The eight best, most famous and iconic movie cars of all time!

The Spy Who Loved Me Lotus Esprit

OK, James Bond cars will appear more than once on this list. But that’s pretty much unavoidable. If perhaps not quite as iconic as the DB5 (we’ll get to that in a moment) the Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me is more than a match in terms of gadgetry, too. Lotus development driver Roger Becker brought one of the Esprits to the set in Sardinia and ended up taking the wheel for the on-road scenes himself after the official stunt driver failed to get to grips with it. Cement-spraying nozzles behind the numberplate are the only gadget used on the road but the Esprit’s real trick was, of course, conversion into a submarine, for which Lotus supplied several bodyshells. One was turned into ‘Wet Nellie’, driven by scuba divers for the underwater scenes and was eventually bought by Elon Musk with a view to making it work as Q-branch originally intended.

Mad Max Pursuit Special

What car does Mad Max drive? A 1973 Ford XB GT Falcon Pursuit Special, of course. Mel Gibson was but an up-and-coming young actor when he appeared in the first Mad Max film in 1979, and he arguably shares top billing with the heavily customised Ford XB GT Falcon. Filmed on a shoestring, Max’s Pursuit Special was accordingly an improvised collection of parts characterised by a suitably dystopian patina.

The distinctive front-end was part-influenced by the famous Droopsnoot Vauxhall Firenza, famously raced in the UK by Gerry Marshall and also by long-nosed NASCAR racers like the Plymouth Superbird. In the movie the car is supposed to have over 600hp, thanks in part to the supercharger sticking out of the bonnet. In reality this prop was non-functional but plays an important part in the chase scenes, the pulley driven by an electric motor. After being saved from an Australian scrapyard the original car was displayed at the Cars of the Stars museum in the Lake District, before the entire collection was sold and relocated to Miami.

James Bond Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5

When it comes to famous movie cars they don’t get much more famous than this… What Aston Martin did James Bond drive? The beautiful Aston Martin DB5. A firm fixture on any movie cars shortlist, but with good reason. First introduced to Sean Connery’s reluctant 007 as a replacement for the Bentley in Ian Fleming’s books, the scene with Q explaining the various upgrades is legendary. Of the two cars loaned by Aston Martin to the film one was modified with the gadgets scene while the other did the action sequences. Two more were built subsequently and have sold for millions at auction. For those who didn’t win the bidding there is a further option to own the real thing, unique to the cars on this list. And that is Aston Martin’s own ‘continuation’ series of Bond-spec DB5s available for £2.75m apiece. The fact they’re not road legal means you may be better off with the Lego alternative, though.

Fast & Furious Dodge Charger R/T

Whether the Fast & Furious franchise has touched your life or not the cars built for it are movie icons in their own right, and this had to feature on our best movie cars list. The 1970 Dodge Charger R/T created for Vin Diesel’s character Dom Toretto has appeared in various forms and, of them all, is best known for a pivotal street racing scene that set the tone (and several tropes) for the Fast & Furious world. When it’s introduced to the story it has a claimed 900hp Hemi V8, though the engine for that scene was merely loaned to the production by race shop Chuck Taylor Racing and never actually powered the car. Like the Mad Max interceptor, the superchargers in other scenes were fakes while the V8 sound is actually overdubbed. Four or five Chargers were assembled for the first film, later appearances including an off-road modified Charger for Furious 7 for which a number of additional cars were built.

Gone In 60 Seconds Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 ‘Eleanor’

A curious example of a movie car whose status has far exceeded the reach of the film it was created for, the Shelby GT500 created by customising legends Steve Stanford and Chip Foose is perhaps one of the most replicated film cars ever. Foose’s distinctive combination of classic muscle car looks and modern aesthetics has been much emulated and replicas make big money but, in fact, just three ‘hero cars’ were built with nine others for the stunt work. Like the Fast & Furious Charger these were built by Hollywood specialists Cinema Vehicle Services and combine real-world upgrades with ‘for camera’ additions like fake vents and dummy side exhausts, the latter converted into real ones post-filming.

James Bond Spectre Jaguar C-X75

The cancellation of Jaguar’s hybrid C-X75 leaves us with one of the greatest supercar ‘what ifs’ of recent years. Jaguar then teased us further, its Special Vehicle Operations department teaming up with Williams to build working C-X75s for an epic car chase scene through central Rome in Spectre. The involvement of Williams was a nice touch, given the C-X75 was supposed to have used the team’s F1 hybrid know-how in its production form. That never happened but at least the guys helped the car run on screen, the stunt cars using custom-built chassis with a very non-hybrid V8 from the F-Type. Long-travel rally suspension with rear-wheel-drive and a mechanical limited-slip differential were some way from the C-X75’s intended specification but meant the on-screen Jaguars could powerslide, jump and drive down steps for a memorable moment of screen glory.

Mad Max Fury Road Gigahorse

The incredible vehicles created for Mad Max Thunder Road are basically what would happen if you sent a load of Robot Wars teams to a desert scrapyard, gave them limitless budget and told them to come up with the craziest machines they could devise. Given the levels of excess it’s hard to pick one out but the twin-V8 powered Gigahorse with its paired 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville bodies sitting on top of huge tractor tyres is arguably the most famous. And it really worked too. The idea had apparently been to use one engine concealed within two dummies but the production team decided to do it for real, joining the two supercharged V8s with a customised truck gearbox. Only the turbos are fake but the Gigahorse still developed over 1,000hp.

Back To The Future DeLorean

In a weird twist of fate the DeLorean is arguably better known as a time machine than it is as a car, this ill-fated gullwinged coupe otherwise doomed to obscurity and notoriety given the scandals connected to its eponymous creator. Some had apparently wanted the car to be based on a Mustang but Back To The Future creator Robert Zemeckis was adamant Doc Brown’s character would drive something more eccentric and insisted on the DeLorean. While others on this list were built to enact the fictionalised scenes for the camera the Back To The Future car obviously didn’t function as an actual time machine, though the lights, gadgets and gizmos have an authentically analogue and functional appeal when they appear on screen. Three were created for the original film and countless replicas have been built by fans and enthusiasts, to the point where they may seemingly outnumber ‘real’ DeLoreans. A list of iconic move cars wouldn’t be complete without that mad, brilliant DeLorean.