What’s Your Favorite Car Driven By A Celebrity? Autopian Asks

Celebrities are always in the public consciousness, regardless if they’re talking up a new piece of work or drunkenly lawn-darting their vehicles into traffic. As car people, we don’t really care all that much about what Tom Hanks is doing today, but what about his car? What does Tom Hanks drive? Today, we’re asking about your favorite car driven by a celebrity. To keep this fun, I’m keeping this question open to vehicles driven by celebrities in movies and TV or vehicles owned by celebrities.

To answer my own question, Tom Hanks apparently has a pretty good taste in cars. He used to own a 1980 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser, a 1992 Airstream Model 34 Limited Excella, a 2011 Ford F-450 Super Duty, and more. Hanks has even owned a Fiat 126P an electric Scion xB, and a ’90s Toyota RAV4 EV.

He sold the Airstream, Land Cruiser, a Tesla Model S, and the Super Duty. Sadly, I couldn’t find what’s currently in his fleet, but Hanks seems like a car guy.

My actual answer to this question comes out from left field. Are you ready? My favorite celebrity vehicle is the GM New Look driven by Sandra Bullock and saved by Keanu Reeves in the film “The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.” Wait, I think that one was actually called Speed. Yes, my favorite celebrity vehicle is a bus. That movie’s bus is probably part of why I love buses so much today.

General Motors knew how to give transit buses a striking look. Sure, buses don’t need to look cool. Most of today’s transit buses are boring bricks that get the job done. But, it is nice when a builder goes the extra mile to make a bus nice to look at. I mean, public transportation doesn’t have to look boring.

When you think about it, Speed‘s premise is silly. A guy straps a bomb to a bus that arms at 50 mph and then triggers if the speed drops under 50 mph. It’s stupid, but it makes for some awesome high-octane fun. Or, maybe it’s high cetane since we’re talking about a diesel bus here? I mean, where else are you going to see a transit bus jump a gap in an elevated highway?

If you want to know a bit of a plot twist about Speed, it’s that the fuel gauge in the bus was unrealistic. I’m not talking about how quickly the bus lost fuel, but the existence of the fuel gauge itself. Many transit buses, even newer ones in service today, do not have fuel gauges. Buses have huge tanks, set routes, and they don’t run out of fuel during a shift. All of the New Looks I’ve seen at the Illinois Railway Museum do not have fuel gauges and neither does my far newer RTS-06 from 2002. I have a 120-gallon tank and a light that flickers on when the bus thinks it’s low. The driver of an older New Look didn’t even have that.

Alright, enough bus talk. What’s your favorite car, motorcycle, or other vehicle driven by a celebrity?