Top 10 Stock & Sinister Cars

There are loads of Top 10 posts on sinister cars floating around the web, but most of them don’t consider the term “sinister” beyond looks. Like millions of other subjects regarding aesthetic design, I fully understand this is highly subjective, it’s just Gargling Gas thinks when the term “sinister” is applied to cars, it should also include “presence”.

Below, I’ve listed my personal Top 10 Stock & Sinister cars.

Mitsubishi EVO VIII FQ-400

10. Mitsubishi EVO VIII FQ-400

10. Mitsubishi EVO VIII FQ-400

This is an angry car with lots of sharp lines and dark orifices I daren’t insert a finger. This hooligan both “talks the talk” and “walks the walk”… in fact, the FQ-400 decimates the walk.

1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville Series 62

9. 1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville Series 62

9. 1959 Cadillac Coupe Deville Series 62

The Series 62 Deville is a two-and-half ton monster with staring eyes and a menacing grin. Should Satan ever find himself in a car showroom with some cash to burn, only a black Deville will suffice. Despite resembling a mechanical bat ready to spread its acres of folded wings, this Caddy would leave Batman trembling and sobbing in the arms of Robin.

1982 BMW E24 635 CSi

8. 1982 BMW E24 635 CSi

8. 1982 BMW E24 635 CSi

This car has the nickname, “Sharknose” due to its front end. Although the grille is certainly imposing, it’s all about those eyes.

If the saying “Your eyes are the windows to your soul” holds true, I don’t want anything to do with this beast.

1969 Dodge Charger R/T

7. 1969 Dodge Charger R/T

7. 1969 Dodge Charger R/T

The sinister for me in the Charger comes from the hidden lights/grille; as a kid I loved the front end appeared as a gaping black intake – no British cars had or do feature this headlight flap.

The Mercedes-Benz 600

6. The Mercedes-Benz 600

6. The Mercedes-Benz 600

The 600 is four tons of German engineering that only understands police and army escorts and cheering crowds. This car possesses serious presence and an air of superiority only matched by its occupant sitting in the back. Psychopaths such as Saddam Hussain, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro and Ferdinand Marcos have glided among their minions in the Mercedes 600.

Marussia B2

Marussia B2

5. Marussia B2

Their F1 cars aren’t anything to shout about, but just look at this insectile machine above. This Russian car’s turbo-charged 2.8-L engine rockets it to 60-mph in 3.8-seconds. This post isn’t really about performance, but considering the Marussia B2 reminds me of those trap-door spiders, both its looks and speed send shivers up my spine.

1971 Lincoln Continental

1971 Lincoln Continental

4. 1971 Lincoln Continental

Up until the 80s, Lincoln Continentals were heavy and luxurious cars, well-equipped and boasting excessive styling. They are long, sleek, best in black, and during the its 60’s “slab-side” design and suicide doors they are now affectionately called “suicide-slabs”.

It could have something to do with the horror movie, The Car (1977), although I think the stock version above is more sinister, despite famed Hollywood car designer, George Barris’ evil slant on the design.

1958 Plymouth Fury

1958 Plymouth Fury

3. 1958 Plymouth Fury

The next car is my personal favourite novel/movie car. She’s a jealous and possessive car, one with a penchant for 60s music and killing.

The ’58 Fury is called Christine and comes from the mind of writer, Stephen King. Although he made a few technical errors when he penned the novel, one about the transmission and the other the fact Plymouth’s coupe in ’58 was in fact the Belvedere (this causes much debate in social media threads from people who haven’t read the book or watched the movie), King nailed one hell of a novel.

Bone stock (apart from her owner requesting a special red for the year), Christine rolled off the production line looking poisonous. Like the aforementioned Caddy, Christine’s fins, lines and menacing grille, give the car a truly insidious and sinister presence.

“Don’t talk about my car; she’s real sensitive.” ~ Arnie Cunninham (owner).

Buick GNX

Buick GNX

2. Buick GNX

The Buick GNX is my personal favourite “real” car. I have probably over-blogged about the Buick GNX and the only reason its not on my top spot is because I want this article true and in no way biased, and when you see the following car you’ll understand why I couldn’t possibly usurp the queen of sinister.

