A little more than 30 miles from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, another kind of church pays homage to movies, TV shows, and cultural touchpoints. Billing itself as “the temple of pop culture,” Pop Central Museum in Étréchy is now selling off an impressive collection of original stunt cars.
The vehicles up for sale were used in the Fast & Furious franchise, John Wick 2, Drive, Back to the Future 2, and The Dukes of Hazzard. Others are replicas seen in classics like The A-Team, Herbie the Love Bug (in all of its late 1960-era glory), Batman, and James Bond movies.
All in all, auction house Bonhams will be selling off 50 movie and TV series vehicles and motorcycles along with memorabilia like a Jurassic Park T-Rex statue expected to fetch between roughly $40,000 and nearly $70,000. If you had the means, that would be a striking—or perhaps alarming—prehistoric conversation piece in your backyard.
Celebrity provenance and real fender benders
Some of the vehicles up for auction, like the 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 from John Wick 2, have legitimate celebrity credibility. This vehicle was number 4 out of 5 built for the movie and driven by star Keanu Reeves in a car chase. According to stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott via Vanity Fair, Reeves is an excellent driver. However, the cars were still pretty banged up in the process.
“For several scenes, a stuntman drove the car from a roof-mounted cockpit so Reeves could focus on acting,” explained The Drive in a 2017 story about the stunt. “Then there were complex tricks like the sweet jump-drift through a warehouse door, which took ‘7 or 8 takes’ and destroyed at least one Mustang when a stunt driver clipped the steel door frame in midair.”
If I had to pick one of these movie cars, I’d choose the circa 1989 Police Cruiser designed by Tim Flattery and built by Gene Winfield. Seen on screen in Back to the Future 2 starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and Lea Thompson, the police cruiser made an appearance as a futuristic flying car. The one up for auction is one of two built, and the only one fitted with an engine. It was later on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in California before being acquired by the Pop Culture Museum.
Those with a penchant for French cars will be drawn to the 1999 Peugeot 406 V6 from Taxi 2. This iconic machine will be on display at the Salon Époqu’Auto in Lyon, which is closer to Geneva, Switzerland than Paris, France. The Peugeot should draw a decent crowd, as the auction house says it’s “probably the most famous car in French cinema.” It’s expected to draw a bid of roughly $80,000 to $138,000. Oui, monsieur.
At the top of the heap—from a cost perspective, anyway—is a 2001 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII built for the character portrayed by the late Paul Walker in 2Fast 2Furious. Bonhams believes it will sell for between $290,000 and $500,000, and they probably won’t be far off. Vehicles from the F&F family have raked in big bucks, like the 1994 Toyota Supra that commanded $550,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction in 2021. Even bigger than that, in 2023 a 2000 Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R driven by Walker in Fast & Furious 4 sold for $1.36 million.
The museum makes way for “other automotive projects”
It appears that at one time, museum owner Franck Galiègue rented out these cars for joyrides, but that function seems to have been halted. Surely there were enough people who wanted to take a ride in a Ghostbusters Ecto-1 replica or a custom vehicle from Fast & Furious 7.
Alas, all of the vehicles are going to be adopted into new homes in the very near future.
“This museum has been an incredible adventure, but the time has come to move on to new automotive projects,” Galiègue said in a statement from Bonhams. “I have spent many years collecting these cars and have had the pleasure of sharing them with enthusiasts from all over Europe. Now it is time to pass them on to film lovers who will take up the baton and continue to keep these witnesses to mechanical and cinematic history alive.”
Bonhams will host the auction online November 21-28. Bring your wallet (and maybe a trust fund) if you want to start your own house of movie worship.
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