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Improbably Cool Car: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''Who buys a fifty-thousand dollar car for a sixteen-year-old kid? Just who are you trying to impress!?''
|'''Ms. Hatzilakos''', ''[[Degrassi]]'' <ref>to her ex-husband who had done exactly that.</ref>}}
Similar to the [[Cool Car]], but there's no logical reason for the character to have it. They don't fight crime, they're not wealthy, they've never shown a particular interest in cars or any mechanical aptitude, and yet their daily driver is something right off the showroom floor of the local Porsche dealer? [[Fridge Logic|How did that happen?]]
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Odd [[Manga]] example: in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'', the character, a Japanese student, winds up having {{spoiler|''a WWII-era experimental Japanese fighter plane''}}, which is never mentioned again after the story when he receives it. Likewise, the same character inherits a vintage (and operating) extremely expensive motorcycle, again which is never mentioned again after the story when he receives it (although the story ends with a good in-context reason for never seeing that bike again).
* ''[[Gunsmith Cats
** Of course she might have inherited it from her father.
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* A few important characters in Richard Linklater's ''[[Dazed and Confused]]'', despite being rather ordinary high school students attending Extremely Average High School High, drive pricey and/or incredibly slick and rare cars which middle- and working-class kids would be quite unlikely to own, as noted in the Criterion DVD commentary. Examples include Pickford's 1970 GTO Judge, and a rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird which appears briefly in the background. Some of the better cars belonging to named characters, however, are driven by the few slightly older, non-high school students. In [[The Seventies|1976]], most muscle cars were at least four years old and thought of as cheap gas-guzzling used cars, but rusted out sixties sedans would probably have been more believable.
* ''[[Charlie Bartlett]]'' depicts a Mercedes 600 Grosser in use as a chauffeured vehicle by a non-car-enthusiast owner in the early 2000s. Apparently it hasn't yet run up a repair bill that approaches the cost of a three-year lease on a Lincoln Town Car...bit ''it will''...
* [[Bo Burnham]]
== [[Literature]] ==
* Entertainingly averted in ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' (though probably not intentionally). Bella's impossibly gorgeous, [[Badass]] [[All Girls Want Bad Boys|brooding]] vampire love interest Edward Cullen drives... (drumroll please) ...a ''Volvo'', while Bella herself has a classic '60s Chevy pickup.
== [[Live
* Averted in ''[[Seinfeld]]''. Jerry Seinfeld is a Porsche fanatic in real life, and the apartment set is peppered heavily with Porsche memorabilia, but his TV persona drove an innocuous Saab. However, Kramer drives a spotless 1970s Chevrolet Impala, improbable for a car that presumably spent 20 years parked curbside in Manhattan.
* Justified in ''[[Life]]'', where the ordinary cop character drives a flashy Bentley thanks to a large legal settlement. {{spoiler|The car is crushed by a tractor at the end of the pilot episode}}.
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* Eli's early '60s Cadillac-based hearse in ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]''. Most hearses in Canada at that time would've been based on Buicks (which were made in Canada, Caddys weren't), and the most available hearse for a teenager in 2010 would be a late '80s/early '90s Caddy, most of which are just now being sold out of funeral service and which use easy and (relatively) cheap-to-get-parts-for small-block Chevy engines.
* [[My Name Is Earl]] has, in our only view of the local high school, an obnoxious student with a mint 1967 Chevy Camaro despite being sixteen and in a town implied to be mainly rundown and poor.
* For a time in [[The Sixties]], George Barris-customized [[Thememobile]] cars were almost ''de rigeur'' for [[Sitcom]] characters who were in any way eccentric. [[The Munsters]]' Koach ''(sic)'', [[The Monkees|the Monkeemobile]] and of course the '60s [[Batman|Batmobile]] came out of this.
* One episode of ''[[In Plain Sight]]'' lampshades this when Mary has to replace her old car which was wrecked in a shootout. Her sister's rich boyfriend owns a car dealership and he hooks up Mary with a great looking vintage muscle car. However, Mary's boss quickly points out that the car is way too noticeable. A US Marshall working for Witness Protection cannot stand out and Mary is forced to return the car to the dealership.
* In ''[[Magnum, P.I.]]'' Magnum goes around in a prize Ferrari which is not only something to conspicuous for the work of a hired gumshoe, but would be irresponsible to take into the nasty parts of town that his job sometimes takes him to. It is a zig-zag as he has a running security contract with a rich writer which reasonably allows him some perks but in real life those should be enjoyed off duty.
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