Every Car Is a Pinto: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Behind you, the car quietly bursts into flames. That's just the way it is with cars sometimes."''|'''''[[Adam Cadre|I-0]]'''''}}

Any significant damage to a vehicle, particularly falling off a cliff, is liable to result in a large explosion even though real cars rarely explode. This is a subset of [[Stuff Blowing Up]]. Evidently, TV cars [[Made of Explodium|run on nitroglycerine instead of gasoline]]. This trope comes from the well accepted fact that vehicles are generally full of flammable substances like gasoline. It, of course, ignores that these flammable substances are not explosive unless turned into a mist, mixed with the right amount of air, and compressed—and even then your exploding car would actually be a small fire. Needless to say, [[Rule of Cool]] is in effect.

 

 

 

 

 

Compare [[Made of Explodium]] and [[Damage Is Fire]].

{{examples}}

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Black Lagoon]]''. Certain cars there will explode if they ''tip over''.

* In ''[[Case Closed]]'', one member of the shadow organization eludes the FBI by shooting out the gas tank of the other car [[Improbable Aiming Skills|aiming]] ''backwards'' via the [[Rule of Cool|side view mirror]].

* Subverted in ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'': A villain drives off a raising bridge and her car explodes in midair. Two of the protagonists stare slack-jawed in amazement for a moment before suspecting that the [[Mad Bomber|third one]] had something to do with it. She smiles and shows that she's holding a remote detonator.

* In the ''[[Mazinkaiser]]'' OVA, Prof. Yumi and Roll inexplicably survive this without burns.

* In ''[[Speed Racer]]'', there was a car that flew off of a cliff in ''every episode'', which exploded in a violent manner. Since racing is the whole point of the show, one would think that they'd have the tracks a ''little'' bit further away from cliffs. Or active volcanoes, for that matter.

* Happens in ''[[Nerima Daikon Brothers]]'' between a motorcycle and a ''bicycle'', of all things!

 

== Comic Books ==

* In the ''[[Don Rosa]]'' story "Guardians of the Lost Library", [[Donald Duck]] watches [[Running Gag|a succession of television shows]] that repeatedly feature the hero's transport catching on fire, be it a car, a speedboat, or even a horse. In a sci-fi version of that show, even the comet the hero is riding bursts into flame. Or possibly not, as, to use Donald's words "It's kinda hard to tell with comets."

* [[Lampshading|Lampshaded]] rather neatly by Cyclops of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]. "Blowing up a car is a lot harder than it looks in the movies. Puncturing both sides of a fuel tank to draw in the proper amount of oxygen is a million-to-one shot. Thankfully, I'm a pretty good shot." He zapps the fuel tank with his [[Eye Beams]]: kaboom. Then makes a mental note to send a check to the owner.

* In the story "Half-Baked", in issue #40 of ''Tales from the Crypt'', the main character's car flipped over after a blowout and caught on fire almost immediately.

 

* ''[[Luminosity]]'' averts and talks about this trope, with Bella noting and explaining why it is supremely unrealistic.

 

== Film ==

* [[Jerry Bruckheimer]], creator of many modern action movies, revels in this trope.

* ''[[Last Action Hero]]''.: Repeatedly parodied. A man is thrown from a moving car into an ice cream truck which then explodes for absolutely no reason. Another car jumps off a bridge and explodes ''in midair'', also for seemingly no reason. Additionally, when Jack Slater ends up shooting a taxi multiple times in the real world, he is quite surprised that it does not blow up and wonders about a world where all the cars are bulletproof.

* ''[[Top Secret]]'': Parodied—an East German army vehicle is wildly out of control, until the driver realizes he's on a collision course with a Pinto that is inexplicably standing out by itself in the middle of an open field. In [[East Germany]]. ([[The Alleged Car|In a land of Trabants, the man with a Pinto is king]]?) Through dint of heroic effort, the driver wrestles his vehicle to a stop—almost. His front bumper ever-so-gently *pings* the rear bumper of the Pinto—the contact depicted aurally with a small bell—upon which the car promptly explodes and takes out both vehicles.

* In ''[[The Naked Gun]]'', a car-chase ends with the pursued [[Brainwashed and Crazy|villain]] crashing his car into the side of a semi-truck. Explosion #1. Then, straddling the flaming remains of his vehicle, he runs into an army missile being towed on a trailer. Explosion #2. Now riding the missile, he plows in through the front door of a fireworks factory. EXPLOSION NUMBER THREE, as Frank Drebin unsuccessfully attempts to shoo away gawking spectators: [[Nothing to See Here|"Move along! There's nothing to see here!"]]

