The Top 11 Coolest-Ever TV and Movie Trucks


The Top 11 Coolest-Ever TV and Movie Trucks

Trucks. We love ’em around here at BangShift. Over the years there have been a bunch of kick ass trucks on both the big and small screen. We scoured our tiny pea-brains to come up with the 11 coolest TV and movie trucks of all time. It seems like the list is Chevy heavy but that must mean that GM’s PR department did a better job getting their junk on screen than the Ford boys did!

Another thing you will notice is that most of these trucks hail from the 1970s and 1980s. Were their any cool shows with neat trucks in them during the 1990s? What the heck happened? Did we miss some? Tell us how dumb we are!

 

THE TOP 11 COOLEST-EVER TV AND MOVIE TRUCKS

11) The dually from Cannonball Run: This one’s basically for Chad, since he has a thing for ’73-’87 Chevy and GMC duallies.

Cannonball Run dually

 

10) Cooter’s tow truck from Dukes: Ol’ Cooter had two tow rigs, but this one that apears to be a ’67 Ford is the cooler one. We loved it when he drove it like it was the General or something.

Cooter's tow truck

 

9) The Dodge Power Wagon from Simon and Simon: This one is the truck that set the image for all 4x4s in Chad’s youth, and is the only Dodge on our list. What’s with that?

Simon and Simon Dodge truck
8) Jeep Gladiator from Tremors: Freiburger has one almost exactly like this, but different.

Jeep Gladiator

 

7) Cletus Snow’s Kenworth: Are you really going to ask what movie we’re talking about? This is the tractor-trailer that made semis cool, as far as we’re concerned, but with apologies to Kris Kristofferson. And do we have to explain that reference?

Bandit Kenworth

 

6) The Peterbilt from Duel: Duel is not necessarily a car movie, even though the entire thing is a chase. Dennis Weaver is driving for his life in a little six-cylinder Valiant while a demonic old big rig tries to kill him. That truck is number six on the list. The truck was a 1955 Peterbilt 351 and frankly is the most satanic vehicle to ever grace the big screen. During the film, while Weaver is on the verge of tears and breathing heavy, all you ever see of the guy driving the rig is a greasy hand on the gearshift. It swan dives off a cliff at the end. Hasta la vista baby.

 

Peterbilt from Duel

 

5) K.I.T.T.’s nemisis Goliath from Knight Rider: Yeah, yeah, it’s another rig and another Peterbilt at that. This one
was a cab-over model 352 and traumatized Lohnes as a kid when it nearly
killed K.I.T.T. In a legendarily campy couple of episodes, Hasselhoff
played Michael Knight as well as his evil twin Garthe. Garthe had the
truck worked over into in invincible battleship on wheels with the sole
mission being the destruction of K.I.T.T. Shockingly, he failed and the
series trooped on, much to the delight of kids across America.

Goliath from Knight Rider

 

4) Rocky’s GMC from Rockford Files: The Firebird got all the glory, but there were a couple other neat vehicles running around on Rockford Files. Jim’s dad “Rocky” drove a pretty cool 4×4 GMC shortbed that was kind of a prerunner to the Fall Guy truck. We’re totally dreaming of having a late-’70s/early-’80s truck now.

Rocky Rockford's GMC

 

3) Bigfoot 1 in Take This Job and Shove It: This movie produced more than just a hit song for Johnny Paycheck. It launched the career of Bob Chandler’s Bigfoot, the original monster truck, and in some strange way kicked off the craze. In the movie, Bigfoot is put to work competing at an off-road race, which it wins. Apparently, in the process of the filming, the truck was virtually destroyed and had to be completely overhauled after all was said and done. This truck is killer in this phase before the truly huge tires got bolted on and before the idea of “monster trucks” even existed. At the time it was the baddest ass 4×4 in the country.

Bigfoot in Take This Job and Shove It

 

2) The A-Team Van: We can only guess how many bazillions of dollars were made selling all of the toys associated with the A-Team, especially the killer van. It sure seemed mean on the screen, but the fact is, the thing was powered by a wimpy two-barrel 350. With Mr. T at the helm, there’s still a small piece of our inner child craving a ride.

A-Team van

 

1) The Fall Guy truck: Was there any other possible choice?! Without fail, this truck would
get jumped, crashed, slid, or crushed to within an inch of its life during some part of every episode of Fall Guy. Although tame by today’s standards,back when Lee Majors was rocking thisthing on small screens across America, it was huge. They went through A LOT of these babies during filming. Some were big-blocks, some small, and even in some episodes, he starts out with a longbed and ends up with a shorty. One stunt truck was mid-engined for better balance on the big jumps. The 80s ruled, and given the chance we would build a truck identical to this one tomorrow.

The Fall Guy truck


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20 thoughts on “The Top 11 Coolest-Ever TV and Movie Trucks

  1. Curtis

    Have to agree with you on the number one choice, no brainer that one. Both of Clint Eastwood’s truck in “Any which way but loose” and also Any which way you can”. Both great movies if you like fist fights, bikers, guns, cars and trucks and just a good ole time. Orville’s wrecker was also good in the second movie. Also, the 18 wheeler in the TV series Movin On was great, made a huge big rig impression on my brothers and I before Smokey and the Bandit came on the scene.

  2. Curtis

    Something else about those two trucks in the Clint Eastwood movies, I think they were both stick shifts and one of them sounded like a granny geared six banger. Both tan in color but I think one was a late fifties GMC and the other a mid sixties GMC.

  3. Steve

    About Bigfoot; the movie “Take this job and shove it” was filmed in my home town, Dubuque, Iowa. The city was broke, Hollywood came calling. They gave the crew carte blanche. I can’t tell you what a freak out it was to see the thing driving around town between shoots. Nothing had a presence like Bigfoot at that time.

  4. DG30

    Good stuff. Glad to see Simon & Simon power wagon made the list. Don’t think I ever missed an episode of Rick and AJ doing whatever they wanted in that truck that was indestructible to me as a kid, as well as Cooter and the Duke boys.

    Like to add the Over the Top 1967 Autocar to this list. I mean who didn’t want to be a truck driver and have a biceps machine in a rig in the 80’s!!??

    Thanks for this post, Brian. Takes a guy back to when tv shows and movies were worth watching

  5. Brendon

    Thank you for NOT including optimus prime, especially the movie versions. seriously, thank you.

    I might have found a spot for Ralph Malph’s roadster pick up, though

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