7 Iconic Normcore Cars in Movies and TV That Have Become Unforgettable

Baby Driver offers a different take on the wheelman trope, but it sticks largely to the same normcore values that Drive highlighted. Although there are several escape sequences in the movie, the stand-out involved a bright red, hawkeye Subaru WRX during the flick’s opener.

It’s safe to say that when it comes to compact performance cars, the WRX qualifies as the vehicle most likely to be purchased by suburban parents who need to balance their need for speed with the equally important requirement of a usable back seat (and, in some climates, four-season practicality). Step outside the vape memes and track rat crowd, and the vast majority of Subaru WRX owners are responsible citizens with a fixed address putting in their time at a 9 to 5.

This is part of what makes it an inspired selection when making a getaway from a bank job. Like the Impala, the WRX blends in, but for a different reason: Its size and shape can easily be confused for any number of similarly styled sedans. In fact, this is exactly what happens in this chase sequence, where the titular Baby Driver tucks the Subaru between a same-hued Chevrolet Cruze and Volkswagen Jetta on the highway, confusing a police helicopter and allowing for a clean getaway.

Fun fact: The WRX stunt car had its front drive axles disconnected so it could better execute the handbrake turns and four-wheel drifts that make up much of the sequence, which was all done in-camera.

Although he also had a brief stint behind the wheel of a convertible Chrysler PT Cruiser, perhaps no car better defines the iconic Michael Scott character from The Office than his Chrysler Sebring. Scott was in possession of more than one generation of Sebring—all of them drop-tops—but his silver 2004 model gets the most screen time.

Like the Impala, the Sebring was a perennial rental counter favorite, and “Sebring or equivalent” was likely to be on your list of choices if you were hoping for a convertible while visiting a fair-weather locale. Affordable and ubiquitous, this Chrysler made multiple appearances in nearly every season of the show as a vehicle that, to Scott, represented the pinnacle of cool.

To the audience, however, it was simply the most obvious choice a paper company manager could make. The Sebring was an inspired piece of normcore car casting, and it served to fill out much about Scott’s character in the minds of viewers. It even helped define other members of the cast, including an episode where second-in-command Dwight Schrute refuses the gift of the Sebring from his boss (whom he otherwise worships), briefly penetrating Scott’s bubble about what the rest of his officemates think of his ride.

As it turns out, Chrysler’s history of dovetailing rental counter dominance with pop culture significance dates all the way back to the 1980s. The classic comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles tags in an unforgettable institutional green Chrysler LeBaron ragtop that served as a flame-damaged torture device for stars Steve Martin and John Candy across far too many winter highway miles.

With paint that reminds you of a ’70s kitchen appliance and wood paneling that advertises that you don’t earn enough money to buy something better, the LeBaron is a very specific slice of middle American normcore. It’s the kind of car that might technically check off the “fun convertible” box on the order sheet, but which in execution is a mishmash of K-car leftovers built by a company frantically trying to claw its way out of bankruptcy.

If The Office had been filmed in the ’80s, there’s no doubt Michael Scott would have parked a LeBaron in his manager’s space. This is underscored by the fact that John Candy’s character is himself a frustrated salesperson, and that Steve Martin is a corporate drone clearly unhappy with his place in life. The LeBaron isn’t bringing them to a better place, nor is it even getting them closer to their ultimate destination. It’s just there as the placeholder for their frustrations, with both the world and each other.

We can relate.

Ronin is celebrated as delivering some of the best modern-era chase sequences in Hollywood history, but what’s often overlooked is just how normcore several of the participants in these scenes are. It’s strange enough that we’re treated to the sight of a fleet of Citroën XMs—famously not fast—outrunning an Audi S8 said to be outfitted with a custom nitrous system. but it’s the film’s primary set piece that centers a vehicle that’s more at home in a suburban banlieue driveway than a poster on the wall.

We’re referring, of course, to the 1996 Peugeot 406 that Robert DeNiro pilots in hot pursuit of Natasha McElhone, who is driving an early-’90s BMW M5. While much has been written about the Bimmer (including speculation that it’s actually a rebadged 535i), the 406 has garnered considerably less attention, and with good reason: This is a family four-door that, at its peak, offered 190 horsepower from a 3.0-liter V-6 (and considerably less output from its more common four-cylinder engine).

And yet there it is on the screen, effortlessly keeping up with the last of the hand-built M cars. The front-puller skids and slides through Parisian streets choked with traffic and pedestrians that largely checks the horsepower advantage of the BMW, but it’s still an impressive performance from a car more often observed pulling taxi duty than intercepting international terrorists. Watching the Peugeot huff-and-puff its way through Ronin is like seeing a well-meaning New Year’s resolution-maker hit the treadmill at the gym in jeans and Crocs; you might not understand it, but you still gotta respect it.

Corporate synergy can make some very strange bedfellows, especially when you’re talking about product placement in a major movie franchise. There’s no doubt Jeep thought it had scored a major win when it convinced the producers of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice that of course billionaire Bruce Wayne would not only own a Jeep Renegade, but that he would make it his first pick to drive on a day when the entire world around him was being destroyed.

Unfortunately for anyone living outside Hollywood’s reality distortion field, it was impossible to believe that Batman’s incredibly wealthy alter-ego would ever give the ultra-normcore, entry-level Jeep even a passing glance. After all, this is a man who drives the Batmobile, possibly the least subtly styled vehicle of all time. What chance do the Renegade’s boxy, American-by-way-of-Italy charms have when parked alongside a car that literally looks like every single surface could cut you?

No matter how hard Chrysler leaned into the movie’s marketing (even going so far as to produce a special edition version of the Renegade as a tie-in), the incongruities of Bruce Wayne and the baby Jeep made its inclusion in the film memorable for all the wrong reasons.