Richard Crouse

Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez are the stars of Getaway, a new action adventure film from Toronto-born director Courtney Solomon, but the scene-stealer is the Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake, built by legendary car customizer Shelby American.

“Since Getaway takes place in a foreign country,” said Soloman, “I felt strongly that we needed the quintessential American muscle car with enough star power to shine with Ethan and Selena.”

Two Shelby GT500 Super Snakes were actually used to tell the story of a former racecar driver who must steal the souped-up car and perform a number of duties to prevent his wife from being killed. The first can be seen in the Bulgarian-shot action scenes. The second was used during audio recording in Los Angeles.

The silver Supersnake is a sleek thing of beauty, but the most famous movie car has to be the 1963 Aston Martin DB5 used in Goldfinger. Not only was it the first and most recognized James Bond car—after the movie was released it was called “the most famous car in the world”—but it also inspired a popular Corgi car that became the biggest selling toy of 1964.

The British made vehicle also appears in The Cannonball Run, driven by former Bond Roger Moore and in a highly stylized form as a secret agent (voiced by Michael Caine) in Pixar’s Cars 2.

The first auto to have its own screen credit was Herbie, the anthropomorphic 1962 Volkswagen Beetle from The Love Bug. The original script didn’t specify any type of car but after filmmakers “auditioned” several Toyotas, a TVR sportscar, a Volvo, an MG and a pearl white Volkswagen Beetle, the VW was chosen because it was the only car the crew tried to reach put and pet.

Finally, who could forget Marty McFly’s (Michael J, Fox) famous line, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Doc, uh… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?”

Back to the Future used one of the 9000 gull-winged DeLorean DMC-12 sport cars manufactured by the De Lorean Motor Company in Northern Ireland as a machine that propelled McFkly to different periods in the history of Hill Valley, California.
“Yes, the way I see it,” said the machine’s inventor Dr. Emmett L. Brown (Christopher Lloyd), “if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”