They inspire us and they move us. They drive us. Since as long as we can remember, we’ve watched in awe and amazement as Hollywood pumped cars up to legendary proportions. Whether it’s the trusty, crime-fighting companion from the darkest, deepest depths of the Batcave, or the orange, barn-storming thunder of a big block Hemi, we watched. Amazing cars (and trucks) that embodied larger-than-life personalities have smashed through jam-packed, downtown city streets, thundered across the open deserts, and shot through twisty back roads. We sat, slack-jawed, as slow-motion sequences and special camera angles made 100-foot jumps look like 500-foot jumps. These hero cars were, indeed, invincible.

The sad truth, though, is that they were not invincible; and even though they never may have jumped as far as Hollywood would have you believe, the extreme physical stress experienced during stunt filming took a devastating toll on the movie cars. The Dukes of Hazzard production destroyed hundreds of Dodge Chargers. They averaged one car per jump (or around two per episode) as it would work out.

Despite the vulnerability of our favorite cars in the actual shooting of these stunts, film productions employ fleets of cars specially fit for specific filming requirements. Typically, there is one “hero” car with a support fleet of stunt cars and special camera rigs. The stunt cars take the brunt of the destruction and are specially built to handle extreme operating conditions. With such a large roster of vehicles on site to depict a single vehicle, it’s extremely rare to see a replica car that’s even worthy of measuring against any “Hero” image that a high-budget production can concoct. But that sure didn’t stop these guys from trying.

21 Ecto 1

via roadsidewonders.net

It’s a 1959 Cadillac Professional chassis that was built by the Miller-Meteor company, a subsidiary of Wayne Works. It all sounds like something out of a Batman prologue, but the famous, end-loader hearse was actually more common back in its day then we would think. Nonetheless, there is a big difference between a 59 Cadillac hearse and a 96 station wagon that tried to follow Ecto’s footsteps. If we want to start from the front bumper and work our way slowly back, you would probably need a lawn chair with an ottoman and a bag of popcorn, plus blanket and pillow. Just think of all the Pokémon he could’ve been catching while he wasted precious time putting this thing together. (Or Dungeons and Dragons, or whatever these people do with their time.)

20 Back To The Shameless

via roadkill.com

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. It takes but a fraction of a second to recognize the tribute, but there’s not enough time in the entire day to adequately process the blatant disrespect and downright blasphemy that you see before you. I don’t know if he’s a bigger DeLorean or Back to the Future fan, but judging by the looks of his craftsmanship, he doesn’t know what he’s doing either way. And judging by the look of the actual car itself, we'll never have to worry about his kids. Married men and family guys already have enough trouble carving out hot rod time when they have “cool” cars, but no wife would tolerate this, especially if she was a Back to the Future fan!

19 Optimums Prime

via vehicleprops.com

Speaking to you as a former truck driver, I’ll tell you where this guy triumphed (and where he failed miserably) at his attempt to recreate his very own class-eight tribute to the legendary Optimus Prime. First of all, he gets points for actually using a tractor and secondly, for putting a little bit more effort into it than slapping a double-sided Transformers emblem where the Western Star logo went. This helps give his tractor-tribute some scope of depth; thumbs up there. No matter how much chrome you throw at your new-model tractor, however, Optimus Prime is supposed to be a cab over Kenworth, not whatever this thing is. It’s actually a fairly nice Western Star, but “nice” isn’t Optimus.

18 Mortimaster

via overdriveonline.com

I’m not one to usually root for the bad guy but this bad guy just does it so good I can’t stop! Optimus Prime may now feature the latest-and-greatest Western Start technology that a modern tractor can offer, but this vintage Kenworth takes movie tributes to a whole new level. He has the paint scheme nailed down correctly (give or take), and the transition from cartoon to conception is very on point. If you think the outside is all nice and pretty, you have to take a peek under that cab and see what type of fire it breathes. As you would expect, the engine is garnished with the same, immaculate artistry that wraps the outer sheet metal; the fully-functional tractor looks pristine from just about every angle. (My name is Nathan, and I endorse this tribute. Take a picture, this is a rare moment.)

17 Death Race

via barcroft.tv

What do you think happens when you put Jason Statham behind the wheel of a maniacal machine and dangle the keys of freedom in front of his nose? He would probably pay you off because this is reality, and he’s a movie star. If, however, he was the Jason Statham that we’ve grown to know and love as we watched him smash, bash, crash, shoot, and blow his way through impossibly difficult plot lines and a trail of twisted metal, he’d probably do what this car was intended to “look” like it could do. But doing something like that (in a car something like this) sounds like something no good can come of.

