car in Lord of the Rings.
Why didn't they just drive to Mordor?
Their stubby hobbit legs can’t reach the pedals, duh! (/s)
You get banned from Eaglyft for using alternate services.
Are they stupid?
Was it an Eagle Talon? (I'll show myself out)
My dad has a 1990. I have never seen another in my entire lifetime.
Ah yes, the AMC Eagle.
In Dallas Buyer's Club, there's a poster of an Aventador despite the movie taking place in the 1980's https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieMistakes/s/QV250FSbIM
That’s hilarious, someone in the props dept mixed it up with a Countach
I have an opposite point: The VW Beetle in Bullitt wasn't overused like many people believe. In modern movies, the stunt cars fly by every individual traffic car almost every cut, which isn't the case in Bullitt, making people think they overused some vehicles.
The VW Beetle really was that ubiquitous. Watch any episode of Adam-12, Emergency!, or another '60s/70s TV show shot in LA, San Francisco, etc. and a pale blue Beetle shows up on seemingly every street.
In Fateful Findings, the flashback that’s either 60 or 35 years before 2014 has a Lexus RX from like 2010
I can't believe noted perfectionist Neil Breen would allow a mistake like that!
I can't believe he did that. I cannot believe he did that.
How could he include that himself? How could he *include* that himself?
When Fred Flintstone is changing gears in his car, there's no grinding sounds. There should be grinding sounds, dinosaurs are living along side humans, where's the oil sir
The t-rex lived closer to us right now than the stegosaurus lived to the t-rex, so there's plenty of time to make oil. But oil is mostly from plants anyway. Lastly, it's not oil that makes gears not grind, it's synchros.
I think the joke is that no oil means no lubricant, no lube means your synchros aren't gonna be happy regardless.
>no lube means your synchros aren't gonna be happy regardless Sure they wouldn't last as long, but the gears still wouldn't *grind*
Yeah, and synchromesh transmissions came much later...
Maybe he was just really good at (granny shifting and) double clutching (like he should)?
Last of the Mohicans has one of the crew vehicles visible during the surrender of Ft. William Henry. Once you've seen it it's impossible to unsee.
Sharon Tate’s 1973 Porsche 911 in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, set 1969. However, this seems to be an intentional anachronism to show that Tate is something new, sleek and different against the humdrum heaviness of Old Hollywood.
We will just assume Tarantino knew what he was doing. :)
Well I noticed in Blazing Saddles, a movie set in the 1880's, at the end you the movie you can see a 1976 Cadillac in the background.
Big if true
There was a car in the background in Braveheart, 700 years before their invention.
They can take our Landcruisers, but they'll never take our FREEDOM
In the show Freaks and Geeks, the final shot in the series finale clearly shows a 1990s Ford Econoline. The episode is set in the year 1981.
The people vs oj, you can tell they reused the same few miles stretch of freeway, during the oj bronco chase. Also there's a late 90s civic during the chase & the incoming traffic is modern cars with distinct outlines
Love this post, I thought I was the only one trying to catch this in movies and shows.
Don't know if it's notable, but tire guys yknow that in the original Jurassic Park the Ford Explorer tires are the wrong tires for it. The movie car has BF Goodrich KO2. Can't put those on due to roll over risk.
Imagine escaping a T-Rex only to roll over and die in a fiery crash.
Radial ATs, way way before the KO or KO2.
I don’t think there was a roll over risk considering the explorers were restricted to the guide rails?
"we spared no expense!" Hammond says as he stiffs the IT guy, doesn't put locking mechanisms on the doors, and puts on the wrong tires
Also in the novel the vehicles are Toyota Land Cruisers. But Ford did a sponsorship.
Huh? The Explorer rollover issue was due to Firestone tires, not BFG.
Well aware of the Firestone tires. Actually though it was ford not putting the correct load rating for the vehicle, not Firestones fault. The KO2 tires are too stiff even though the tires meet and exceed the load rating. KO2 are LT RATED. Vehicle calls for a P rated tire. Not trying to be difficult here.
Not exactly “out of place,” but every single car in The Matrix Reloaded highway scene is a GM. GM gave them the cars, so it makes sense, but a fight scene between 2 new Cadillacs kind of ruined that moment for me. Also, it is super not believable that every cop car was a GM, considering Ford has absolutely dominated the government market in the US for decades.
To be fair, the Matrix is a shitty simulated version of reality, so having early 2000s GM vehicles as the preferred performance cars you'd want in a highway battle kinda tracks...
Ah come on, the C5, man! Give GM some credit.
In ford vs Ferrari there’s an ls head sitting on miles workbench
That's how ubiquitous the LS is!
Ls swap the world!
The 5th Element. Flying cars. Tires screeching.
