The 20 coolest talking cars in movies, TV shows and games

Michael Knight came back from the brink of death to right the world's wrongs, and he did it with the coolest cars on '80s television. KITT, an acronym for Knight Industries Two Thousand, is an indestructible Pontiac Trans Am with more gizmos than the Gadgetmobile. It operated on an artificially intelligent computer system voiced by St. Elsewhere and Boy Meets World’s William Daniels. If you were a kid in the '80s, chances are you fought with your parents to stay up so you could watch Knight Rider.

The cocky race car voiced by Owen Wilson goes on a Doc Hollywood-esque journey through the backroads of Americana that modern highways have almost made obsolete. Cars may not be Pixar’s smartest movie, but the Lightning McQueen we see at the film's beginning is different from the one before the final credits start to roll. It says something about the movie that you forget you're empathizing with a race car that learns it takes more than ego to win a race.

We had a really hard time deciding which one of the main cars from the first Cars movie should go on this list. So we put them both on it. Mater, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, seems like a typical country bumpkin in vehicular form, but much like McQueen’s first impressions, we learn that Mater is a multilayered, complex, and lovable character with an enthusiasm for life that most people never feel in their lifetime. It’s impossible to find a more likable and better backward driver in this world.

This talking car, voiced by Michael Caine, is the ultimate spy in vehicle form, even when you put him up against James Bond’s cars. He’s got all those cool super spy gadgets built into this chassis, but unlike Bond’s Lotus Esprit that can turn into a submarine or Aston Martin DB5 that can hide two machine gun barrels in the hood, Finn McMissile can do karate. Bond Aston Martin Vanquish can’t even do basic hand-to-hand combat.

Long before Disney/Pixar’s Cars populated a universe with talking vehicles, this New York cab (not a cabbie, an actual cab) made talking cartoon cars a cool commodity for films. Benny makes an appearance in this “Who’s Who” of the cartoon universe from director Robert Zemeckis halfway through the film just when Roger Rabbit, voiced by Charles Fleischer, and Eddie Valient, played by Bob Hoskins, need a quick escape from the weaselly Toon Patrol. The ensuing chase is one of the funniest car chases of all time, with Benny setting up quips and creating hilarious mayhem on the streets of LA, even in its most tense moments.

Technically, the leader of the Autobots is only a car half of the time, but we dare you to tell him that to his face, no matter what form it takes. The semi-truck robot voiced in the original cartoon and the endless series of films by Peter Cullen is the kind of leader every freedom fighter hopes will lead them into battle. He’s got a booming voice that demands your attention, a mind for tactics and dedication to protecting the innocent, and a cool shoulder-mounted weapon. He’s also a semi, so you don’t have to hire a truck when he comes over to help you move.

No one ever thought that someone could create a cooler Transformer than Optimus Prime without giving up and supporting the Decepticons. Bumblebee is the underdog hero that should be in every sci-fi action film. He starts out his adventures on Earth without a voice, so he can only communicate through radio broadcasts and songs. He’s a simple, silent soldier with the heart of a puppy but enough fight in him to save the day. It’s even more amazing that Bumblebee has become so cool when he transforms into the Camaro SS that everyone hated.

One of the most clever episodes from the original run of the Fox animated series Futurama featured this brilliant take on a horror movie staple. In “The Honking” (a take on Joe Dante’s classic werewolf movie The Howling), Bender is visiting the haunted home of a dead relative when he goes for a nighttime stroll on the misty moors. He’s run over by a mysterious creature in the form of a four-wheeled sedan that’s just a robot and learns he’s been infected with a wireless virus that transforms him into a killer car under the light of a full moon. Bender in car form is actually a nod to another killer car movie called (wait for it) The Car, but it would still be cool if Bender turned into a killer Ford Pinto, which is redundant.

If you’ve got a kid who knows that TV exists, you’ve had to endure endless hours of mind-numbing children’s television. One of the few entertaining parts of the popular kids' cartoon Doc McStuffins is the appearance of this slick little racecar that can “only go one speed – the fastest.” He’s a tiny supercar who talks like an Italian Scrappy Doo, and he’s got an infectious energy even if he’s dragging a bit and only going to the pint-sized Doc for a cure. Why can’t Ricardo get his own series? Is Disney worried it might compete with its Cars movies?

This Disney cartoon that criminally got canceled after only two seasons also had one of the coolest cars of any Disney TV or movie franchise. The high-tech British super spy car was fast, quick, and charming, with the kind of lightning reflexes you’d expect from a government-funded weapons vehicle. The funniest part is that it’s not the usual kind of lovable character that most talking cars become when they gain sentience. He’s actually a lovable curmudgeon who misses the life of a super spy. Cars can have complex feelings, too.

