The Alleged Car: Difference between revisions

== Fan Works ==

{{quote|I insist, though, that when in Transbelvia, the truly discriminating tourist is obligated to drive the national automobile, the one and only Belv. The Belv is the quintessential East European car, a tiny tin box with a two-stroke motor that sounds like a mimeograph machine on Self-Destruct and smells like a burning blackwall tire. This particular one had a four-speed manual gearbox that liked to crunch and jitter on shifts, brakes operated by cables, and no gauges that worked. }}

* Non-car example: [[Midnight Green|Midnight Green's]] dilapidated cart that he quite happily smashes into a tree.

* The car that the title character drives in ''Mr. Hulot's Holiday'' is so underpowered and rickety, duct-tape and bailing wire could be considered luxury extras.

* The [[James Bond]] movies have a few examples.

** Subverted in ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]''. ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'' has to flee along with [[Action Girl]] Melina after his [[Cool Car|Lotus Esprit]] gets blown up and she kills the man who killed her parents with a crossbow. He discovers that her car is a 2CV. It proves surprisingly effective.

* Speaking of Citroën 2CV, the one driven by Soeur Clotilde in ''The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez'' is literally broken apart by the ride's end, losing its doors, wings, windscreen and even the rear axle. Though it's mostly because the nun [[Drives Like Crazy]].

* The Doctor from ''[[Doctor Who]]'' apparently has a particular affection for this trope. In the [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novels, he has a Trabant, as featured in the [[Real Life]] section of this trope page. Even better: he drives it during his stint as a single father and wealthy business consultant, working with the kind of people who drive "Porsches and BMWs", next to which the Trabant looks like "an old drunk uncle at a wedding". He keeps a ton of books in it and it often stalls (in one scene, his would-be-love interest is foiled by his [[Oblivious to Love|generally oblivious personality]] and the fact he's preoccupied by trying to get the car to start), but at the end it has its own little [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when the Doctor needs to go rescue {{spoiler|his daughter from being whisked off the planet}}:

{{quote|The Doctor smiled, and slammed his foot on the Trabant’s accelerator, astonishing the owners of the Audi he cruised past.}}

* In the early ''[[Spenser]]'' detective novels, Spenser drives several of these. The first was a 1968 Chevy convertible in such awful condition that everyone he meets remarks on it. He justifies keeping it by saying that if it gets damaged in the line of duty, he doesn't care all that much. He later wrecks a Subaru somewhere near the Charles River locks. By the 1990s, he's switched to something better, but he still loses cars with some frequency after that, and implies he's never too attached to them.

** Carried over to the TV series; in one instance, Spenser complains that his car was nearly totaled, and Hawke [[Deadpan Snarker|quips]], "that would be redundant."

** And in a complete subversion of this (and the jokes against Toyota above in the Jokes folder) we have the Toyota Hilux. The first one certainly looked like this trope when Jeremy got it. However it was proven that it can't die no matter what you put it through. The little [[Determinator]] was driven down stairs, against rock walls, into a tree, lost to the tide, dropped from a crane, had a caravan dropped on it from a crane, hit by a wrecking ball, driven through a shed, set on fire, and dropped from a controlled demolition site. It still drives. Sure it has seawater in a headlight, the dash was destroyed, and there are dents and scrapes everywhere... but it runs. Later they used (new, fresh, and modified) Hilux to drive to the North Pole, ''and to an active volcano'' (...after that one ''also'' drove to the north pole).

** Played with in the Albania episode, where the trio were asked to see which of three premium luxury cars (A Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes, and a Bentley) was best for a ''Leading Light'' in the Albanian Mafia. Bentley pulled-out due to not wanting to be associated with organized crime and a suffering a sudden sense-of-humor deficiency. Undeterred by this Jeremy purchased a none-too-gently-used Yugo and for the rest of the series they pretended this car was in fact an example of the Bentley Mulsanne they were originally scheduled to test as a [[Take That]] for chickening-out.

* The [[Top Gear US|American version]] of ''Top Gear'' has had its fair share of alleged cars.

** In the Alaska Special, Tanner's Chevy allegedly had a diesel engine. The fuel gauge even said it "diesel fuel only". It turned out to be a Chevy Small Block. {{spoiler|He still won, and it was the only truck to finish.}}

** The "Shitmobile".(1975 Chrysler New Yorker 4 door hardtop) It's missing the passenger side front door entirely, and requires a specific method of key turning to start it. It breaks down periodically, but is also shown to be nigh indestructible. The boys have knocked down parking meters and even ''walls'' with it, and still been able to drive away.