* Towards the end of ''[[American Psycho]]'' (the movie), Patrick is involved in a shootout with the police. He shoots at them and misses, hitting their squad cars, which explode in a humongous fireball. Patrick just stares at his gun with an utterly confused expression, giving evidence that the incident was just another product of his insane mind.

* In ''[[Total Recall]]'', Arnie uses a taxi ("JohnnyCab") to flee from the bad guys. He has to sabotage the robotic driver, though, and drive the car himself. Once he arrives at his destination, he leaves the taxi, but the robotic driver shorts out and the car starts moving forward. It narrowly misses Arnie, then hits a wall at a very moderate speed and blows up. This has plot consequences, as the bad guys are informed a car has blown up and show up at the place, thus discovering Arnie is headed for Mars.

* The 1981 cheeseball movie ''[[Condorman]]'' contained a chase scene that may be the <s>penultimate</s>ultimate example of this trope. During the chase scene, the protagonists flee from a fleet of black sports cars driven by the KGB's vehicular stunt division (or whatever they are). Excluding the car driven by the leader of the pack (who survives for future encounters), ''every single car'' that receives any sort of collateral damage worse than a sideswipe explodes into flames. Instantaneously. In one case it explodes in midair, before any collision has occurred. Guess the director was impatient...

** ''[[Goldfinger]]'' has a moment where a car drives over a cliff and ''while it's just hanging in midair'', it blows up in a spectacular fireball. Not after it hits anything, but when it's just about 15 feet past the cliff. This trope was abandoned fairly quickly in the series (except when explosives were concerned).

** In ''[[Die Another Day]]'', when the hovercraft at the beginning collide into trees, they crumple up (as if they made of cardboard and tin foil) and burst into flames. They're driving over a mine-field, so things exploding with little to no warning does make a little more sense in that scene.

* ''[[Vanishing Point]]'': Kowalski's suicide crash at the end. Not only does the car explode before hitting the roadblock, but the Challenger is replaced with a Camaro for the explosion.

* In ''[[Déjà Vu (film)|Deja Vu]]'', Denzel Washington {{spoiler|drives the car with the bomb in it off of the ferry.}} Every car his car bumps into on the way off explodes massively.

* Averted in ''[[Incredible Hulk|Hulk]]'', where the military vehicles smashed by the Hulk conspicuously fail to explode... although cynics might says this was a case of [[Never Say "Die"]] rather than attempted realism.

* Played arrow-straight by ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]''. In the final fight scene between Hulk and {{spoiler|The Abomination}}, cars occasionally blew up in ''anticipation'' of being hit.

** Oddly reversed in ''[[Riding With Death]]'', in which we are told that a truck is carrying a compound ''so'' unstable, that it could take out an entire town. When it finally does explode, it's relatively tame.

** Also oddly averted in ''The Giant Gila Monster'', when the hero destroys the titular monster by driving his car into the beast, killing it in the resulting explosion(he dove out of the car in the nick of time). Averted in that he is actually shown placing some bottles of nitroglycerin in the passenger seat of the car.

'''Crow''': Now it's a nitro-burning funny car!" }}

** In one episode, there was a chase scene that ended with the bad guy's car going over the edge of a cliff, at which point it cut to footage of an entirely different type of car which exploded before it got anywhere near the ground.

** Also notably averted in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade|The Last Crusade]]'' when the German tank goes over the cliff. Rather than explode, it promptly falls apart as it smashes against the rocks.

* The 747 at the start of ''[[Final Destination]]'' blows up in a very Pinto-esque manner only a few seconds after takeoff. The problem isn't that the sequence is impossible it's just that the NTSB animation of the real TWA 800 explosion is a million times scarier than the cartoon blow up in the movie.

* ''[[Speed]]''; when Annie gets asked if she can drive the bus (which is wired up to explode if it drops below 50&nbsp;mph) she replies "Yeah, it's just like driving a really big Pinto." And it explodes like a really big Pinto, along with the plane it collides with. Which was filled with fuel in anticipation of a scheduled takeoff. It doesn't help that the bus was rigged with a bomb that, due to flagging sleep, was about to go boom anyway. Yay pyrotechnics!

* In a scene cut from ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'', a small [[Humongous Mecha]] is hit by an expensive car and is knocked into a hydrogen-powered bus. The bus explodes. In the final cut of the movie, the bus explodes after that same [[Humongous Mecha]] fires a rocket into it, which is easier to understand. The second-to-last scene before the credits actually mentions the bus explosion in a stream of news text.

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' showcases this in ''Escape 2000'', vans explode in giant balls of flame after being hit by mere shotgun shells and pistol bullets. Not even high explosive rounds would do the amount of damage these bullets do. The trope even extends to a helicopter in the movie, as the hero Trash is able to blow it up with a regular pistol. At least American movies generally use high caliber bullets when they cause cars and helicopters to blow up.

* In the full-length film version of ''[[The Grinch]]'', at one point the Grinch attempts to flee on a tiny car and ultimately spins out and crashes. Upon crashing the car, the Grinch flees from the inevitable giant fireball.

* In the WWII movie ''[[Where Eagles Dare]]'' a car bursts into flames in mid air and another does so just rolling down an incline before reaching the cliff, and it was rolling on its wheels.

* Averted in the ''[[Speed Racer (film)|Speed Racer]]'' movie. The cars constantly crash, jump, flip, smash, and attack each other while racing at insane speeds. only the most intense crashes (head-on into a solid structure at high speed) result in an explosion.

* ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]'': Both [[Justified]] and [[Averted]]. When Locque's car is kicked over the cliff by Bond, it gets totalled but doesn't explode. Surprisingly, only one car explodes in the whole film: {{spoiler|007's [[Cool Car|gadget-laden Lotus Esprit]]}}. It blows up after one of {{spoiler|Kristatos' henchmen triggers the car's anti-theft mechanism.}} It also symbolised {{spoiler|a parting of the ways with the gadget fetishes of earlier 007 films.}}

* ''[[Death Wish 3]]'' features a hilarious example: After Bronson's character briefly walks away from his love interest's car (by this point the movies had run out of his family members to [[Stuffed in The Fridge|stuff in the fridge]]) and some punks ''immediately'' -like, the second Bronson turns around- punch her out and shift her car into neutral. The car rolls down a slight grade and bonks into another vehicle at about 15 miles per hour. And then, after a beat, both cars explode.

* Parodied in ''[[Rango]]'', when the bats that are used for transportation inexplicably explode upon crashing or when shot.

* In ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]] 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers'', Michael chases the protagonists in a car. Even though the car is barely going at a running-pace, it still explodes when it collides with a tree. Though this ''does'' add to the creepy factor when Michael nonchalantly gets out of the car completely unscathed.

** In the same movie, the deputy shoots a fuel-tank truck to make it explode as a distraction. Conceivably justified, as he was using an automatic rifle and might have hit a hose with volatile compounds inside, not the tanker's tough metal shell.

** We also see a tank headed straight toward a parked Ford Pinto, but the scene is cut away from before any impact and the total lack of sound effects in the next shot (indoor, in the house the car's in front of) leaves the presumption the [[Defied Trope|tank driver swereved in time]].

* In ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'', when John and Jane Smith are running away from their agencies who both want to kill them, John has a ridiculously easy time shooting at the cars chasing them in order to make them explode.

* Averted in ''[[Breakdown]]'', when a truck falls from a very high bridge and ''doesn't'' explode.

* The [[Miss Marple]] film "They Do It With Mirrors" features an especially egregious example, when the cornered culprit makes a getaway [[Laser-Guided Karma|only to crash]] into a [[Slow Doors|closing pair of iron gates]]... on which the car ''instantly'' explodes into a roaring inferno. God only knows what [[Made of Indestructium|they made those gates out of...]]

* In the [[Blaxploitation]] film ''[[Three the Hard Way]]'':

** Jimmy Lait is being chased by [[Mooks]] in two cars. He draws them up to the roof of the parking structure, and while his shooting at the cars doesn't cause them to explode, and they keep stopping from the other cars they bang into, they both are supposedly driving fast enough that when they hit a cinder-block wall hard enough to go through it and over the edge, one of the cars explodes just from having struck the wall.

** Jimmy is lured to a full size [[Phone Booth]] at a vacant lot. A dump truck smashes the glass and steel booth, without any trouble, but Jimmy is able to hang on and jump in the back. He then pulls one of the mooks out of the passenger side of truck, and the other tries to shoot at him through the door and top of the cab, but Jimmy jumps off. The truck drives up a ramp, crashes through the cardboard sign on a billboard and explodes.

