The Ten Most Ridiculous Hollywood Car Gadgets
When Hollywood's not blowing cars up they're outfitting them with spectacularly unrealistic gizmos and weapons. Plot hole? Just fill it with an invisible mode or turbo boost. With your help, we've identified the ten most ridiculous Hollywood car gadgets.
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10.) The Morph
Used In: Viper
What It Does: Morphs a Dodge Viper RT/10 into a snake-skinned, armored "Defender" death machine.
Why It's Ridiculous: You know what's stealthier than a Dodge Viper? A crazy-looking, snake-skinned supercar. This little piece of ridiculous technology led to increasingly more unnecessary weapons, including a "turbine" booster, bolo-launcher, and hovercraft.
Suggested by: SennaMP4
9.) Self-Inflating Super Grip Tires
From: Speed Racer (live action)
What It Does: These tires manage to be both super grippy and powerful, and yet so small they're capable of re-inflating with the touch of a button.
Why It's Ridiculous: Just look at this photo. Where, exactly, is the new tire coming from? Is it wrapped around the wheel? Is there a tire-in-a-tire? Perhaps this is why your tires keep blowing up.
Suggested by: Bullitt417
8.) The Red Button
From: Men In Black
What It Does: Turns a standard government-issue Crown Vic into a wall-climbing menace.
Why It's Ridiculous: It's the good kind of ridiculous, showing a sense of humor while completely avoiding any sense of physics. If you've got a flying car why not just fly over the tunnel? Oh well, it's got an 8-track player.
Suggested by: Smalleyxb122
7.) Remote Control Roadblocks
From: Nothing But Trouble
What It Does: What Village Police car isn't equipped with a giant panel of R/C-controlled roadblocks.
Why It's Ridiculous: No cop car's ever keeping up with an E23 733i, even if it's being driven by Chevy Chase. So when turboboost doesn't work, there's no other way to go then using the R/C roadblocks. Makes perfect sense. Listen to the German translation of John Candy.
Suggested by: rebeldevil
6.) A Flying Matador
From: The Man With The Golden Gun
What It Does: Turns this lowly Matador into a plane.
Why It's Ridiculous: We'll let Jones Foyer explain:
It's preposterous. Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun can buy an island and a multi-billion dollar little private setup, but he drives a Matador? The trick setup is that he drives the dreadful thing into a barn and attaches wings and flies away. As gadget cars go, It's pretty silly that the car itself couldn't grow wings. Wouldn't it be better to drive to the barn and hop in a plane? Well, that wouldn't be very James Bond, would it? Typical Roger Moore era Bond gadgetry gone too far.
Suggested by: Jones Foyer
5.) Super Pursuit Mode
From: Knight Rider
What It Does: It magically transforms into a shark-jumping vehicle.
Why It's Ridiculous: How bad does an idea have to be to undermine the intellectual integrity of a show about a talking car? KITT's Super-Pursuit Mode was designed to make the car faster (in excess of 400 mph), but all it did was drive the series into the ground with more speed.
Suggested by:
4.) A Taxi With Snow Tracks
From: Taxi 3
What It Does: As this clip shows, there's almost nothing the taxi doesn't do, but we're focusing on the tank-like snow tracks that the Peugeot 406 uses to ski down a mountain.
Why It's Ridiculous: Sylvester Stallone is like a ridiculous shibboleth, which is even funnier when you consider he's unlikely able to pronounce shibboleth. He's in this video. Also, where the hell are you going to store those things? All the gadgets on the crazy 406 appear out of nowhere.
Suggested by: Vavon205
3.) Transforming Gypsy Caravan Condormobile Ramp
From: Condorman
What It Does: His gypsy car turns from a crappy truck to an Opel-ish sports car. Quick, outrun the Porches. Oh, that doesn't work? You've just brought more attention to yourself? Rear-mounted lasers! FInally, if that doesn't work, just try fire. Also, this video could easily double as Hollywood's most ridiculous explosions.
Why It's Ridiculous: Ultimately, it's the ramp feature we love. How often do you have to find yourself in a situation where a car's driving directly at you before you decide: yeah, a ramp on the front's probably a good diea?
Suggested by: Jones Foyer
2.) Vehicle Jamming System
From: 2 Fast 2 Furious
What It Does: Attaches itself to a car and disables the ECU controlling the car.
Why It's Ridiculous: In the film it's attached to the door panel which, if you didn't know, is not where most cars store them. The concept of "zapping" a car to kill the electronics isn't a new one, but in the film it somehow magically "hacks" into the car and disables it as opposed to just frying everything. It doesn't quite work that way... yet.
Suggested by: Crossdrilled
1.) Active Car Camouflage
From: Die Another Day
What It Does: Turns Bond's gorgeous Aston Martin Vanquish into an invisible car.
Why It's Ridiculous: The concept of active camo isn't entirely far-fetched, as nature's found a way to pull it off. The issue here is execution. It's utterly ridiculous to watch a V12-powered car sneak up on a bunch of unsuspecting cars only to be found out by a Jaguar that just happens to have thermal imaging. Has someone checked to see if Q's been hitting the sauce again?
Suggested by: Giestkoening