Cars are an important part of everyday culture and often play an important role in the cinema. Just as they are an integral part of your real, urbane world, they also naturally play a vital role in movies. They place you in a certain milieu, give films an obvious time frame, and can help to describe film characters. And they occasionally become legends themselves. An example of this is the “Bullit” Ford Mustang with which Steve McQueen proved his talents as a racing driver. In the crime series Tatort, the various inspectors compete for the most unusual private vehicles.
Legends on four wheels
Cars can be plain props if they act in the background of a picture, but they can also be important as so-called “play cars” if they take on special tasks in the film or a scene, up to and including vehicles of the main characters. In some exceptional cases, cars can be the main heroes of the films. Examples of these are the DeLorean sports car from the Bat-Mobile from “Batman”, the “great bug”, the “Nightriders”, or the “Back to the Future”.
The former police car “Bluesmobile” has made the film industry just like the fastback Mustang that Steve McQueen drives in the film Bullit.
Placements
There is also frequently an association between film production companies and car manufacturers. Both sides can bring positive effects from the use of a certain brand or a certain type of vehicle. Aston Martin’s DB5 would surely be far less famous without James Bond, and the fact that Her Majesty’s secret agent drove a BMW at times had consistently positive aspects for the Bavarian engine works, which equipped the master spy with vehicles for several films.
They were always legendary, the converted cars of the secret agent 007, which the secret service car converter Q armed with new camouflage, protection techniques, and weapon systems in every subsequent Bond strip. Children’s dreams here became reality. The cars of Bond could nearly do anything like fly, drive, swim, and of course shoot.
Nearly all major car manufacturers, including Toyota, Mercedes, and Nissan have made proper deals for appropriate film projects.
The combination of powerful upcoming cars, cool sayings, and beautiful women seems to be still popular in the cinema as a recipe for action without any fear of clichés. The fact that James Bond actually switched to BMW was negotiated at the time by the BMW PR man at the time, Johannes Schulz, a placement deal still admired in the industry today.