 

== Literature ==

* The [[Humongous Mecha]] in ''[[BattleTech]]'' novels explode, despite being powered by fusion reactors which in real life would shut down cleanly rather than going up as they'd no longer be able to sustain the nuclear reaction. The phenomenon is referred to as "stackpoling" after Michael A. Stackpole, who was particularly fond of it. (Ironically, fusion engines in the board game itself do ''not'' normally explode...except when explicitly using an optional rule intended to mimic the novels in turn.)

** Can be partially justified though, in that while the 'Mechs are fusion-powered, most often for heat reasons the weapons are NOT, and the ammo has to be stored somewhere...''[[BattleTech]]'' even allows for this in the rules by allowing players to use a item in their 'Mechs called CASE, which confines ammo explosions to the part of the 'Mech they happen in, rather than allowing the explosions to travel to (and damage) other parts of the 'Mech.

*** The part about ammo exploding when the 'Mech is damaged is a case of Truth in Television, as this happens in Real Life when a vehicle that carries ammo gets too hot for whatever reason. The soldiers refer to this as the ammo "cooking off" in a vehicle on-fire. This is what contributed to the reputation that the Sheridan light tank had in Vietnam, where it was referred to as a "deathtrap" by the men who used it. A fifty-pound mine could penetrate the floor of the tank, and as the shell propellant was stored in bags instead of shell casings...well, when a mine hit it, it often was just too bad for the crew.

* ''[[Stephanie Plum]]'': Steph is very hard on cars. She seems to get them shot up, wrecked, set on fire, or blown up approximately once a book (on average). Uncle Sandor's 1953 Buick, on the other hand, is seemingly indestructible.

{{quote|"His car went over the embankment and it caught fire. Big fallacy in movies and books like I write? Cars don't always explode and catch on fire when they do a nosedive, you know but, uh, but his did..."}}

* Justified in ''[[Across Realtime|Marooned in Realtime]]'', when Della Lu reveals that her ship carries two tonnes of antimatter so that she can escape attacks by setting it off while turning on a temporary, but impenetrable shield. Brierson is alarmed by this strategy and likens it to wearing a flak jacket made of explosives.

* In a [[Noodle Incident]] from ''Sewer, Gas & Electric'', businessman Christian Gomez, who considered safety features a waste of money, was ironically and fatally pinned in a freak collision between a driverless Lincoln Continental (failed parking brake) and a Pinto parked the wrong way around (this trope).

 

* This was a staple of cheesy 1970s and -80s action shows (''[[T. J. Hooker]], [[Starsky and Hutch (TV series)|Starsky and Hutch]]'', etc).

** ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' parodies this with fake commercials of "The Man Channel" ([[Reverse Funny Aneurysm|years before Spike TV came out]]) which features nothing but cars exploding, driving off of cliffs, flipping over, or some combination thereof in slow motion.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has many notorious scenes where a spacecraft is hit, seems OK for a moment, then goes off like it was made of nitrocellulose.

* Averted in episode "A Case of Immunity" of ''[[Columbo]]''. A car is pushed off a cliff, it tumbles down and... nothing happens.

** That said, if they're investigating a myth where there's even the slightest chance of an explosion, they will go out of their way to make sure it happens one way or another. A semi accurate description of the show's practices is, [[Rule of Cool|"Let's try it again, only with 50 pounds of TNT."]]

** Later, in the Viewers Choice Special, they blow up a car the Real way (after having some Hollywood fun). And the singular flying wheel can be seen bouncing and rolling back onscreen from the bottom right.

** Recently they took a look at the "going over a cliff" part of this trope. They finally got an explosion on the fourth car ... the one with gas containers wrapped in det cord tucked neatly inside.

* In a recent episode of ''[[24]],'' a helicopter survives {{spoiler|the shockwave from a nuclear explosion}} to crash on the roof of a two-story house, intact. When it tumbles off the house, however, it explodes in a dramatic fireball.

* The re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' averts this, showing many scenes of Vipers and Cylon fighters simply breaking up with a minimal explosion (from the missile warhead or explosive tipped ammunition). The most memorable example of this aversion is from the mini-series: Cylon missiles impact the cockpits of the new Vipers, which causes the pilot to be blown out to space, leaving the rest of the Viper more or less intact.

* Parodied in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', "The Sontaran Stratagem": {{spoiler|The Doctor is actually disappointed when the autopilot in the car he's just jumped out of self-destructs with a tiny 'phut' instead of taking the whole car with it. According to [[The Other Wiki]], the writer originally wanted to play the trope straight, but the lack of budget prompted her to lampoon the trope instead.}}

* [[Sons of Guns]] frequently features cars rigged to explode when fired upon, usually at the end of the episode.

