As a youth I was a bit of car enthusiast and to a certain extent I still am, but it’s been over four years since I’ve owned my own car. I no longer subscribe to enthusiast magazines and glean specs/info from friends and/or Top Gear. I could easily take advantage of the position I’m in to test cars but I’m really not interested unless there’s some new innovation inside the cab as far as tech or gadgetry goes. (Please see: I Spent the Day at Ford and Almost Puked) It’s only fair, right? For example, the Chevy Volt has an iPhone and Android app that lets you monitor the Volt’s charging status and a few other things, but more on that later.
(More on Techland: Steve’s list of Top 10 Spaceships)
Anyway, the NY International Auto Show is in full swing and rather than giving you a list of lustworthy cars that are real, we decided to find the coolest whips from the realm of nerd, like, the Lexus from Minority Report or the Mach 5 from Speed Racer. The cars we’ve listed are real but heavily modified, so we’ve excluded ones from comic books, video games or ones that only fly.
And here they are in no particular order. Let us know if we missed any.
Lexus Concept from Minority Report
It’s pretty cool for a Lexus.
1982 Pontiac Firebird – Knight Industries Two Thousand
The little kid in me still wants to own this car. And I’ll be damned if William Daniels isn’t doing the voice over.
Mach 5 from Speed Racer
What a terrible movie. At least the Mach 5 looked cool.
1966 Chrylser Imperial – Black Beauty from the Green Hornet
Classic.
1973 XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe – Mad Max Interceptor
Why does Ford always release the cool cars outside of the US?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJpzgi8h2_s]
Dodge Viper RT/10 – Viper Defender from Viper
Am I the only that enjoyed this show?
1976 Camaro from Transformers
I would have preferred it if Bumblebee were a VW Beetle like he is in everything else, but they paid homage to him in the movie, so I guess I’m okay with it. I still hate the fact that Optimus has moving lips though.
DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future
Flux capacitor – enough said.
1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor from Ghostbusters
Because it’s way cooler than this thing. I actually saw this cruising along the FDR a couple weeks back in NYC. Cr-azy.
Batmobile from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman
It was this or the Tumbler from Chrisopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films, but I ultimately chose this one over that or the modified Lincoln Futura from the 60s TV series. Don’t even get me started on the filth that showed up after Michael Keaton’s run as the Caped Crusader. This is the Batmobile I grew up with and if someone presented me with every single Batmobile known to man, I’d choose this one.