Despite all this, the GNX is one evil automobile. The “GN” stands for “Grand National”, a turbo-charged and revolutionary kick-in-the-pants Buick Regal that only came in black. The “X” stands for “Experimental”, Buick’s farewell to the Grand National. In 1987 the Grand National received more horsepower (around 250-275), although the exact figure is debatable due to Buick playing down the engine’s total output.

What we are left with is a turbo-charged V6 car capable of hitting 60-mph in 4.8-seconds – at the time this was simply staggering. With its glossy and impossibly deep black paint, black wheels, tinted windows and all of those sharp angles, the GNX is almost the true epitome of sinister.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Coupe

Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Coupe

1. Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Coupe

I really wanted either Christine or the Buick GNX to take top spot, but I think you’ll agree the car above wins it hands down. The Jonckheere Coupe is the epitome of sinister and evil – even the sound of the word, “Jonckheere” adds chills to the already sinister, “Phantom”.

In 1925 Rolls Royce created this simply beautiful yet sinister car, the equivalent of Cruella De Vil or the evil Queen from Snow White.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Coupe

Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Coupe

Just take in her gloriously long rear, her seductive curves and a fin that would give Jaws nightmares. For me it’s the ultimate in opulence and decadence, a car even too sinister for the Devil himself.

I hope you liked my choices, and remember, I understand the topic is subjective and you may switch some of the cars around – if you have your own choices, please comment and let me know.

Video

Bad Ass Road Kill Charger

Muscle car enthusiasts will have definitely heard of Hot Rod Magazine and their brilliant YouTube channel. If you know this channel you’ll most likely know the Road Kill channel formed by Hot Rod Magazine’s Mike Finnegan and David Freiburger. These two guys literally know every nut and bolt of any muscle car ever built – the episode featured in this article is a testament to their knowledge.

The Dodge Charger is an iconic muscle car, not only featuring in classic TV and cinema but also making it into modern film too. The car pictured above is a ’68 Charger painted with the ‘serial child murderer’ brush. It is dripping with ‘bad ass’; it emanates a sense of dread, fear and disgust.

Finnegan and Freiburger take this beaten up Charger, throw spanners and wrenches its way and take a road trip any true man would kill for. It’s the kind of adventure that would take you to the level of excitement an 8-year-old kid would experience the night before Christmas. The best bit is its heart… yes, it’s a 440 big block, but it is ripped from the bowels of a camper van.

This is a bastard of a car, a Frankenstein machine botched together for the purpose of eating tarmac and terrifying the general public (the latter, I’m all for :D). It looks extremely sinister and irrationally evil; it is loud and probably handles like the devil with an icicle shoved up his arse, but it is beautiful and I want it.

Evil And The Automobile

My favourite kind of films are road movies or movies in which cars are heavily featured, or better still, if the star is the car. The cream of the crop will be in the horror/crime genres, so with this in mind, it led me into thinking about which cars were evil and what types of cars evil drove. No Herbie The Love Bug here (although I was traumatised as a 6-year-old witnessing No. 53 trying to commit suicide off a bridge), just the dark and the mysterious, the evil and the damning.

I’ll start with my favourite Stephen King novel and movie, Christine. This ’58 Plymouth Fury wasn’t just cool, she was possessive over her owners, choosing love songs on her radio to serenade them. If anyone else came into their lives, Christine would kill them. You could take a metal bar to her or defecate on her dash, but that wouldn’t stop Christine; it would just make her mad enough for her to come looking for you. Despite sounding like a corny horror, the film does have more depth than most, although it doesn’t quite depict the relationship a kid has with his/her first car like the novel.

Okay, this movie falls into the corny category, although it is entertaining because the main star is an psychotic custom Lincoln. The movie’s tagline: Is it a phantom, a demon, or the Devil himself? pretty much sums up The Car and its storyline, but because I’m a car freak, I loved watching it take people out.

Drive Angry is worth watching just for Amber Heard and her murdered-out Charger. Despite being uber cool, the Dodge isn’t the evil one here. The story involves a father coming back from hell to prevent his daughter going with a Satanic cult who eventually want to sacrifice her child. However, he isn’t the only one who has come back, as he’s being pursued by a man in a suit who calls himself the Accountant. At the end of the movie the Accountant summons a ’57 Chevrolet One-Fifty from hell, the car the two of them go back in.

Another creation of Stephen King involves this superb ’55 Chevy Bel-Air in Sometimes They Come Back. This is another favourite of mine – it doesn’t get any cooler than dead greasers driving a fire-breathing black Chevy with flames on the side.

