There is no age to love cartoons. Since the age of television, a lot of us grew up watching and adoring animated series. And with the streaming platforms bringing even better shows to binge, animated series are only getting more popular among audiences of all ages. Those who loved cars from a young age naturally loved watching cartoons with cars in them.
From the foot peddled primitive car from The Flintstones to that 70s van from Scooby-Doo, we all remember the cool animated cars featured in popular cartoons. Today, we will take a look at some of the most iconic animated cars to ever grace the screen.
Popular Animated Cars and Their Resemblance with Real Cars
For a lot of us, our first favourite car was an animated one. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and go through six of the most popular cars featured in animated movies and cartoons.
The Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo, Where are You
Released in 1969, this cartoon series was on TV until 1978. For all these years and even later, kids watching the cartoon on TV thought of the Mystery Machine (the van used in the cartoon) as a great adventure truck.
The van had bright paint, groovy emblems and flowered wheels. Each side of this vehicle had a painted green panel with the words “THE MYSTERY MACHINE” painted in orange. That’s an iconic look copied by thousands of fans across the world. Later on, in the animated film released between 1998 and 2001, the Mystery Machine had a striking resemblance to the Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari.
If you are a Chevrolet fan, here is a list of used Chevrolets for sale in the UAE. Whereas, if you are someone who prefers driving GMC vehicles, take a look at these used GMC cars for sale in the UAE.
Lightning McQueen from Cars
Lightning McQueen is the talking car with eyes featured in Pixar’s famous animated movie, Cars released in 2006. The sequel to the animated movie, Cars 2 was released in 2011 and third instalment, Cars 3 was released in 2017. The car is named after Pixar animator Glenn McQueen and the animated film is based on Toyota NASCAR vehicles.
Lightning McQueen was really impressive from a merchandising standpoint. From pajamas to bed sheets and wall stickers to miniatures, in the shape of inflated balloons and stuffed toys, everything had a Lightning McQueen.
To put it simply Lightning McQueen featured in Cars is a winner when it comes to car-based marketing for children.
The animated car in the cartoon is said to have taken design inspiration from Corvette C6 and Corvette C1. C6 happened in the sixth generation of Corvette sports cars. It was in production between 2004 and 2013 as the first Corvette featuring exposed headlamps
The Space Car, The Jetsons
The series produced by Hanna-Barbera in 1962, was pretty futuristic. The cartoon was made at a time when the technology to develop flying cars was unimaginable. But the makers of The Jetsons made its viewers believe in a concept that is well being worked on these days. The Jetsons’ flying car, also known as the Space Car, took design inspiration from the FX-Atmos, a 1954 Ford concept car. Prominent features of this car were a radar screen on the dashboard, an all-glass bubble cover and tail fins resembling the fins of a jet plane.
Now, naturally one cannot buy a flying car, for that we may have to wait a few decades, but here is a list of used Ford cars for sale in the UAE for all the Ford enthusiasts.
Living in the future, Jetson used to commute to work in this aerocar resembling a flying saucer with an all-transparent bubble top. The dream that Jetsons made us see as children is being worked on with many prototypes and future cars.
The Mach 5, Speed Racer
When thinking of famous cartoons cars one can not forget, the Mach 5. The racing animated car featured in the cartoon series, Speed Racer, was a sleek car with a great personality. The Mach 5 in this series was capable of leaping in the air, boosting the car to be repaired, and had special tyres that were capable of adapting to any kind of terrain with just a push of a button. It also had powerful rotating protruding saws at the front to remove obstacles in its way.
It is truly amazing to see how many of such features we actually see in actual cars or at least prototypes released today.
In fact, the 2001 Chevrolet Corvette Chassis is known as the real-life version of the Mach 5. The windshield wraps around the real-life version of Mach 5 and its body lines were inspired by the original cartoon. If you are a Corvette fan, here is a list of used Chevrolet Corvette cars for sale in the UAE.
Flintstone Mobile, The Flintstones
The cartoon series from the ’60s was on for 54 years. That is a long long time, that is why children from the age of televisions, who must be in their 30s by now clearly remember the Flintstone Mobile. The primitive human-powered car driven by Fred Flintstone was all open, it had no doors, the body was a log-framed phaeton that had no car suspension and ran on huge stone steamroller wheels that couldn’t possibly be steered.
The car was powered by Fred’s two feet, that is why it is also called the “Foot Mobile”. Even though The Flintstone Mobile was far from reality and it did not resemble any actual cars, all those who’ve watched the cartoon series clearly remember this one of a kind car.
The Junkerolla Plymouth, The Simpsons
The Simpsons was a popular animated series that was on the screen for 25 years. A number of animated cars were featured, but the one car that is most recognisable for Simpsons fans is the pink car. From the opening credits to many other episodes, we see the pink Simpsons family car. The classic pink sedan driven by Homer was a 1986 Junkerolla Plymouth. Though Plymouth never really released a model called Junkerolla in real life, the Plymouth Reliant had a striking resemblance with Homer’s pink sedan.
Plymouth, discontinued in 2001, was a car brand of Chrysler. Though finding the real life equivalent to Simpson’s family car is difficult, here is a list of used Chryslers for sale in the UAE. Explore from a variety of cars including sedans and choose the one that best fits your driving and style requirements.
That is a wrap on the famous animated cars of all time. If you wish to buy real-life models or cars that were the actual inspiration for these cartoon cars, go through this list of used cars for sale in the UAE.
On a totally different note, if you are looking for animated series based on cars, you may want to watch Tooned – an animated series by McLaren and Fast and Furious Spy Racer – an animated Netflix car show.
If you liked what you read, stay tuned to your favourite cars blog for more about everything automobiles.
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