* At least one episode of ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'', and probably more besides that, had a particularly bad instance of this: Walker confronts a car full of gang members by calmly walking out into the street, drawing his gun, and firing a single shot into the hood, setting it on fire and out of control.

*** That's because his truck runs on Awesome, which is, as we all know, non-flammable.

**** But [[Awesomeness Is Volatile]]!

'''Ian''': I was right?

'''Vecchio''': Yeah, and if you're lucky you can take that information to the grave. }}

* In season one of ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark manages to blow up a gas canister by ''throwing a screwdriver at it''. No naked flames, no sparks, just a screwdriver. What. The. Hell.

** ''Every'' car Clark seems to come in contact with explodes for no apparent reason other than "it looks real neat on camera."

* Subverted in ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' when Mac and Charlie try to fake their own deaths by creating a goodbye video and then trying to blow up the car they said they were in. They try speeding into a brick wall, shooting the gas tank of the car and even using a grenade to blow up the car, but nothing works.

* The ''[[X Files]]'' Season 4 Episode 12 - Leonard Betts' retreating car blows up after Mulder and Scully each shoot one bullet in its general direction. Admittedly Betts ''was'' trying to fake his death, but there's no mention of the car being packed with fuel cans or something.

** Usually three times. first the [[Cold Opening]] to tell the viewers they are watching ''[[Alarm Fuer Cobra 11]].'' Then again halfway through to remind them they are watching ''[[Alarm Fuer Cobra 11]]'' and finally at the end as a reward for sitting through an entire episode of ''[[Alarm Fuer Cobra 11]].''

* In an episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'', the Janitor bets his van against Cox's sports car that he can get a date with Elliot "Blonde Doctor" Reed. Cox only accepted the bet for the joy of destroying Janitor's van in front of him. When Cox eventually wins the bet he ties a brick to the gas pedal and crashes the van into a wall. Ted assures the Janitor that the damage is minimal and it can easily be fixed when the van explodes spectacularly.

* In the old PI show ''[[Mannix]]'' it was routine for a car to explode into flame after it drove off a cliff... ''even before impact, while still in mid-air''. Someone apparently liked this so much that an example showed up in the opening title sequence so we could [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM3vxbesg1A&feature=related=related see it every week!] (It's about 6 seconds in)

* In an episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]] M.D.'' called ''Distractions'', a buggy explodes in a fireball after slamming into a pile of steel tubes. The ridiculous factor is cranked up to 11, since this pile of tubes is sitting in the middle of a forest.

* Averted in the fifth episode of ''[[Terriers]]'', where main characters Britt and Hank drop a car from a cliff in order to get rid of evidence. Britt keeps staring at the car for a while after it has crashed to the ground: "Huh." To Hank's question "What were you thinking, that it would explode?", Britt replies: "I was kinda hoping, yeah."

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' provides rules for both regular vehicular damage and "dramatic" vehicular damage. Cars are far more likely to blow up in the latter case.

* Vehicles in ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' will do this [[Killer Game Master|if the GM thinks they should]]. Of course, in ''Paranoia'', even the ''shoe polish'' is [[Made of Explodium]], so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

 

== Video Games ==

* The cars in many racing games explode on impact. ''[[Pole Position (video game)|Pole Position]]'' is especially famous for this, where running into a billboard or even clipping an opponent's tire turns your car into a fireball. ''Pole Position II'' carried this a step further, with car parts spewing out of the exploding wreckage.

** This was also the case with similar games of the era such as ''Road Fighter'' and ''F1 Race''. Simply hitting on a wall, guard rail or even a safety barrier will cause the vehicle to go asplode.

* The ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series of games fulfills this trope nicely, in that every vehicle will explode when damaged enough, even if it's from a guy standing on top of the car and stomping on the hood. Later games allow for cars (and trucks, motorcycles, helicopters, tanks, and anything else with a motor in it) to explode instantly if shot in the gas tank, and even a completely undamaged car will explode lands on its roof. Though maybe this is why there is little heat from the owners when you [[Kleptomaniac Hero|rob them of their forms of transportation]]. All wheels vehicles tend to spontaneously lose at least one wheel.

** If you are able to steal a tank in ''GTA III'' (and other games of the series as well) even grazing a nearby car at relatively low speeds causes enough damage for the car to explode on impact. If you can call it that. More like ''touching''. The tank, on the other hand, remains unaffected. Great fun for driving down highways in the wrong direction. It should be noted that a tank will eventually explode from damage. They're not invulnerable, they just have ''extremely'' high endurance.