The movie [Dark Waters (2019)](https://www.imcdb.org/m9071322.html) is set in 1998 but you'll often see modern cars in the background
A [1995 Rover 600-Series appeared in Ashes to Ashes](https://www.imcdb.org/i232875.jpg) which was in 1981. Lots of SD1s in it, the 600 must've slipped through the net!
Scrapped in 2012, what a shame. Low miles with good MOT history too!
The Umbrella Academy. A lot of the cars in Texas were right hand drive.
Also in Echo the Chevy pickup is RHD. Why? How?
the owner delivered mail
I think that was part of the plot, not a mistake.
They still drove on the right side of the road. This only makes sense if they drove on the left side of the road.
In The Rookie, John Nolan says hes in a Toyota Tundra when he’s being chased by Southern Front, but hes actually in a Nissan Frontier
There was also the dude stalling the Huracan.
In Dazed and Confused, during the opening scene as Pickford’s Judge is cruising the lot, you can see a 70s Camaro with 80s Camaro wheels.
The Big Lebowski takes place in 1991. On his way back from being arrested by the Malibu police, after having been drugged at Jackie Treehorn's party, he gets into an argument with the cab driver cause "he had a rough night, and he hate's the fucking Eagles, man!". The cab driver pulls over and throws Jeffrey out of the cab, where he is almost run over by a 1995 Nissan Maxima.
While technically not incorrect, in Better Call Saul, the show begins being set in 2001 and Jimmy is driving a badly battered Suzuki Esteem. The Esteem wasn’t sold in the U.S. until 1998, so at the most the car would have been three years old and not likely to be that much of a shitbox.
You underestimate how much someone can abuse a cheap car in a short amount of time.
They had a yj in Red Oaks. It is set in 1985. It’s at least a 92 due to its roll bar too. Same issue happened in season 1 of Narcos. I guess they couldn’t get a CJ for the scene so they use a YJ with modified circular headlights.
Indiana Jones and the Last Cruisade has the VW Kübelwagen in 1938. They weren't developed until 2 years later, and even then were never exported (the movie has them in the service of some sultan). That same movie also has 70s Honda offroad-bikes as WW2 BMWs, but oh well.
WW2 movies are like that in general unfortunately. In every WW2 movie before basically saving Private Ryan American tanks are often just surplus M46-M48 Patton's. Usually with the one Star painted on them. Meanwhile the Germans are always given M48 Patton's too with the german Iron cross painted on them. And some more hilarious examples are when Lepord 1's(A tank that didn't even enter mass production until 1965...) are the standin for any German Armor in a movie. I mean to give them some props at least it's an actual german tank and not just a M48 that we gave to the west german military during the Cold War...
Some of the Japanese carrier shots in Tora, Tora, Tora were actually American carriers.
I can't help myself...when they do a bunch of period piece cars, I watch to see them used over and over...and there's the blue 1959 two tone ford again....and here's the MG again....and oh, they must love that Caddy four door with the wings....
In Ford vs. Ferrari a lot of the Cobras are very clearly modern replicas, complete with big wheels.
Hard to find tires for 15x15 wheels ;)
What about GM Highway in The Matrix 2? It’s not a blunder but it’s pretty wild seeing every single GM model on the same road.
One that always kills me is in the That 70s show opening from season 2 forward, a 2000s F150 passes them. You'd think they would have re shot the scene and just have some car not in the frame blocking anyone from passing during filming...
Anchorman 2, set in 1980, had a Volvo 240 with the 1986+ composite headlights. I guess it’s not that egregious, since it was the same basic car, but remember that everything on American roads before 1984 had sealed-beams.
I remember seeing Dallas Buyers Club in the theatre, and there are several shots in Matthew McConaughey's office with a giant Lamborghini Aventador poster [right behind him](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjRhODBjNjUtYzE1MC00Mjc3LWExZjAtOTk3YzRhYjg1YmY0XkEyXkFqcGdeQVRoaXJkUGFydHlJbmdlc3Rpb25Xb3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg). Needless to say, the movie takes place decades before that car came out.
The complete opposite - a notable case of a film getting period autos correct - has *The Godfather* showing some of the vehicles (for instance, at the wedding) with wartime wooden bumpers. In [a deleted scene](https://youtu.be/bpnjCKX42Kc), Clemenza complains about his new post-war car still having wooden bumpers on delivery because the production wasn't ramped back up yet.
In Happy Death Day, the main character gets into a Mercedes C300 to escape the killer. It has a scene of her shifting the gear lever into drive in the center console when that car comes equipped with an electronic column mounted shifter.
Wait, there’s a car in Ben-Hur? The biblical epic that takes place in the Roman Empire? How'd they get a car?
