Nothing expresses the freedom and the downright awesomeness of cars like seeing them catapulted through the air. Now Jalopnik readers have picked the most defining, unbelievable car jumps ever put to film.
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Sometimes the totally cheesy, utterly fake car jumps (and none are hokier than the infamous not-Bollywood tractor jump) are just what you're looking for. Other times you're floored by real-life jumps performed by totally unhinged stuntmen.
But there's something elemental about all car jumps. There is something invigorating in seeing four wheels leave the ground. The ordinary rules no longer apply. The cops can't chase you, no downed bridge can stop you. A car jump is liberation.
Photo Credit: The Man with the Golden Gun
10.) Terminator 2 Truck Off A Bridge
Even now you get shivers watching that truck bear down on you. It is defiant, unstoppable.
Suggested By: Ash78
9.) The Bullitt Chase
Other car jumps are single moments of flight. Bullitt had cars flying over and over again through San Francisco streets. It is a defining piece of car culture.
Suggested By: Trunk Impaired 318
8.) The Transporter Jump
You have to love at least one totally fake, unbelievably cheesy car jump. This one does the trick.
Suggested By: Anon4472
7.) Smokey and the Bandit Over The Creek
There is an entire genre of ‘Southern car jumps' and we raise a Coors to the most classic Southern jump of all: the leap over the Mulberry Bridge in Smokey and the Bandit. "I want to jump something else!"
Suggested By: Brian, The Life of
6.) The Ending of Thelma and Louise
Car jumps are about freedom. Perhaps none are more liberating than the one at the end of Thelma and Louise.
Suggested By: wheatieboy
5.) The Original Gone In 60 Seconds
No CGI tricks here in the original: all real cars, all real damage, all real jumps.
Suggested By: CobraJoe
4.) Live Free or Die Hard Into A Helicopter
Nothing quite captures big Hollywood blockbuster excess quite like jumping a car into a helicopter.
Suggested By: bigfish13.jf
3.) Blues Brothers Over A Bridge
Every time you see a bridge lift like this, you feel the deep, human desire to jump it. Blues Brothers nails that.
Suggested By: waveridin1959
2.) The Bond Corkscrew
The Man With The Golden Gun has most fantastic jump in cinema history, otherwise ruined by the worst sound effect in cinema history.
Suggested By: 6cyl
1.) The Ferris Jump
As we have said, the trope of car jumping is an expression of freedom. Nothing captures that weightlessness like the valets in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It is elemental.
Suggested By: PTLmarketingltd