Top 10 Most Famous Movie Cars of All Time

Starsky and Hutch 1974 - 1979 Ford Gran Torino

Car and Driver printed a great article about their choice (I may not necessarily agree) for the Top 5 Most Famous Movie Cars of All Time in their July 2007 issue. In their number five positions was the 1974 custom built Ford Grand Torino driven by Ben Stiller in the 2004 Starsky & Hutch Movie. While it may not be the greatest movie car of all time, it is one heck of a sled. Having driven it, I can testify that it is a serious mover, although it hardly passes a gas station without stopping. It won’t get you in a California carpool lane by yourself like a Prius, but it’s a lot more fun to drive.

When my buddy Mike “Movie Mike” Walsh was working on preproduction, he latterly scoured the Internet looking for decent 1974-1976 Torinos. It was surprising how many junkers people were hanging on to, some little more than proverbial rust buckets. He was fortunate to find several great cars, including a pristine 1976 with (I saw the odometer on the day it arrives in his shop) an unbelievable 2100 miles on its 33 year-old body. If it hadn’t come from New Jersey I would have sworn that there was a little old lady from Pasadena somewhere in this story.

Now we're going to go a little farther that C&D and provide you our list of the Ten Most Famous Movie and TV cars of all time (At least in my mind, up until now, and definitely subject change at my slightest whim). I’m going to review C&D’s choices as they were made, then add my five and I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to mentally put them in any order that pleases you (After all, isn’t the customer always right?). So suffice it to say, I would put the Torino in my top three, but you'll have to wait until the end of the story to find out our ranking.

The Movie Mike version of the S&H Torino is equipped with a 16-valve pushrod V-8 with an iron block and aluminum heads. It’s aspirated by a 1x4-bbl Holley carburetor. The displacement of the engine is 360 cu in (5899cc) and it puts out an impressive 435 bhp @ 4500 rpm and 450 lb-ft torque @ 3500 rpm. Even in a 4400-pound sled, that's still an enough power to move it along its way.