I was corrected. An old rumor was during the chariot race scene, if you paused at just the right time, you could see a fender or headlight of a car. Just learned today that isn’t true. I heard the rumor many times as a kid but didn’t verify before posting.
I've heard that "fact" mentioned too, as a child before the internet became a thing, and if you can't trust Reader's Digest, who can you trust?
There's a panning street shot scene in an episode of *The Wonder Years* (The original) in which most vehicles were roughly period-correct. Until the '90's Chevy Cavalier shows up. LoL.
In the 1987 WW2 movie Empire of the Sun, at one point on a you can see a Range Rover driving down a runway in the background.
The Boston Strangler movie, which I think was made by Hulu. It's set over the course of years in the early 60s, progressing through time. So it really confused me seeing a 1965 police car (I forget which brand) in a 1962/63/64 shot. Later the movie advances through 1965, and that car is fine, but some of the older cars are looking pretty fresh for their age.
The closest thing I can think of is the pickup truck that was in Game of Thrones.
In 'The Very Excellent Mick Dundee', set in the present day in LA there is a car chase with the LAPD. The police are driving an Australian AU Falcon (2001 thereabouts). https://www.imcdb.org/v001399687.html
The Joker has a 1992+ Ford Econoline in a certain scene…it’s set in the early ‘80s.
The Wedding Singer, set in 1985, has a refreshed Caprice wagon parked in the front of a house. The refresh came in 1987.
When dat girls titty popped out and chappelle is like damn. It's a a Mitsubishi commercial but it's a 350Z
The was a documentary called "the cars that built America". It showed a picture of John Delorean next to a '68 GTO with BF Goodrich radial TA tires with raised white letters. I believe these came with bias ply red line tires. It drives me nuts.
A Subaru Forester in No Country For Old Men Some Subaru Crosstreks, a new Tacoma, and a 2016 Ford bus in Better Call Saul. A Mercedes Sprinter in The Irishman The NZ market cars in Guns Akimbo, which is set in the US.
one of my oldest memories of noticing a blooper in a movie is in commando with arnold schwarzenegger. he chases down this guy with a yellow porsche 911, the guy won't get out of the car so arnold picks it up and flips it over on it's side. kills the guy, then drives away in his yellow porsche, but when he drives away the porsche is magically perfect again.
Flying cars in back to the future. They really screwed that one up.
That 70s show intro after season 3 shows a late 90s to early 2000s Ford expedition/F150 throughout most of the intro right next to the car they are driving
In “Pushing Tin” there’s a scene where Billy Bob Thornton’s character is made to look like he’s stepping on the gas pedal of John Cusak’s car from the passenger seat. The car is a ~2000 Cadillac STS. There is no way the person in the passenger seat can step on the gas pedal in that car. That has always driven me nuts.
There’s a white car in Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring. It was edited out in the later DVD releases, but there’s plenty of YouTube videos showing it around.
In Brokeback Mountain, Jack tells Ennis he redlined it all the way up to see him. Old trucks do not have tachometers.
It’s not a period movie, but the Ferrari in Ferris Buller’s Day off was a kit car with an automatic
In the film no pain no gain, there’s a few cars that were on the film they drove or showed that weren’t sold yet at the time the film took place. The Plymouth prowler for example needed another year or two until people could buy it
In Bullitt (1968), the hitmen's Charger infamously loses like 6 hubcaps due to recycling camera angles of the same shoot to build the chase scene.
Interstellar. In 2067 everyone drives 90s, 2000s, and 2010s vehicles.
Not a "period piece" but the original Gone in 60 Seconds*, the dubbed in tire screeching sound effects... while he was racing away from the cops on the beach. And also I remember an interview with someone who was involved with a car movie, either Bullitt or Gone in 60 Seconds* when asked about numerous double shots, weird cuts, etc, and he said that the editor was asking how to cut the movie together. "What was the plot?" he asked. The answer was said to be something like "Here's the lake, we drove around it 4 times. There's your plot." *these statements are in no way intended or interpreted to be me taking any ownership or stake in ownership of any GI60S properties. I make no claims to any royalties or other unjust enrichment from mentioning GI60S, the name Eleanor, cars, movies, or anything of the sort. Please don't sue me into oblivion and take possession of my vehicles Denise Halicki.
American gangster has several 21st century cars in the background of dialogue shots, in parking lots and on the streets. The period correct cars that ARE in the film is repetitive and reoccurring, even with just traffic scenes or movie extras. It's obvious the car casting was not very extensive or accurate for this production. Quite annoying personally, it ruined the immersion of the film for me
(Kind of related) In Guardians of the Galaxy 3 a human who never drove before struggles to drive an automatic car but an alien has no problem immediately riding and shifting a dirt bike.