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** In ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]'', the Lotus Esprit from ''[[The Spy Who Loved Me]]'' self-destructs when one of the bad guys tries to use the butt of his gun to break into the car.

* Famously done [[How We Got Here|in the opening scene]] of ''[[Casino]]''. Sam is narrating to himself as he walks out of a restaurant into his car, and it explodes when he turns the key. {{spoiler|Subverted, however, as we see later on that he survived.}}

* ''[[Angels and Demons]]'' ([[The Movie]]): [[The Dragon]] is [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|killed]] this way.

* In ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', a judge is shown out to her car by secret service types with sealed instructions as to her destination. When she opens the envelope, the note contains only a single word: "UP". '''BOOM.'''

* The non-fiction "Prince of the City". The corrupt cop testifying against his former colleagues would have his police bodyguards check his car for explosives every day. Showing typical cop humor, the bodyguards would then stand on the street with their fingers in their ears while he turned the ignition.

* British agent [[Quiller]] was the target of one of these in Tunisia. Fortunately, the bombers didn't have the chance to wire the bomb to the ignition, so they set it to go off when the car experienced a sharp vibration, such as the door closing. And then a heavy bus rumbled by and triggered it while Quiller was still halfway across the street. In Adam Hall's typical narrative style, it's stated:

* Happened to one of [[NUMA Series|Dirk Pitt's]] many vintage automobiles. He wasn't in it, and he had it restored at the end of the book.

 

* ''[[The Professionals]]'' ("The Purging of CI5"). Bodie and Doyle have just escaped a bomb in their phone, and Doyle worries there might be another in the car they've just gotten into. He suggests Bodie wait across the street while he starts the ignition. Bodie just gives him a contemptuous look and says "Oh just [[Ho Yay|stick it in!]]" (There's no bomb).

* Spoofed in the ''[[Community]]'' episode "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design", when a car belonging to Annie is rigged to blow to scare her and Jeff off investigating the college's night school and the mysterious Professor Professorson... except the car in question is a small model car on a diorama she's constructed, and the 'explosion' is a handful of small, insignificant sparks.

* In the ''[[Miami Vice]]'' pilot, this is what happened to Crockett's first partner.

* This occurred once or twice on ''[[The Rockford Files]]''. However, the interesting part was not the explosion, but rather Jim's attempt to explain what happened to his insurance agent.