The Car

The Car is a 1977 American thriller film directed by Elliot Silverstein and written by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack and Lane Slate. The film stars James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, and Ronny Cox, and tells the story of a mysterious car which goes on a murderous rampage, terrorizing the residents of a small town.

The film was produced and distributed by Universal Studios, and was influenced by numerous "road movies" of the 1970s including Steven Spielberg's 1971 thriller Duel and Roger Corman's Death Race 2000.

Plot

Two bicyclists cycling on a canyon are followed by a mysterious black car down the road. At the bridge, the car proceeds to crush one cyclist against the wall, and ram the other from behind, causing him to fall off the bridge. A hitchhiker, hoping to get a ride, encounters the car and insults it after it purposefully tries to run him down. In response, the car runs over him and leaves. The local sheriff's office, called to the first of a series of hit and run deaths, get a lead on the car that appears heavily customized and has no license plate, as pointed out by Amos Clemens (R. G. Armstrong) after he sees it run over the hitchhiker.

The Car (Brack)

The Car is a 1955 painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts a family in a car on a drive in a rural area. The painting shows the father looking at the road ahead while the mother and children look towards the viewer. While the whole car cannot be seen, the car itself is identifiable as a Triumph Mayflower.

The work was painted around the same time as two of Brack's best-known paintings, Collins Street., 5 pm (1955) and The Bar (1954).

Brack described how he came to paint the work:

Kirsty Grant, Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria claims that The Car is one of Brack's more popular works stating "I think it transports people who lived through that time, whether they are adults or children, back to that era ...The Car is familiar. It is about people and the way we behave and our foibles."

The painting is part of the National Gallery of Victoria's Australian art collection. The painting was part of the Australia exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2013.

The Car (novel)

The Car is a 1993 novel by Gary Paulsen.

Plot summary

Terry Anders is a fourteen-year-old boy who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. When both of his parents abandon him, he decides to go on a cross country adventure to find an uncle that he vaguely remembers after assembling his father's abandoned Blakely Bearcat kit car project. Along the way, he befriends two Vietnam vets Waylon and Wayne whom with he enjoys life on the open road. This book is about their adventure together and where they go.