5 Cool Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Cars and Movies

Cars have become deeply important in many motion pictures and TV series over the last few decades.

The appearance of vehicles on the screen can become quite influential, boosting sales and increasing the popularity of a certain model, if used in the right setting.

But making a movie isn’t a piece of cake, and it involves a lot of preparation, development, lots of takes, and choosing the right cast and props that could make or break the movie. Luckily, some of them got them right. However, that came with little-known sacrifices.

1. First car chase

In movies and TV, car chases usually include at least two automobiles. Action films are the ones that use the technique the most, usually bringing expensive, powerful vehicles to the screen.

But what about the first car chase ever shown on film? Records indicate that the first movie centered around a car goes back to 1903, and it was a silent, black-and-white movie called The Runaway Match, also known as Marriage by Motor.

The short film features nine shots and tells the story of a young couple who elope in a hired car, with the bride's father chasing them.

However, the first modern car chase movie is generally acknowledged to be the 1968 movie Bullitt. It included a 10-minute-long car chase, involving a 1968 Ford Mustang GT "Bullitt" driven by Steve McQueen and a 1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum.

2. The most expensive movie car sold at an auction

Automobiles change their value over time, some because of how rare they become, some because of their brand, and some gain value after appearing in different productions.

There are a lot of vehicles out there whose value increased after starring in a popular movie, and I'm sure a lot of examples come to mind.

We'll focus on the most expensive one, though - a 1970 Porsche 918k from the movie 1971 Le Mans. The actual vehicle used in the movie had disappeared for over 25 years, but, once it surfaced, it was sold for $14 million at an auction.

The same Steve McQueen movie also features the second most expensive movie car ever, a 1968 Ford Gulf GT40. The hammer for it dropped at $11 million.

3. Highest-grossing car film

It's difficult to establish which one is the most popular car film of all time, taking into account that rating is subjective, but we'll focus on the numbers from the Box Office.

Furious 7, one of the Fast and Furious franchise installments, sits in the first spot. The 2015 film, with a $190 million budget, earned over $147 million on its opening weekend and grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide.

There might be a reason why this movie ranked even higher than the rest of the franchise and that is because the 2015 film was the last one starring Paul Walker, who tragically died in a single-vehicle accident in November 2013, while the filming was still ongoing. Furious 7 was initially slated for release in July 2014, but it was postponed to April 2015, including a farewell scene to Walker and his character, Brian O’Conner.

4. Most used car

A movie doesn't have to be centered around a car chase or even be car-related to feature a vehicle and there are a lot of automobiles that don't have that big of a role in most movies. They do end up making appearances, whether the shot is brief or long.

So, what is the most commonly seen car on film and television? It looks like the top spot goes to the Ford Crown Victoria. The model has made a whopping number of appearances, 6,874, Alan's Factory Outlet reports.

Possibly because it's the most common vehicle used for taxis and law enforcement vehicles. Its most notable roles were in Heat (1995), Taxi (2004), and the TV series Law and Order.

The American brand Ford also holds the first spot as the most used car manufacturer. The research oversaw 70,335 pieces of media, including movies, TV series, music videos, documentaries, or mini-series. In total, there were 30,523 Fords used, with the second most popular car going to the Ford Mustang, and the second most popular brand being Chevrolet.

5. Most destroyed cars

Action films are a genre that uses cars most and, as we all know, sometimes, characters usually destroy a lot of things. Including cars.

The award for The Movie That Destroyed Most Car goes to... Transformers 3. The Michael Bay-directed movie came with a budget of $195 million, which meant they had a lot of options to choose from.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the franchise's third movie and the first one without Megan Fox, ended up destroying as many as 532 vehicles. There's no need to panic because not all of them were in good shape, as most had floor damage and had to be scraped anyway, so car companies decided Michael Bay was the person to do it.