Fargo, the black comedy movie, came out in 1996 to critical acclaim and the Coen Brothers became the next best thing to sliced bread, in terms of movie production. In 2014, Noah Hawley brought Fargo back to life, this time in the form of a TV series with the blessings of Coen Brothers, and carried it on for four seasons, each season bearing a different ensemble cast and storyline, following an anthological format.
The first two seasons were well received with the last two also receiving generic praise for the storyline, the acting, and strangely enough, the cars.
Honestly, the cars in Fargo were a class apart and were so well weaved into the storyline that some of the sales, new or used, may have seen a resurgence of some kind. Some of these cars were classics, especially in seasons two and four, which have a period-timeline to them, while the others were new.
We have collated five of the coolest cars we saw on Fargo, which were pretty important to the storyline as well, and gave us yet another reason to fall in love with Hawley’s interpretation of black comedy.
Season Two: 1965 Chevrolet Corvair
Season Two of Fargo is a period piece, set in the ‘60s. The protagonist of the series is Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst) who is a married beautician settled in Minnesota and drives a 1965 blue Chevrolet Corvair. She is living a completely ordinary life till she has an accident, ending up hitting a man in the middle of the road with her Corvair, who turns out to be part of the mafia.
The Corvair becomes the kill car of the season and is shown from the outside and the inside pretty often. Although Ralph Nader’s book took it down several notches and declared it one of the most unsafe cars on the road, today, the Corvair is seeing a revival of sorts and is now considered a cult classic. For a car that was supposed to be the Beetle’s competitor, the Corvair was undeniably beautiful although its swing-axle did make it a bit tough to handle. Definitely one of the star cars of the show.
Season One: 2001 Acura EL
The Acura EL was a model launched in 1997 in Canada and remained a bestseller from 1997 to 2003, being a slightly different version of the Honda Civic itself. In season one, the car belongs to Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman), a stressed insurance salesman who gets embroiled with a hitman and ends up getting his childhood bully murdered.
Slowly, the hitman’s poisonous persona rubs across everyone in town, corrupting the lot of them. The Acura EL was a cool enough car and seemed to grow more nefarious with every episode of the series, taking on the deepening corruption of Nygaard till the end of the car and the man happen in an icy crash.
Season Three: 1977 Corvette C3
Driven by the younger and the poorer of the two Stussy brothers (both played by Ewan McGregor), Raymond “Ray” Stussy, this cherry red Corvette was a sight to behold, especially when parked in the snow, and shot with a camera that took all the blues out of the picture.
The end of either of the Stussy brothers is not cool and even the Corvette gets bumped quite a few times, which hurt us more than the dubious end of the brothers. It’s a 1977 Corvette, plumb in the middle of the third-generation, which was a milestone year by reaching half-a-million Vettes ever since production started in 1953.
Season Four: 1949 Cadillac Series 62
The Cadillac Series 62 is one of many classic cars used in the last season of Fargo, in which a way fitter Chris Rock plays a crime syndicate boss and runs his illegal business on a bonafide company name. There’s a shocker at the end of the series as well, linking it back to the starting of series two when the Rock’s onscreen son turns out to be the hitman of series two, all grown up and twisted.
The Cadillac Series 62 shown in the movie comes in a beautiful shade of blue and later was auctioned off by Mecum as part of a VIP Picture Cars Collection, along with other classic cars of season four. The Caddy is shown to be Loy Cannon’s (Chris Rock) personal and preferred ride, and one only needs to look at it to see why. It does make for a beautiful car.
Season Two: 1977 Ford F-Series
We’re back to season two, mostly because it was a period piece and had some excellent classics including a Plymouth Gran Fury, a Chrysler Imperial LeBaron as well as several Lincolns and Fords. There’s a cool 1976 Chevy Nova as well.
Meanwhile, Peggy, as in the murdering driver of the Chevrolet Corvair is married to Ed Blumquist, a butcher in the same small town of Luverne in Minnesota, who drives a cool 1977 Ford F-Series, in more or less the same shade of powder blue. Yet again is an oft-seen vehicle in the second series of Fargo, and one that makes us ache to have a classic.
Sources: RollingStone, CurbsideClassic, Mecum