Most people are more likely to remember the classic NAMCO racing arcade game than this Saturday morning cartoon spinoff from the early '80s. It’s a shame because Pole Position was one of the coolest shows a precocious kid could watch over an early morning bowl of Fruit Loops. The Darretts' crime-fighting stunt cars have features like hidden water skis and hover jets and can talk to the drivers through a computer screen. The coolest part is that the AI software isn’t limited to the car. They can actually take the computers out of the car and carry them with them on missions, the same way MacGruber took the radio out of his Miata.

Not every talking car on Saturday morning cartoons was a killing machine that only operated to the whims of its driver. The cuter end of the talking car spectrum includes this adorable honker from Hanna-Barbera. This short-lived series only produced 13 adventures for the plucky little, red two-door coupe that could pull off sick stunts and still look as adorable as a frightened puppy. He could only speak with exclamations on his windshield, often shouting a hearty “CHARGE!” just before battling his titular arch enemies, but he should’ve gotten more time on the road than he did.

Director Stephen King’s horror story about machines coming to life to kill their human operators is insane from beginning to end. About midway through the machines’ attempt to take out humanity in grisly ways, the cars corner a group of survivors at a truck stop and realize they need gasoline if they want to prolong its path of destruction. So they send a military M274 Mule to send out a Morse code message on its horn at turret-mounted gunpoint to offer a safe passage in exchange for some gas since the eye-blinding pumps technically need human hands to operate them.  

Have you ever gotten into a fender bender or spotted a dent on your favorite ride and wished it could heal itself like humans do when we get a dent in the fender? The titular car from director John Carpenter’s gripping remake of King’s horror story about a killer car with a deep love for the owner who remodeled him can do just that. When a group of bullies smashes up Christine into a crumpled heap, it repairs itself for Arnie, played by Keith Gordon, using a set of really impressive practical effects to bring the car back to life.

There are a LOT of Herbie movies to choose from because they are scattered throughout our childhood. However, the one where the Love Bug helps out an orphaned kid in Mexico is a favorite, even if it’s not the most critically applauded one in the franchise. It’s got an all-star cast of comedy greats like Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman and a gold-stealing villain played by John Vernon, the greatest movie villain actor of the '80s. The film ends with a spectacular fight where Herbie literally launches bushels of bananas at the smugglers’ plane to keep it from leaving the country with a stolen batch of Incan gold.

If you were a kid in the '80s with enough money for a snack at the convenience store, you always spent the change on a pack of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. These disgusting and hilarious cards did more than parody the Cabbage Patch Kids fad. They were something that kids could have for themselves that grownups would never understand. The cars produced a movie (the less said, the better) and a Saturday morning cartoon featuring this junked-out car that would often drive the gang around town on its gross-out adventures. Rustin’ Justin wasn’t just made for the cartoon. The car also had its own car in the original Topps series.

When the home computer started to become more accessible and easier to use, software companies started producing games for younger users, and one of the first big hits was this click-and-point adventure series. Putt-Putt, the talking purple convertible, started as a book series, but it took off in the early '90s when it became a popular educational game for little kids. The game played like one of those classic LucasArts adventure games where players could move a character through a series of scenes to unlock parts of a larger story. Putt-Putt taught kids about animals, history, and even outer space, which is easily the coolest part of this pixelated ride.  

So many '80s toys and cartoons (most of which were the same) were about robots turning into other objects. Turbo-Teen was the first and only cartoon where the title character was just an ordinary human who somehow gained the ability to turn himself into a car, which is what every little boy wants out of life. Amazingly, Turbo Teen didn’t catch on and become a longer series. Maybe that’s because so many of the children who watched learned that being able to turn into a fast race car is something that only happens on TV.

This precocious plaything from Andy’s room doesn’t have the ability to speak a language beyond his own, but he becomes one of the biggest witnesses and heroes in this groundbreaking Pixar film. RC is the first to notice that Woody tried to push Buzz Lightyear out of the window so Andy would go back to playing with him again. Then, when Woody and Buzz escape from the evil clutches of the toy butchering Sid and catch up to the moving van, RC is the one who helps them get back to Andy with the help of Woody’s ingenuity and a massive rocket strapped to Buzz’s back.

Every kids’ song makes riding the school bus sound like a magical journey when it really can be one of the most humiliating experiences of a young kid’s laugh. It’s impossible for teachers to keep track of all the kids, and it doesn’t help that they don’t have seat belts to keep them strapped into their seats. Every kid who read the educational book series and watched the PBS and Netflix cartoon adventures of Miss Frizzle’s journey through the wonders of the scientific world wished the Magic School Bus would pick them up every morning.