*** Oddly, in SA, driving a car over a hundred foot cliff does nothing...if it lands square on all four wheels. But, as noted, one bullet to the cap...

** Averted in ''GTA IV''. Now when a car suffers massive damage, the engine just dies and grinds to a halt. Cars still explode if you shoot them, though.

** One of the most ridiculous examples is in ''GTA III'', where the M16, with its oddly [[Gatling Good]]-like [[More Dakka|rate of fire]] can destroy almost any vehicle in three seconds' worth of bullets.

** If you manage to hijack a train in ''GTA 1'', drive it around town for long enough to encounter a second train, and hit that train, all cars of both trains will explode. Someone must have played too much ''[[Transport Tycoon]]''.

* In the ''[[Burnout]]'' series, crashes and explosions are integral to the game. "Crash Junctions" challenge you to cause as much damage as possible by plowing into traffic. Starting with ''[[Burnout]] 3: Takedown'', certain junctions have explosives strategically placed, making your car explode and creating even more havoc if you can hit them. Once enough cars have crashed, your car can explode yet again. ''[[Burnout]]: Revenge'' carries the idea even further; when your car crashes during a race, a perfectly timed explosion can turn the tables on a rival. Note that you get to STEER your burning wrack in mid-air because Burnout is just that awesome.

** ''[[Burnout]] Paradis'' allows you to turn any stretch of road into a Crash Junction. Simply turn on Crash mode, and your car will suddenly ''flip into the air and begin running into crap''. Even worse, most of the stuff you can run into will have at least minor explosions, but ''god help you'' if you run into a bus or a tanker truck.

* This also [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2564759&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=113 plagues] the first ''[[Sakura Taisen]]'' game.

* Every whole-looking car in ''[[Call of Duty]] [[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare|4]]'' 's multiplayer is apparently packed to the rafters with explosives. Enough damage to a vehicle will cause it to burn, then violently detonate. (Inflicting a great deal of damage, such as with grenades or other explosives, makes it skip straight to the 'sploding.)

** This dates back to at least the second game in the series, where [[Good Bad Bug|it's possible to blow up an immobilized tank by smashing it with the stock of your rifle a few times]].

* In ''[[F.E.A.R.]]: Extraction Point'', there are times when hitting a car in any way, be it gunfire or punching, will immediately cause it to explode. Since it doesn't happen consistently, it could possibly be just a bug.

** To be fair, the knife does a ridiculous amount of damage, and the APC is one of the only remaining drivable vehicles in the game. The rest were cut ''because'' of bugs like this.

** Works on helicopters too, if you can get high enough.

* ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|GoldenEye]]'' does this for literally every object in the game. [[Made of Explodium|Boxes, chairs, televisions, computers, cameras, toy model helicopters, and just about anything else can and will explode when shot enough.]] Oh and of course cars are naturally blown up here as well. Wait, ''even toy model cars explode''!

** This is even more absurd when you comparing to the work that inspired it: in the movie, cars are brutally smashed when the tank runs over them, but don't explode. In the game, just touch a car with the tank and it blows to smithereens.

* ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'' make no effort to avert this trope. Most of the time. Wanna know the best way to get rid of the KPA cheap knock off of a hummer? Shoot one single bullet in the gas tank on the rear side. Wait 5 seconds. Boom. However, if you shoot the mounted missile launchers of a helicopter, it will only make a tiny explosion, and the helicopter will still be able to shoot you missiles. Nonsense at its best.

** Furthermore, your meathead marine can, like Master Chief, punch vehicles to fiery explosions, including boats.

* In the ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield]]'' series, every single vehicle explodes when it suffers enough damage, turning into a blackened wreck, and then ''that'' explodes into tiny bits after it either suffers enough damage or stays there long enough.

** Averted for dramatic effect in one mission of ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company]] 2'': at one point, the armored convoy the player is currently fighting alongside is ambushed, and they take cover behind their Humvees. Despite the torrent of enemy bullets, said Humvees remain undamaged no matter how long the player hides behind them.

* ''True Crime: Streets of L.A.'' featured this, but not only in the form of cars crashing and the like: the protagonist can receive training which makes him an exceptionally good shot. Following this training, when aiming at the rear license plate the targeting reticule will turn red. If you fire, the car instantly explodes, killing everyone inside.

