Here’s question of the Week: What’s Your Favorite Animated Car of All Time?—WINNER’S UPDATE
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our winner will receive their laurels in the form of a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store.
This week, we asked: What’s your favorite animated car of all time?
Thanks to everyone who participated! We filled up our cereal bowls, flipped on the screen, and went straight to work reviewing your nominations. There was no ignoring that Speed Racer’s gadget-packed Mach 5 received a bulk of the nominations, with 18 mentions as of this writing! So we’re handing the prize to the user who first nominated it—@ConnMan1966!
“Hands Down the Mach5. There is no contest here people. The homing pigeon, the car drives under water, the jump jacks, extension saws! And that profile and the cold start at the beginning of the cartoon! Epic!”
Congratulations, ConnMan1966, and to all those of like mind! Now let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread:
“Doc Hudson!”
A number of characters from the Cars movie franchise were also nominated, but Doc was the most popular pick this week.
“The Jetsons family car, which gave an optimistic vision of the future. Still waiting for my flying car.”
Username checks out.
@ant writes:
I’ll resist being the obligatory lowrider this time around and go with the animated car that spoke to me in a visceral way. For most of my life, I didn’t care for speed. Well, I raced bicycles a little bit, but it always puzzled me that dudes in the comments of BaT back in the really old days would say things like “Save the manuals!” I even learned how to drive stick in my brother’s Acura Legend, but it wasn’t my car, and I never leaned into it nor understood the hype.
Well, fast forward to needing an affordable and “modern” daily driver. Got myself a real cheap 93 Integra with an automatic during Covid days and (by suggestion of my students) started watching Initial D. Not more than a few months into owning that car, it was totaled, and I somehow lucked myself into a 92 Integra GS-R. The word I used earlier – visceral – is the only way I can describe the understanding of that “old” TV show car racing through the mountain roads of Japan. That feeling of “being one with the car” was not only portrayed realistically enough that I could relate to it in real time, but I also had a car that wasn’t a far match from a few of Takumi’s opponents… to this day, VTEC FF will always be my favorite.
Long story short: this week it’s gotta be The Fujiwara Tofu Delivery AE86 Trueno.
“Devil Z from “Wangan Midnight””
Someone even dedicated their time to extracting the Devil Z’s L28 soundtrack from the background music, and jam-packed it all into one video. Enjoy!
“Speed Buggy.”
@Giantsgiants says:
I’m going to go with Susie the Little Blue Coupe because her story reminds me of what happened to my first car (a 1989 Volvo 760). Much like Susie’s owner, my family initially saw our car for sale and fell in love with it (although in our case, we bought it from a family friend). We always garaged it, and it worked for my family’s lifestyle, and it eventually became my car in high school and college.
But as the years passed, Susie and my Volvo showed their age, and things started failing. What did my Volvo in was a dying transmission, which we decided wasn’t worth fixing. We decided to scrap it, but when we got to the junkyard, we were approached by a guy wanting to buy it off us to use as a parts car. We accepted his offer, and at least I could take solace knowing my car would go on to save someone else’s. So in Susie the Little Blue Coupe, I see my big black Volvo.
“Go Go Gadgetmobile!”
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
Someone almost always nominates an animated car in nearly every Question of the Week, and we wish we could take these entries more seriously when it’s time to pick the winners. So this week we’re giving them their due by asking:
What’s your favorite animated car of all time?
For many of us, our automotive fascinations began with Saturday morning cartoons or on the big screen. Some were loosely based on real-life cars, others were anthropomorphized, and at least one even bankrupted a long-lost half-brother’s automotive company.
So tell us your suggestions in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
The Gadgetmobile, seen in a number of iterations, began as a wedge-shaped crime fighter and was later based on a 1964 Lincoln Continental for the live-action Disney films released in 1999 and 2003.
@CarDogThreePedals writes:
I’m going to go with a car that I believe I first heard on the record before I actually saw the movie. It’s “Cruella de Vil’s” menacing motorcar from 1961’s “101 Dalmatians.”
Based on a 1920 Alvis Speed drophead coupe and a 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Weinberger Cabriolet, it really gave me the chills as a kid, but I was utterly fascinated with it. Even the headlights were mean. The car was PERFECT for her character. I can’t imagine the movie without it.
As with the rest of the movie, Disney really did their homework on her car and absolutely nailed it.
“Tom Slick’s Thunderbolt Grease Slapper”
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SteveIOMTT commented on Question of the Week: What's Your Favorite Animated Car of All Time?—WINNER’S UPDATE
“Can you name the truck with four wheel drive? She smells like a steak and seats thirty five. Canyonero!
She blinds everybody with her super high beams. She a squirrel squashin’, deer smackin’, driving machine. Canyonero!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5_QTO-NJOw“
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Dazed_and_Amused commented on Question of the Week: What's Your Favorite Animated Car of All Time?—WINNER’S UPDATE
“JP’s Trans Am 20000 WR from Redline.”
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HeyNk commented on Question of the Week: What's Your Favorite Animated Car of All Time?—WINNER’S UPDATE
On an unrelated note:
“Seeing as how Toy Story 5 is upon us in the movie theaters, it’s only appropriate to say my favorite animated car is the Toyota-ish Pizza Planet truck featured throughout the entire Toy Story cannon (that’s it for spoiler alerts!), who’s row-your-own gearbox gets a particular workout in Toy Story 2, when the toys grind the truck’s gears learning to drive it to save Woody. As a forever MT enthusiast, I’m always thrilled to see 3 pedals and a stick represented in film, and accurately…”
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MrMitsu commented on Question of the Week: What's Your Favorite Animated Car of All Time?—WINNER’S UPDATE
“Oh, I seriously doubt he’s getting this kind of mileage.”
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, ConnMan1966. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST: