Stars and Their Cars

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

Robert Avrech is an Emmy Award winning screenwriter who blogs at a site called Seraphic Secret. He has a post up about the automobile and freedom and since Robert is an avowed political conservative you can probably guess how he feels about things like taxpayer funded high speed rail and government regulations. If advocacy of limited government gives you the vapors, you might want to skip over his text, but Avrech is a part of the entertainment industry, lives in Los Angeles and knows the fashions and trends in his own industry.

Today, Hollywood celebrities make sure to be seen driving a Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, or any of the dopey but politically correct green cars. It is something of an open secret here among my Hollywood colleagues that the garage is fully stocked with BMW, Mercedes, Bentley, and for sure, a few Jags—for real driving.

But once upon a time Hollywood produced great stars who proudly posed with their autos, symbols of glamour, affluence, and freedom.

To prove his point, Avrech posted a number of publicity shots of movie stars and their cars. I’ve reproduced them below as well as a few others that I found. How many of the stars and their cars can you identify?

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

More by Ronnie Schreiber

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  • Dimwit Dimwit on Nov 05, 2013

    Fantastic post Ronnie! It amazes me how banal some of them were. Buicks and Plymouths. An Olds. I'd assumed it would be way more Duesys and RR's. Nobody had a Bentley which I thought strange, especially for the gearheads like Gable and Power. I like Garner's Cooper S. Probably a works car since that would about the time he was doing Grand Prix and had access to all the major race heads at the time. I'm sure he just loved the image of him getting in and out of the Mini! Of course Curtis was driving an E-Type.

  • Ratsnake Ratsnake on Nov 05, 2013

    Leno. Letterman. Hip-hop stars. Lots of action movie actors... There are plenty of entertainment industry figures that like cars and trucks now. Many don't engage in rants against passenger railways, lead-free fuel, safety/consumer regulations, or other similar hatreds of some auto enthusiasts. And of course some stars just don't care about cars, in the same way I don't care about wristwatches. But there is no repression here... Also, when big-time wealth is measured in at least high double-digit millions, a car isn't much. Obviously, a guy with one Veyron is a rich guy, but there are so many things more expensive than that. The standard seems to be the illicit aerial photograph of the star's property, invariably valued over $10 million. What's impressive for Clark Gable or Fatty Arbuckle is a toy for Warren Beatty or J. Seinfeld. So surely it is premature to think that the world's headed for Galt, and famous people are ashamed of their wealth, because one has heard that L. DeCaprio drives a Toyota.

  • MaintenanceCosts In Toyota's hands, these hybrid powertrains with a single motor and a conventional automatic transmission have not been achieving the same kind of fuel economy benefits as the planetary-gear setups in the smaller cars. It's too bad. Many years ago GM did a group of full-size pickups and SUVs with a 6.0L V8 and a two-motor planetary gear system, and those got the fuel economy boost you'd expect while maintaining big-time towing capacity. Toyota should have done the same with its turbo four and six in the new trucks.
  • JMII My C7 isn't too bad maintain wise but it requires 10 quarts of expensive 0W-40 once a year (per GM) and tires are pricey due size and grip requirements. I average about $600 a year in maintenance but a majority of that is due to track usage. Brake fluid, brake pads and tires add up quickly. Wiper blades, coolant flush, transmission fluid, rear diff fluid and a new battery were the other costs. I bought the car in 2018 with 18k in mileage and now it has 42k. Many of the items mentioned are needed between 20k and 40k per GM's service schedule so my ownership period just happens to align with various intervals.I really need to go thru my service spreadsheet and put track related items on a separate tab to get a better picture of what "normal" cost would be. Its likely 75% of my spend is track related.Repairs to date are only $350. I needed a new XM antenna (aftermarket), a cargo net clip, a backup lamp switch and new LED side markers (aftermarket). The LEDs were the most expensive at $220.
  • Slavuta I drove it but previous style. Its big, with numb steering feel, and transmission that takes away from whatever the engine has.
  • Wjtinfwb Rivaled only by the Prowler and Thunderbird as retro vehicles that missed the mark... by a mile.
  • Wjtinfwb Tennessee is a Right to Work state. The UAW will have a bit less leverage there than in Michigan, which repealed R t W a couple years ago. And how much leverage will the UAW really have in Chattanooga. That plant builds ID. 4 and Atlas, neither of which are setting the world afire, sales wise. I'd have thought VW would have learned the UAW plays by different rules than the placid German unions from the Westmoreland PA debacle. But history has shown VW to be exceptionally slow learners. Watching with interest.
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