About This Quiz
It'd be nearly impossible to make any music, movie, or TV show that doesn't feature cars. And you can't just make art that only vaguely references cars; you need to be specific. The right car can really make a movie. Just look at "Transformers." Bumblebee was a Volkswagen Beetle at first, but when he got that Camaro upgrade, he became an automotive icon. People still remember that car, even if they didn't like the movies, just because of the feeling people get from some vehicles. And few vehicles have mastered creating feelings like a Chevy.Â
In song or on film, there's just something about a Chevy, a classic American car that makes you feel a sense of freedom. Who can look at a Corvette and not crave that feeling of wind in their hair? Who can hear the roar of a Camaro's engine and not be impressed by the sense of power?
Whether it's a beastly big truck like an Avalanche or a Silverado, a cool looking retro ride like a Monte Carlo or a Bel Air, or a sleek and sexy sports car like a Corvette or a Camaro, Chevy has been a part of pop culture for decades now. So let's see how much you remember as you take a drive through Chevy's pop culture past!
One of Prince's most famous songs, "Little Red Corvette," was the first song the singer wrote that made the Top 10 in the U.S., and also his first hit to chart higher on pop charts than R&B charts. Prince said he wrote the song while taking a nap in a band member's car (which wasn't a Chevy).
"El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie" does feature an El Camino, and that's what inspired the name. Originally the plan was to name it "63," as it would be the 63rd episode of the show, but one of the producers felt that a name separating it from the show would be better.
It's a 1965 Corvette roadster you'll find in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," driven by Felicity Shagwell and painted with the Stars and Stripes. It's a parody of Austin's earlier car, a Union Jack-emblazoned Jaguar.
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Tim Burton's Batmobile was built on the chassis of a Chevy Impala. It also had a Chevy V8 engine. Word is that they tried to create it from a Jaguar and a Mustang first, but those versions didn't work out.
Michael Bay gave Bumblebee a Camaro upgrade for his "Transformers" movies. The car proved to be incredibly popular, but the more recent 2018 "Bumblebee" film brings a return to this robot's VW roots.
The Beach Boys sang the song "409" back in 1962. It was a B-side of the single "Surfin' Safari." Beach Boy collaborator Gary Usher was obsessed with hot rods, and the 409 engine, offered in Impalas, Bel Airs and Biscaynes, clearly impressed him enough to write about it.
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"Harold and Maude" features a pretty memorable scene with an El Camino, as Maude spins some donuts to try to escape from a cop. Ruth Gordon, who played Maude, didn't know how to drive, so most shots involved towing the car or, for longer shots, switching to a stunt person in a wig.
The van Cheech and Chong drove in "Up in Smoke" wasn't a looker by any means. It was mostly a 1966 Chevy P10 Step-Van, with a few custom additions to make it look more like a rundown Frankencar.
Tom Cruise plays Cole Trickle in "Days of Thunder," and he drives a Chevy Lumina that goes by the name Mello Yello, thanks to a sponsorship from the soft drink of the same name. In real life, Mello Yello sponsored a car a year after the film's release.
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Don McLean's "American Pie" features the iconic rhyme about driving his Chevy to the levee. The song, which was recorded in 1971, makes repeated reference to "the day the music died." That's the plane crash from 1959 in which Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died.
There are a lot of cars in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," since it's a racing movie, but the car that his dad makes him face his fears in, complete with a mountain lion riding shotgun, is a 1969 Chevy Chevelle Malibu.
The shocking yellow truck emblazoned with a vulgar name (that we'll let you Google if you're interested) is a 2500 Silverado Fleetside. Word is that Quentin Tarantino still owns the truck in real life and will occasionally take it for a spin.
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Stuntman Mike was behind the wheel of a Chevy Nova SS in the movie "Death Proof." The production team had seven of them custom made for the film, but only two of them survived to the end. Despite not being road legal, one of them ended up on eBay with a pretty reasonable $40,000 asking price.
The original 1979 "The Muppet Movie" featured a Chevy Suburban. The Suburban has been in so many movies, about 1,750, in fact, without missing a year since 1960, that the vehicle itself was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
It was a white 1958 Chevy Impala that was heavily featured in the movie "American Graffiti." The actual car from the movie went to auction in 2015 and sold for about $300,000. Back in the day, a teenager bought it from George Lucas after the movie was made for only $325.