** Most of the cars in the show start out in good condition, but usually end up this way by the end of the season. Mr. Lahey's car ended up providing parts for the Shitmobile, and later his cop car ended up without a roof of any sort, which didn't stop any of the characters from driving it.

** Also fitting in this categories have been alleged snow plows, cranes, cement trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, war machines and just about every other kind of moving contraption.

* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv0onXhyLlE famous scene] in the ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' episode "Gourmet Night" where Basil Fawlty's car breaks down in the middle of the road. He then starts shouting at the car, kicks it and runs offscreen... Only to return a few seconds later with a ''tree branch'' to start hitting the car out of frustration. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|One of the funniest and most memorable moments of the series]] and, arguably, British [[Sitcom]] history.

* In ''[[I Love Lucy]]'', Fred is put in charge with buying a blue Cadillac convertible. The first tip-off is that he bought it for $300.

* The Bluth Company's stair-car from ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''. While it runs perfectly well, it's slow, very large (wrecking banners and signs suspended high up); hitchhikers hop onto the back of the car whenever it stops, and the driver has to start braking several minutes before they need to get to a full stop.

* Greg's first car in ''[[The Brady Bunch]]''.

* On ''[[Red Dwarf]]'':

* ''[[BattleTech]]'' players may be familiar with the Hetzer Wheeled Assault Gun, basically an alleged ''[[Tank Goodness|tank]]''. Among its "virtues" are a fairly slow wheeled chassis that prevents it from traversing many types of terrain compounded by lack of a turret for its only weapon, a battery weak enough that its engine needs to keep running pretty much nonstop to keep it charged, and a tendency to reach the customer not quite fully assembled at times. (If you're lucky, somebody thought to include the bolts to fix the last components in place.) It arguably ''is'' one of the cheapest ways available to field an [[BFG|AC/20]], but between its flaws and the fact that its big gun makes it an obvious fire magnet it's no surprise that many of its crews consider it a rolling coffin in-universe.

** All that above said, it is not totally unreasonable when you consider that it is a real-life ''World War II'' era design. Go look it up, we'll wait.

* ''[[Chez Geek]]'' from Steve Jackson Games includes, as one of the things you can spend your money on, a card representing "Harold the Hoopty Car". It's worth a lot of Slack (points), but it's very expensive, reduces your effective Income for each turn by 1, and every turn it has a one-in-six chance of breaking down beyond repair.

* In ''[[Adeptus Evangelion]]'', this can be the Player's Evangleion if the player rolls poorly. It can be made by the lowest bidder or held together by duct tape (they're on the same table so it can't be both), have pressurized blood that squirts everywhere, lose bolts in battle that destroy nearby buildings, have a fractured mind, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|be colored Neon Green.]]

* Some of the cars in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' qualify. They look ugly as hell, and are painfully slow.

** In ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' a few of the cars come in a 'beater' variant which is in horrible condition, with rusty bodywork, oxidized paint, missing panels and inferior performance (also, they backfire constantly). [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/gtawiki/images/e/e7/Vigero_(GTA4)_(beater_2)_(front).jpg This one is a perfect example], and yes, that is duct-tape holding one of the windows in. And some of them even have alarms.

* ''[[Gran Turismo|Gran Turismo 4]]'' has many useless historic cars, including the Daimler Motor Carriage(1 HP!), Ford Model T, Daihatsu Midget I, Fiat 500F/R, Subaru 360, 1948 VW Beetle, 1954 Corvette, etc.

* ''[[Forza Motorsport]] 4'' has a couple famous Alleged Cars, like the [[Every Car Is a Pinto|Ford Pinto]], the Chevrolet Corvair - famous for wrapping itself around trees due to massive oversteer tendencies, the Datsun 510, and the Mustang King Cobra. They all function fine, though they are ''painfully'' slow when stock - though some are absurdly fast once upgraded with more modern parts.

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'':

** Crazy Vaclav, whose cars are prone to breaking down. ([[Rule of Funny|And for those of you playing at home]], [[Unit Confusion|a hectare is a unit of area, not length]])

** Elderly [[Butt Monkey]] Hans Moleman has an AMC Gremlin that blew up when he stopped the car mere inches from being smashed into a tree.

** Bart stole the engine from Skinner's car by tying it up to helium balloons. To which Skinner replies "That's a rebuilt Yugoslavian engine; there isn't even a Yugoslavia anymore! Bring it back at once!"

[[Category:Vehicle Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alleged Car, The}}