Unforgettable Movie Sports Cars
Dustin Hoffman was told that the future was in plastics, but he depended on the metal of his graduation gift, the cherry red Alfa Romeo, to get him to the church on time. The car was featured in numerous scenes and used in the some of the most critical moment of the movie. The post apocalyptic Australian desert was patrolled in style by Mel Gibson, who was Mad Max. He zipped across what was left of civilizationb in a 1974 XB Falcon V8 interceptor. Mad Max may have been a formable foe and beat up the villains, but although road weary, the XB Falcon cut a dramatic silhouette as it crossed the Australian wasteland. If Americans were asked to name a British sports producer, they would probably name Astin Martin who is the maker of the Astin Martin DB5.The popularity of this sports car is directly attributable to James Bond, played by Sean Connery. Having James Bond behind the wheel would make any sports car look cool.
But the Astin Martin would have looked cool anyway.The popularity of the Astin Martin was so high that the original sports car was stolen in 1979 from a Boca Raton, Florida airport. Even without its time travel abilities, the DMC-12 was very hard to forget. The DMC-12 did not sell as well as its creator, John Delorean,had hoped, but it became one of Americas icons after it appeared in Back to the Future films. The movie franchise and the stainless steel DMC-12 are inseparable in the minds of the public. One cant talk about the Back to Future movies without mentioning the car. Regarded by some as the king of cool, Steve McQueen, who acted in the movie Bullitt, will always be remembered for the chase scenes through the hilly roads of San Francisco. Steve McQueen took this famous ride in the 1968 Mustang GT390. The chase scene is an ever-present feature of modern films today. When cars have a key role in a movie, and the movie is a hit, the sports car can become unforgettable.
There鈥檚 an old saying in the world of car values that when the top goes down, the price goes up. Indeed, if you look at just about any of our favorite classic cars, the convertible versions command a premium. Exceptions to the rule are few and far between, and are mostly limited to Mercedes-Benz 300SLs and 1963 Corvettes. Add one more: the Porsche Boxster/Cayman twins. While technically separate models, they are too similar to think of separately since they have the same engines, same chassis, same basic shape, and essentially the same options. But despite the Boxster offering that wind-in-your-hair, top-down motoring experience that so often translates to value, a comparably equipped Cayman, with its fixed roof, tends to command a few grand more than a Boxster on the second-hand market. The reasons for this anomaly are pretty straightforward. The first and most obvious explanation is that the Cayman has always been more expensive, even when it was new. Convertibles usually cost more when they come straight from the dealer, so the Cayman bucked the trend from the beginning.
It is also more enthusiast-focused, given its track-use potential and stiffer structure. And it has never had to deal with the stigma of being the cheapest car in the Porsche lineup, a title the Boxster has carried, along with the 912, 914, and 924 that came before it. The Boxster was first introduced for the 1997 model year, when it and the 911 were the only two models the company sold. While the mid-engine Boxster shared components and styling cues with the upcoming water-cooled 996-generation 911 and had design inspiration from classic favorites like the 550 Spyder, the Boxster was the 鈥渃heap Porsche鈥?right from the get-go. Even though praise was nearly universal for the fun-to-drive little roadster, it was seen as a car for people who couldn鈥檛 afford a 911, and that view hasn鈥檛 really changed. Upon its introduction for 2006, the Cayman weighed a bit less than the Boxster and, thanks to its fixed roof, had significantly more torsional rigidity, allowing for stiffer suspension and anti-roll bars that translated to all-around better handling.
The Cayman, which came about a decade after the Boxster, had a very different beginning. It was always priced higher than the Boxster, it always came with a little bit more power, and from the beginning it was even more of a smash hit in the automotive press than the Boxster had been. With that said, aside from the obvious difference (one doesn鈥檛 have a fixed roof, the other does), similarly-equipped, Boxsters and Caymans behave much the same in the vast majority of everyday driving situations. The Cayman, however, weighs less and ultimately performs better owing to its fixed roof. Plus it has more power, is more accomplished on the race track, is rarer (since it was produced for a shorter period), and left the dealer with a higher price tag than the Boxster to begin with. That鈥檚 enough for the car to defy the usual collector car logic. In the case of the Boxster, when the top goes down, so does the price. And it will likely always be that way.