Some of our greatest loves for a classic car are born from a trip to the movies: Steve McQueen’s green Mustang from Bullitt. Tom Cruise’s Porsche 928 from Risky Business. James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5.
The list is practically endless because there are so many cars in movies. Even movies where we only remember one car being shown can have dozens of lesser noticed vehicles.
A problem, however, is our memories: which model exactly was that character driving? Was it in the beginning of the movie or the middle? Was it after the crocodile scene, or before? Suppose that you’re trying to restore a car to match a certain one in a movie; wouldn’t it be helpful to know exactly which shade of red it was?
Fortunately, there is a website that specifically tracks down each and every car used in every single film ever. That’s the aspiration, at least. Meet IMCDB, the Internet Movies Cars Database. Some of you might recognize its naming convention from IMDB, a popular website that records details about movies. This car-centered website might not have the polish of its Amazon.com-owned namesake, but it does fill a niche that the original has overlooked.
Take a film we mentioned earlier, Risky Business, for example.
Everyone remembers Tom Cruise’s smarmy character giving the tagline, “Porsche: There is no substitute,” after eluding the bad guys in the chase scene. Thanks to IMCDB we know that he did so in a 1979 Porsche 928 4.5. Clicking on that car’s screenshot, we see a lively forum where one user points out there were actually four 928’s used during filming. Another user contends that the chase scene was dubbed with engine noise from a V8 Ferrari. Controversy broils.
Looking on Risky Business’s main page, we see that there were almost 40 other vehicles in prominent roles besides the Porsche we remember. For a true classic car connoisseur who might want to replicate any particular vehicle from a movie, IMCDB is a vast resource.
As we prepare for our upcoming December auction, do some research on this movie site, then cross reference with our auction site listings. Who knows, you might be able to pilot a vehicle of the stars.