** Oddly, if you were in a mission that required the driver to survive, they would be unhurt in the following cutscene.

* ''Any'' prop in ''Stunt Island'' can be set up to explode upon impact. Yes, even street signs, rocks, and buildings.

* ''[[Nitrome|Off the Rails]]'' applies this to the protagonists' hand-powered trolley cart, in what seems to be a deliberate parody of the trope.

* In ''[[Syphon Filter]]'', cars explode violently after just a few shots, preventing you from [[Take Cover|using them as cover]].

* ''[[Stranglehold]]'': Blast up a vehicle badly enough in the game and it will go boom in classic [[John Woo]] style.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] multiple times in ''[[Postal (video game series)|Postal]] II''. The Dude repeatedly refers to all the cars in Paradise as "useless exploding props". Sure enough, any car you come across explodes violently and flies high into the air with just a few bullets.

 

* When Aylee from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980228&mode=weekly drives Torg's car], some of the five dozen or so cars she demolishes fall under this trope.

{{quote|"Stupid kitten!"}}

* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', Every Airship Is A Pinto, but "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120518 only...in dose cheap novels]".

 

== Web Original ==

* In "Ayla and the Late Trevor James Goodkind" in the [[Whateley Universe]], Phase specifically points out that gas tanks don't explode for real, like they do in movies. Just as the mutant supervillain blasts the car beside Phase and its gas tank explodes, blowing Phase across the street.

* Happens on one memorable occasion in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' - whereupon a car is crashed into a warehouse by a contestant and proceeds to explode a few seconds later. Bonus points for this causing the building to go up in a gigantic fireball too.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' has parodied it many times, including an exploding milk truck and a Gremlin driven by Hans Moleman... which coasts to a stop and ''doesn't'' hit anything, but still explodes. And it's not just cars, either. At least one episode had an ''empty shopping cart'' run into a tree and burst into flames.

** In another episode, Bart claims the ridiculously run down and unsafe school bus they are in is "much better than the old bus". Cut to said bus completely immobile on some bricks only to burst into flames when a ''leaf'' falls on it.

** Yet another example: Chief Wiggum rolling down a hill in a beer costume, hitting a tree, and exploding.

** Lisa and Marge fire bees at a Jeep. All of the bees seen hit the tires, causing them to deflate. Then, the Jeep catches on fire.

** And who can forget the Canyonero, which might catch on fire RANDOMLY

* The ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Cartoon Wars" features a scene where Kyle's tricycle is driven off a cliff. The tricycle then bounces over rocks all the way down, hits the bottom... then ''explodes''.

** Also parodied in the ''It's a Trap!'' spoof of ''[[Return of the Jedi]]' with the famous speederbike chase, except with regular bicycles. And yes, they explode when hitting a tree. Additionally, a bicycle crashes, and a hurt stormtrooper gets up and limps a little before blowing up (the stormtrooper, not the bike).

* At the very end of ''[[A Goofy Movie]]'', there is a hilarious use of this. This movie had not used a lot of slapstick comedy before this moment, so it comes as a complete surprise when Goofy kicks his car, which was a little broken and he smiles and points at it, resulting in a [[Beat]] after which the ''entire'' car '''''BLOWS THE HELL UP''''' and knocks Goofy straight up out of his socks until he crashes through Roxanne's roof.

* An episode of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' has Squidward falling off a cliff without any vehicle, and exploding to a [[Mushroom Cloud]] when he hits the bottom.

** It did happen to a few other characters throughout the series, too.

* ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' TOS episode "The Quetong Missile Mystery". When Lieutenant Singh's car falls into a gully and is smashed up, it bursts into flames seconds later.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' does this in the episode "The Sting" when running from the giant space bees, several of them crash into the walls of the beehive and instantly burst into flames and explode.

* Averted in ''[[101 Dalmatians|One Hundred and One Dalmatians]]''. When Horace and Jasper's truck crashes into Cruella's car at the end, both vehicles get smashed to bits as they fly off the edge of a cliff, but there's no explosion. Of course, the fact that Cruella, Horace, and Jasper all survive this is somewhat improbable, but it has nothing to do with this trope.

 

== Real Life ==

** The video in question was shot by researchers at UCLA who were investigating what a gas tank explosion would do to a car's interior. Their first crash attempt had failed to produce a fire, so for their second attempt, they rigged the gas tank to explode on impact. 20/20 showed the film [[Did Not Do the Research|without mentioning that little detail]], leaving an impression on viewers' minds that Ford Pintos would routinely explode on impact. They did have a design flaw where a rear impact could rupture the gas tank, leaking gas which could then be ignited by sparks from broken wires in the electrical system. But even if both those events occurred, the result would be a fire, not an explosion.