16 Bruce Bucks

via hammacher.com

You seem to have to have a superhero-size bank account to even follow in the footsteps of the mighty Bruce Wayne. His Tumbler is a big-boy toy that’s nearly impossible to live up to, no matter which way you chop it. Many people have tried and every single one of them has failed—miserably. One guy decided not to even swing in the same ballpark. Instead, his Tumbler was created from the chassis of a golf cart with heavy modifications and a lot of black paint. It was listed for $17,000, and actually sold! I’m still going to have to say, that seems like a steep ask for what you get, despite its ability to simultaneously double as a Star Wars tribute.

15 Foxbody Fail

via pinterest.com

This original Batmobile iteration is actually uglier than the Futura upon which it’s based; the Lincoln Futura transformation was at least significant in its own, historical right (as well as professionally done and nationally acclaimed). It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s still cool to see. This one, however, would only be worth looking at as an exact example of how not to make a Batmobile. Not surprisingly, this Batmobile was based upon the 5.0 Fox body and signature design cues are almost discernible in the grill (once you know to look for them).

14 Burton’s Bat

via Barcroft Cars

To most comic book fans, owning an authentic Batmobile is nothing more than a pipe dream. We all know it is, but we still hold onto that sliver of hope in the back of our heads that maybe, one day, it will become a reality. One audacious bat-lover clearly decided, “The pipe ends here,” and decided to fabricate himself a very convincing Burton-Batmobile. It is a completely hand-built, street-legal attention-getter that he can legally go and pick up groceries in—but he’s never able to leave the parking lot without a swarming horde of kids wanting to “see Batman” and sit inside the Batmobile. (It’s literally that convincing.)

13 The General CitiCar

via Oddimotive

It’s small. It’s ugly. It’s weak and it’s slow. The Vanguard CitiCar General Lee tribute is about as far away from a General Lee as it gets. About the only thing this little car has going for it at the moment is a paint job forged with the impression of indestructible performance. Despite the highly-contrasting engineering of the CitiCar and the Charger (and their intended design-use), it’s probably most peculiar that an electric-powered failure of a prototype needed to be painted like a big block legend to gain any fame and media attention.

12 Eleanor

via curbsideclassics.com

Here is a very polarizing car; and one a bit harder to identify than your “standard” Mustang. If you don’t know what it is, don’t feel bad. This is just one of the biggest piles of trash that ever rolled off a Ford assembly line with the Mustang namesake. The Mustang Mach 1 signified the complete disconnect between everything a Mustang was and the direction it was heading. Few of you may recognize it from the 1974 Gone In 60 Seconds movie. It featured one of the longest car chases in history (it feels like it anyway). It was the 70s, so they refreshingly lack the excessively silly (and physically impossible) “stunts” we’re acclimated to, but it’s about 10 minutes of Mach 1-shredding footage that consumed who knows how many Mustangs in the process.

11 Death Proof Nova

via curbisdeclassics.com

A combination of the 1970s, third-generation Novas, Quentin Tarantino, Kurt Russell, and Dodge Challengers—depending on who you are, this could be your ideal muse or something not even worth learning the basic plot to. (If you’re a muscle car guy, you might want to check it out.) Quentin Tarantino likes to explore different genres and this was his muscle car exploration. The builder of this Death Proof tribute Nova you see before you probably likes to explore different things, too, like what it feels like to have a negatively-polarized chick magnet scare girls away from around the corner (before you even get the chance to see them run off).

10 “Bandit Edition” 840-hp Trans Am

via mtmtv.info

It’s hard to know what side of the fence you want to be on with this one. If you are a General Motors fan, you will probably have a slight affinity for in some capacity, even if it isn’t your cup of tea. Ford fans probably won’t care for it unless they grew up on Smokey and the Bandit. And there are not enough Pontiac fans in the world for their opinion to count in the first place. Although some of the design cues are a little bit different (like the T-top and the retro grille styling), it pulls off the look of what you would think a “Bandit Edition” should look like rather well for a sixth-generation Camaro. (Whenever I want to hate it, my brain keeps reverting back to the 840-hp rating; it’s hard not to want to “see how it feels,” no matter how ugly you think it is.)

9 Herbie the Love Bug

via reddit.com

Whether or not you grew up on the tales of “Herbie,” The Love Bug is a question of individual upbringing. But there’s a more-than-likely chance that you have at least heard of the sentient, anthropomorphic, pop-culture icon that lovingly brought a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle to literal life on the big screen in the late-1960s. Its good-old Walt, so you can expect it to deliver a gleeful gallivant through a make-believe world where cars can listen to the things you say (and respond back accordingly). This is actually a movie tribute that’s fairly easy to produce—any solid, rust-free pre-67 will do. As easy as Herbie is to recreate, though, it feels like some strange perversion of nature when you see it done to a “new” Bettle.