This Devil is easy on the eye in Bedazzled. Liz Hurley (Satan) drives this apt Lamborghini Diablo.

Yet another Stephen King adaption in Maximum Overdrive. This was given a bit of a bashing by the critics, but if you’ve read the short story, you’ll understand how hard it was to make the transition to film convincing. Trucks come to life and surround a gas station/diner full of terrified on-lookers. If you’re not into the whole “cars have feelings too” like me and Gargling Gas, then I’d give this miss.

hybrid

Although this article features the evil and the dead, I will include this next car as, although it’s an alien, it’s a nasty bit of kit. Super Hybrid is about a mysterious car that ends up in a Chicago police impound garage after a deadly traffic accident. The on-call mechanics discover the car has a mind of its own, and with its hundreds of horsepower, it starts killing people.

If I had to make a movie and feature a car I think the Devil would surf eBay for, I’d have to go for a slammed black ’66 Cadillac Deville.

How to Be A Duke Of Hazzard

The General Lee

When was the last time you drove down the road only to be presented with one of those Dukes Of Hazzard moments? You know the ones – whether it’s a skip with two ideally placed planks or a car transporter with its tail down, these moments (in me at least) evoke the imagery of me flying through the air in my car – this could be down to my obsession with the Good Ole Boys combined with the fact my father used to hang me over the stair banisters from the landing by my ankles, but that’s for another letter to childline.

Joking aside, there is a real science to jumping a car and landing successfully. Although the Dukes wrecked a criminal amount of Dodge Chargers with their ludicrous jumps and film edits, a properly prepped vehicle can make a huge jump without killing itself and its occupant.

Please consider my basic maths and physics theory. Three factors come into play when it comes to launching a projectile over distance. Weight distribution, aerodynamics and a lot of complicated Newtonian theory.

Newton

In its most basic form: The initial launch angle (0-90 degrees) of an object in projectile motion dictates the range, height, and time of flight of that object.

As I’m not a physics teacher and you probably just want to know how to jump a car, it boils down to this: How fast do I need to hit a ramp, and at what angle, to clear a predetermined distance?

After an audacious attempt to actually try and break down Newton’s Laws into some sort x,y,z formula, I quickly realised I’d have more success in translating Tutankhamen’s diary. With that said, I did find out that most jumps involving vehicles use a ramp of no more than 30 degrees in angle… well, it’s a start.

Further reading and I uncovered some tips on how to jump a car. So, forget all that school stuff for a moment and take onboard these tips from the pros.

110531_hotwheels1

Approach

If you hit a jump with too much speed you run the risk of a face plant (nose dive). Too little speed and you probably won’t reach the other side. Speed (velocity) is the most important factor to take into consideration, as even one mile per hour over or under can translate to as much as 15 or 20 feet – that’s massively over shooting or not making the jump at all.

It doesn’t stop there; if you’re accelerating on takeoff, the front end of the car will rise, and if you’re decelerating, the front end will dive – the predetermined speed needs to be reached and maintained before you hit the ramp.

AMC-Hornet-in-The-Man-with-the-Golden-Gun-Car-Jump-Stunt

Air Time

Once you are airborne, a factor not many people would consider is the gyroscopic effects of the wheels. Depending on the vehicle’s weight distribution, the experienced stuntman can control the car’s pitch with the drivetrain layout. It’s known that a rear-wheel-drive vehicle responds immediately to throttle application, whereas front-wheel-drive cars can correct errant pitches through steering input, as the weighty and spinning wheels at the front alter the yaw angle of the vehicle’s momentum. Despite these varying behaviours, all-wheel-drive cars offer the ultimate level of airtime control, since using all four wheels enables both yaw and pitch correction.

Car Crash

Landing

Once you’ve landed correctly, the vehicle’s suspension does the rest. Bottoming out is inevitable unless you have heavy-duty dampers and springs installed. If you’ve landed on all four wheels and are still alive, you’ve pulled it off; if, however you slightly miss-judged or overlooked one of the aforementioned factors, you’ll either be in hospital or you’re in a car lot picking out a new car – trial and error.

While most publications will say, “leave it to the pros”, I will conclude and say, “Next time you want to impress a girl, don’t reach for the handbrake; plant your foot down, aim for the ramp, and pray… and make sure she’s not touching up her mascara.”