When It Comes to Cars, How Much Is Movie Magic Worth?

Putting value on fame is ultimately subjective, but it can be measured. For instance, whether Harrison Ford is a better actor than Brad Pitt is a matter of opinion, but there’s no disputing the fact that films Ford has headlined have grossed more over the course of his career ($4.87 billion vs $2.68 billion, per IMDB).

The same applies to vehicular celebrities. We editors have already named our favorites, but our Valuation team looked at the subject through their own unique lens: They exhaustively tracked down sale prices of cars with on-screen appearances in film, then compared it to the value of a standard version of that car at the time of the sale.

Below are the films that have made the biggest difference, as compared to what a similar but non-famous example would have sold for.

Welcome to the Hagerty Movies and Cars Celebration, where we highlight and explore the relationship between cars and the silver screen.

Bullitt (1968)

Sold for $3,740,000

If there’s a single car chase scene that’s more famous than all the others, it’s the one with Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) wheeling and hill-hopping a 1968 Highland Green Mustang GT fastback around San Francisco, in hot pursuit of the shotgun-wielding bad guys in their black Dodge Charger. After filming, the hero car (aka the one used mostly for beauty shots, not the one banged up in all the stunts) wound up in private ownership. In 1974, a New Jersey man named Robert Kiernan answered an ad in the back of Road & Track and bought the movie Mustang for $6000. (McQueen himself tried to buy “his” car back from Kiernan, to no avail.) Kiernan’s wife even used the car to commute to work. When the clutch went out in 1980, the family parked it.

It stayed with them for the next three decades, still in scruffy, unrestored condition. After Hagerty broke the story of the car’s existence in 2018, it went on a bit of a PR tour with Kiernan’s son Sean before crossing the block at Mecum’s Kissimmee mega-auction in 2020. Its $3.74M final price made it the most valuable Mustang ever sold at auction. At the time, a Mustang in the same configuration and in #4 (fair) condition was worth a little over 40 grand.

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Cars (2006)

Sold for $3,600,000

There are a couple of caveats for this entry. First, the obvious: Sally Carrera wasn’t a real car. Nor was Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson, or any of the other computer-generated, anthropomorphized automobiles in Pixar’s wildly successful kids’ flick. What the car in question is instead is a collaboration between Pixar, Style Porsche, Porsche’s Sonderwunsch team, and Porsche Cars North America that brings the movie character into the physical world as a real-life 911. Based on a contemporary Carrera GTS, it’s dripping in special touches, including the paint and interior colors, modifications to the body, special wheels, and special headlights.

The other caveat with the so-called Sally Special is that this was a charity auction, with proceeds going to organizations including Girls Inc. and the UN Refugee Agency. The charity element, along with the fact that this is a special-build 911 with unique specs, contributed plenty to the $3.6M final price when the Sally Special sold at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction in 2022. But the movie connection was a factor, too. For reference, the MSRP for a 911 Carrera GTS in 2022 was less than $140,000.

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Risky Business (1983)

Sold for $1,980,000

The production team for this racy coming-of-age comedy enlisted multiple Platinum Metallic (brown) Porsche 928s to use for filming. This one, though, got the most screen time, and it isn’t the one that rolled down a hill into Lake Michigan. It’s also reportedly the car in which Tom Cruise, starring in the breakout role of his career, learned to drive a stick shift.

Aside from the history, it’s a fairly standard if very clean example of Porsche’s famous front-engine GT, complete with phone dial wheels and a Cork leather interior. In September 2021, when it crossed the block at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Houston, a ’79 928 in #1 (concours, or best in the world) condition was an $80,000 car in our price guide. Thanks to the movie connection, it brought $1,980,000.

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Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

Sold for $550,000

The connection between Firebirds and the famous Hal Needham–directed action comedy is a strong one. So strong, in fact, that “Bandit era” is a car hobby colloquialism that applies to all late ’70s Firebirds, especially black-and-gold Trans Ams. The images of Bandit flying over creeks and sliding around dirt roads made the car more famous than Burt Reynolds’ mustache.

Speaking of Reynolds, he took a personal liking to the Pontiac pony car and owned multiple examples over the years. A few have sold for big six-figure prices. More valuable than his personal cars, however, and the most expensive Firebird ever sold publicly, is a car more closely associated with the actual film. A ’77 Trans Am retained by Universal Studios in period and used as a promo car to gin up interest in the movie sold for $550,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale in 2016. At the time, the condition #1 value for the model in our price guide was less than a tenth of that amount.

This story first appeared in the Movies and Cars digital issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Join the club to receive our award-winning magazine and enjoy insider access to automotive events, discounts, roadside assistance, and more.