8 Rotary-Piston Cup

via picssr.com

Indeed, it’s a strange sight to see: an MX-5 personifying Lightning McQueen in the fictional land of Cars, the racecar that battled it out in the “Piston” cup. In this case, it would more appropriately be named the “Rotary” cup, but no one at tuner nation seems to mind. You have to admit that although this is one of the laziest attempts in history to ever re-create a popular movie car, there is something to be said about the stunning likeness that simply putting a sunshade in the windshield can achieve. This little MX-5 looks exactly like Lightning McQueen if you squint your eyes.

7 Doc Hudson’s Hornet

via staticflickr.com

The retired racecar appeared in the 2006 blockbuster as Doc Hudson and is modeled after the “Fabulous Hudson Hornet.” The extremely rare Hornets were only produced in the early 1050s as Hudsons; they would eventually fall under the AMC umbrella for the latter half of the decade. The functional “step-down” floor pan design afforded the Hudsons with a lower center of gravity, allowing them to excel in racing roles despite their land-yacht handling proclivities. Since the movie version of the car is nearly an exact replica of the Fabulous Hornet, a replica of Doc Hudson can easily be exacted with the simple installation of a few blue-eyed windshield covers.

6 Ford Gran Pintino

via oddimotive.com

You must remember Starsky and Hutch and the easily-recognizable, bright-red Grand Torino as one of the most popular automobiles in America for a brief moment in time. It's maybe not as noteworthy today as the Dukes of Hazard but the bright red and white-striped Gran Torino is a beast of a car in its own respect that came to usher out the muscle car era with a little bit of dignity and grace. Well, here’s to spitting in the face of all that the Gran Torino tried to represent—somebody decided to take that paint scheme and wipe it down the sides of a Ford Pinto like it was going to make it any less of a Pinto.

5 Big-Boy Toys

via fineartamerica.com

Even big boys need their toys and heavy duty record drivers are no exception. Here is another Cars fan who apparently liked the movie enough to wrap the entire exterior of his Peterbilt wrecker in a high-quality landscape of Carsland. It’s blasted conspicuously across the truck, from the chrome grille all the way back to the stinger—and that’s a lot of truck. This just goes to show that you are never too old to play with toys. It’s either that, or he decided to capitalize on the amazing marketing opportunity presented to him by having been named after a Pixar movie character; he’s the owner of Marvin’s tow service, after all.

4 Third-Generation Monaco

via motortrend.com

It’s a full-size, C-body, Chrysler design stamped into the 1974-model year Monaco—a poster-child transition sedan of the day. Vague hints of performance struggled to retain surface area on the exterior styling as the big body sedan transitioned into the automotive industry’s response to oil scares and energy shortages. As ugly as the car may be, the 1974 Monaco is a nice piece of car history in its own right. (There’s something oddly special about a mid-70s land-yacht.) Trying to transition this, however, into a new Chevy Impala platform loses a lot of the nostalgia, and looks more like a bad Halloween costume that you should’ve spent more money on.

3 Supernatural Baby

via geekwithcurves.com

The hit TV series Supernatural took the nation by storm when two Winchester brothers defied dimensional boundaries in a sci-fi Dukes of Hazzard that’s since destroyed just about as many muscle cars as the Hazzard County heroes’ production did. The brothers, Sam and Dean, were accompanied by what is arguably the most popular character of the show— Baby, the black, four-door, 1967 Chevy Impala. She’s one of the country’s most beloved big-blocks and 13 years after her debut, we still can’t get enough. The big-block Chevy masticates over 500 cubic-inches of atmosphere on premium and sounds like a pair of 16-pound bowling balls dancing around in an industrial dryer on the spin cycle. Usually, replicas skimp on more than just the massive motor. Typically forgotten is the custom, axle-to-axle sub-chassis that makes Baby handle like a BMW (sort of). Most guys end up with a small block 283 and some glass packs. The biggest sin that most of the Winchester recreations are guilty of, however, is the best part of the whole gig: their trunk. It usually looks more like a toy box full of dollar-store Halloween props than the infamous, hidden weapons cache. It’s literally just “junk in the trunk.”

2 Mystery Machine Madness

via quirksee.com

About the only thing this guy and his van share in common with the real Scooby Doo gang (and their Mystery Machine) is a psychedelic paint job, and maybe a few psychedelics that have nothing to do with paint and a shaggy appearance. This guy doesn’t even try hard enough to keep his tires properly inflated, so how could we reasonably expect anything adequate, let alone halfway-exceptional? My real problem with this whole situation, however? He’s the type of guy to turn his windowless, 1980s panel van into an iteration of the beloved children’s icon (and with a face like that, no less). Stranger danger?