** They did the same thing with the "problem" with the gas tanks on Chevrolet pick-ups.

* Space shuttles and rockets during the takeoff phase tend to blow up when their fuel tanks are damaged. Thankfully, so far, Challenger has been the only US example that killed anyone.

** Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' was lost because it was travelling about Mach 20 when, because of lost heat tiles, some of the aluminum frame melted or lost strength. Air at Mach 20 is very very hard if you are not streamlined... [[Not the Fall That Kills You|It wasn't the fall that killed them, it was that sudden midair stop...]]

*** Manned rockets also have self-destruct charges. In the Challenger accident, after it broke up (much like Columbia, it was the aerodynamic forces that destroyed the vehicle, [[wikipedia:Challenger accident#No .22explosion.22|not an explosion]]), the solid rocket boosters continued flying separated from the vehicle, and the RSO had to blow them up.

* All rockets, being designed to operate outside of the atmosphere, carry both fuel (say, hydrogen) and oxidizer (say, liquid oxygen). The two components are picked BECAUSE they burn together very very hot. Bad consequences if they mix and ignite in the wrong place (outside the engine) or at the wrong time. This has happened to every sort of rocket, from the pre-V2 rockets of both Robert Goddard and the VfR in Germany, to modern satellite carriers. Worse, some of them can use "hypergolic" fuel/oxidizer chemicals, which means they ignite ''themselves'' when mixed. One bad valve and FOOM!

** The Me-163 Komet was a rocket powered interceptor in World War 2 that used hypergolic fuels. These occasionally exploded on ''landing''. And sometimes on takeoff.

** The early versions of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle also had a problem with catching fire when hit.

* While this trope does occur in real life sometimes, it is very rare. Sadly, Hollywood has convinced the public that it is extremely common and that crashed cars are in danger of exploding at any moment (typically, the instant the hero throws himself to the ground). Every year, dozens of car accident victims are injured further (sometimes to the point of paralysis), not by the car exploding, but by other people pulling the victim out of the car because Hollywood has taught them that cars explode and victims must be pulled out as soon as possible. Do not remove an accident victim from a wrecked car unless the car is actually burning! Sometimes not even ''if'' the car is actually burning. If a car is burning, it's usually burning at or near the engine. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't burn between the engine and the seats, including, y'know, the engine itself.

** The pervasion of this trope leads many people to be killed when they exit their crashed vehicle under their own power (fearing the explosion) and then get run over by ''other traffic''. Once again kids, stay in the vehicle unless it's on fire.

** Zig-Zagged [http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20110913/detenida-por-supuesto-asesinato-marido-incendio-colmenar-viejo-madrid/461099.shtml in Spain in 2011] when a suicidal woman loaded her car to the top with gasoline cans, rear-ended a lorry, and survived with no damage due to fire. The trope was thus invoked, exaggerated, inverted and averted.

* There are many videos of race cars crashing and exploding into flames. Most spectacularly, nitromethane-powered dragsters. This is partially due to most racing accidents occur at very high speeds and are therefore a lot more severe than your typical highway accident, and partly due to higher-octane fuels used. The Indy Racing League, for example, uses methanol instead of gasoline—a much more volatile fuel.

** Not entirely unexpected, as nitromethane is highly combustible and has a very energetic burn. Its vapors are even more volatile, so it is basically Explodium in liquid form.

** A rather significant example from NASCAR would be Juan Pablo Montoya's collision with a jet fuel dryer on lap 160 of the 2012 Daytona 500, which destroyed Montoya's car and caused jet fuel in the dryer to leak and burst into flames.

** Car bombs usually have nothing to do with the explosive properties of the car itself. It's just the car loaded with explosives.

* During the start of a V8 Supercars race in Perth, Australia, a Holden Commodore driven by Karl Reindler [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7PRHu6pN9k exploded in flames] after stalling and being rear-ended by another race car.

* An old story. A very early prototype of what would eventually become the automobile was steam powered and could reach a top speed of ''three miles an hour''. Despite these relatively innocuous details, it ran into a wall at "top speed" and its boiler exploded.

* High-performance supercars can be slightly closer to [[Truth in Television]] here, because of the exotic materials used in their construction and the red-line conditions they're often subjected to. And regardless of the increased danger, they tend to burn up very quickly and intensely because of the exotic materials.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Chase Scene]]

[[Category:Stuff Blowing Up]]

[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]