Whether it’s, say, George Clooney as Batman or Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you can see numerous times where directors and producers probably should have chosen a different individual for the role. However, I don’t care about that: I want to talk about automotive miscasting. As a car guy, it always bothers me when the cars that make more prominent appearances in films appear to be just flat out wrong. I’m not alone, am I?

The image above is from the 1983 film Risky Business, the movie that essentially put Tom Cruise on the map. As the parents of Tom’s character (Joel) get ready to leave town for a trip, he is told not to drive his dad’s Porsche and instead use his mother’s car. He does just that, but only after the 928 ends up in Lake Michigan.

Look at the other vehicle in Joel’s garage, the one he’s filling below. The “mom’s car” appears to be a 1978 Chevy Impala wagon:

Really?  Joel’s address is a Highland Park house (erroneously stated as Glencoe in the movie) which would currently sell for around $1.4 million; there is no way that Joel’s dad would drive a $40,000 coupe and his mom be content to run a five year old model of the cheapest big Chevy wagon. Did the people sourcing cars never hear about a w123 300TD or a 245DL Volvo? What about a wood clad Wagoneer Limited (what they called the Grand Wagoneer then), Buick Electra Estate or Mercury Colony Park? Maybe an Audi 5000 like the one in the Lee Klinger Porsche/Audi showroom where the service manager famously asks “Who’s the U-Boat commander?”

As an Autopian, you’ll see countless examples of this miscasting. In the movie La La Land, the main character is this hipster musician guy that seems to fashion himself as some kind of Rat Pack era jazz impresario.  The car the filmmakers chose for his character was a Buick Riviera. Did they get him a cool, beat-up one with the rotating headlight doors like Dalton’s in Road House or the Riv Mr. Spock is famously pictured with? That would make sense, right?

No, Ryan Gossling’s character drives a 1982 ASC-chopped Riviera convertible, probably the second least desirable Riv ever (next to the dinky 1986 model) and one associated with Florida retirees, NOT jazz cats. Maybe the uneducated people choosing it for the film thought “forty year old convertible” naturally means “cool vintage car.” But a malaise Riv with fake wire wheel covers is still Uncle Semour’s ride: woefully unhip.

The French Connection had a Lincoln Mark III inexplicably plying the narrow streets of France. Dope car (literally) that it is, such a character in early seventies Europe would far more likely be driving something like a Mercedes W111 coupe or Jaguar XJ-C.

Why does Diana Rigg’s character in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service drive, of all things, a Cougar convertible in Europe in the winter? I mean, it’s pretty damn cool but as totally out of place as the AMCs in Thailand seen in The Man With The Golden Gun.

At least the 928 was perfectly cast in Risky Business, a car often associated with orthodontists in period and an ideal car for Joel’s rather stuffy, humorless executive-level Princeton alumni father with a distaste for a preponderance of bass:

One of the cars from the film that didn’t go into the drink sold for just under $2 million, and while this underappreciated Porsche is finally gaining value it would appear that figure is about $1.98 million higher than a similar 928 that Tom Cruise did not learn how to drive stick on. Still, it’s proof that filmmakers occasionally get it right.

Rest assured, movie producers: you can’t escape. Autopians are watching you.