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The movie "Better Off Dead" came out back in 1985, featuring an all-black 1967 Chevy Camaro SS. 1967 was the first model year for the Chevy Camaro. A '67 Camaro was chosen as the pace car for the Indy 500 that same year.
Tony Danza drove what may be the coolest 1957 Chevy ever in the 1980 movie "The Hollywood Knights." Known as Project X, the Chevy 210 was shocking yellow and fully tuned to be a pretty intense hot rod.
Motley Crue sang about a 1965 Chevy in the song "Dr. Feelgood." The video clarified what they meant a bit by including a 1965 Chevy Impala SS with a red paint job and complementary flames down the sides.
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"Tim McGraw" was the debut single from Taylor Swift, way back in 2006. Swift wrote the song in her freshman year in high school about her boyfriend, who was a senior at the time. In the video, the boy drives a 1970 Chevrolet CST-10.
Director Nicolas Winding Refn told Ryan Gosling he could choose what car his character would drive in "Drive." Gosling actually went to a junkyard and handpicked the '73 Chevy Malibu. He then stripped it and rebuilt it himself.
Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto drives a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS in both "The Fast and the Furious" and "Fast & Furious." It starts out as a red Chevelle, but later, in "Fast & Furious," he sands it down and paints it grey.
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Elton John recorded "Crocodile Rock" back in 1972. This was his first No. 1 single in the U.S. and went on to become gold and then platinum. It was released on the album "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player."
Adam Sandler strikes it rich in "Mr. Deeds," and at the end of the movie, he buys everyone from his hometown a new 2002 Corvette. Someone on Reddit did the rough math and figured out that if Deeds bought a Vette for everyone old enough to drive it would have cost him more than one billion dollars.
Maybe it makes sense that "Twilight" featured a classic 1963 Chevy C10 pickup truck, since vampires are all kind of vintage people, and there's an air of history to them. The truck belongs to main character Bella, so perhaps it shows that she likes old things.
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"Night of the Living Dead" mostly takes place in a farmhouse, but in the survivors' attempts to escape, they hatch a plan to gas up an old Chevy 3600 truck. Spoiler alert — it doesn't actually work out very well.
Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee" came out in 1993, and it is one of his most popular songs. It won the CMA award for both Single of the Year and Song of the Year. It also hit No. 1 on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart.
It's a custom-painted Chevy Blazer with roof lights and flames on the front end that appeared in "Last Action Hero." That movie was something of a critical bomb at the time of its release, arguably for being super weird. One of the character is a cartoon cat.
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Bob Seger's "Night Moves" is arguably the singer's most popular song. Word is that Seger wrote the song about his youth — specifically, a girl he once fell in love with who left Seger when her previous boyfriend returned from the military
Hunting demons on "Supernatural" requires a powerful car, so that's why producers wrangled a 1967 Chevy Impala hardtop, complete with a monstrously powerful 502 cubic inch Big Block Chevy V8 engine. The show films in British Columbia.
Most people don't really pay attention to bus model years, especially when it's a custom-painted hippie-theme one. Nonetheless, the Patridge family were driving to their gigs in a 1955 Chevy 6800 bus.
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You'd be forgiven for not being able to tell at first glance that David Carradine's Frankenstein was driving a Corvette in "Death Race 2000," since it's so insanely customized to look like a bizarre alligator car.
Forest Whitaker's character Jefferson drove a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 in the movie. 1979 was actually the top-selling year for any model of Camaro ever, with nearly 300,000 units sold.
Brad Pitt's Jerry drove an El Camino in the movie "The Mexican." The El Camino is one of Chevy's most controversial designs, insofar as people either love it or absolutely hate it. Despite popular belief, it's not a pickup truck and is actually classified as a utility vehicle.
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It's an extremely custom-designed Chevy K-2500 that Tango and Cash are given in the movie, complete with armor and guns, even though it doesn't last long. "Tango and Cash" was the first move Stallone and Russell made together. They sort of co-starred, though not on screen together, in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" years later.
Denzel Washington's Alonzo Harris may not have been the nicest guy in the world in "Training Day," but his car was pretty cool. It was a 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Lowrider. The car in the movie had a lot of subtle custom touches, which casual fans might not have noticed, like the sunroof. 1979 Monte Carlos did not come with a sunroof.