History Main / WhatAPieceOfJunk

-->-- '''Han Solo''', ''Film/ANewHope'', on the ''Millennium Falcon''.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

--> '''Fred:''' Oh, Charles. Your soul wasn't worth air conditioning?
* ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett''. Din Djarin is not happy when Peli Motto sells him a secondhand Naboo N-1 Starfighter to replace his destroyed ''Razor Crest'', given that it's still in pieces and has small alien critters nesting inside. They spend all night doing a HardWorkMontage and roll it out for flight testing the next day. Once Din flies it however, he's ''very'' impressed: it is quite responsive on the controls even for its status as a small agile snub-fighter, and Peli had an aftermarket sublight booster engine installed on it that can accelerate so fast that it fools a rookie New Republic X-Wing patrolman into thinking Din jumped to hyperspace to escape a space traffic stop when Din lights it up. Much of it looks cobbled together or stripped down in stark contrast to the sleek organic lines of the original N1, with a greeblie on top of the front fuselage vaguely resembling a carburetor intake.

** The Third Doctor's "Bessie" is an Edwardian roadster. Very nice to drive, but not exactly ''powerful''. The Doctor has made some improvements, though: not only does Bessie have an inertialess hyperdrive, but also a remote control and anti-theft force fields.
*** Ace has this very reaction to her first sight of "Bessie" ... and then Seven hits the accelerator.
* In the ''Series/FamilyMatters'' episode "Hot Wheels," the car that Carl picked up at a police auction for Eddie ends up being this. When he first drags it home, it's a stereotypical boxy police car (either a '77 or '78 Plymouth Fury, not exactly the chick magnet Eddie was looking for) with peeling paint and shot-out windows. By the time it's done being restored and painted, it's a CoolCar.

** "Out of Gas"
--> '''Zoe''': You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?
** "Serenity"
-->'''Kaylee:''' You're gonna come with us.
-->'''Book:''' Excuse me?
-->'''Kaylee:''' You like ships. You don't seem to be lookin' at the destinations. What you care about is the ships, and mine's the nicest.
-->'''Book:''' She don't look like much.
-->'''Kaylee:''' Oh, she'll fool ya'.

* Christine's unseen [[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buick_Roadmaster_75_1958.jpg 1958 Buick Roadmaster]] from ''Series/NightCourt.'' Stuck with it after her father sold her beloved compact to buy this one (because it was supposedly safer), the thing turns out to be a {{Nigh Invulnerab|ility}}le pinball that survived a crash that would've destroyed her old car (and her along with it) without a scratch (on the car: Christine broke a nail.)

* On ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'', Red calls this type of car a "Sleeper" in one "North of 40" segment.

** To thwart a coup d'état against her government, Kira has to rely on a decade-old raider in "The Siege". Navigation is out, the targeting system doesn't work, the plasma conduit is held together with duct tape and prayer, and when a fire breaks out in the cabin, Dax grabs a nearby extinguisher... which fizzles out after a few squirts.
-->'''Kira:''' You Starfleet types are too dependent on gadgets and gizmos! You lose your natural instincts for survival!
-->'''Dax:''' My "natural instincts for survival" told me not to climb aboard this thing. I'd say they were functioning pretty well.
** Sisko's own starship is the ''USS Defiant'', an experimental prototype warship. It never went into full production because its designers overloaded its small, maneuverable hull [[note]]the SFX team were really bad at keeping her on-screen size consistent, but canonically she's only about as long as one of the Enterprise-D's warp nacelles[[/note]] with too much weaponry and overpowered engines, meaning the ship would lose integrity at full throttle; the Borg threat it was designed to combat dissipated before its design flaws could be fixed, so the project was abandoned. The [=DS9=] crew is skeptical about flying a defective model, but its firepower is what they need at this point in the war. (It helps that Sisko and [[MrFixit Chief O'Brien]] manage to fix most of its egregious defects, resulting in Starfleet putting the ''Defiant'' class back into production for use in the Dominion War.)

* In the 2007 ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film, Bumblebee at first transforms into a seen-better-days '76 Camaro that belches clouds of smoke when started and breaks down at convenient make-out spots. 'Bee is actually a giant robot from outer space and considerably tougher than he looks. He later turns into a much snazzier ''2008'' [[ProductPlacement Camaro]] when Megan Fox comments on his shabby appearance.

* The premise of the "Legends" campaign in ''[=CSR Racing 2=]''. The player is tasked with restoring 14 cars that have been severely neglected. Most simply have worn paint, rusty panels and damaged / missing parts but one was also a RiceBurner while another is a biohazard from the amount of moss it is covered in. However, when restored and fully upgraded, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, Pontiac GTO, and Honda NSX-R are among the fastest cars in their tiers.

* The premise of the "Legends" campaign in [=CSR Racing 2=]. The player is tasked with restoring 14 cars that have been severely neglected. Most simply have worn paint, rusty panels and damaged / missing parts but one was also a RiceBurner while another is a biohazard from the amount of moss it is covered in. However, when restored and fully upgraded, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and Pontiac GTO are the fastest cars in their tiers.

* The Crown Victoria LTD, a/k/a the "Ford POS," from ''Film/MenInBlack''. Even moreso if you press the [[BigRedButton little red button]]. You can immediately tell it's just a LTD on the outside by the sound its engine makes, especially when it powers down. And when the little red button is pressed... [[spoiler:it becomes a gravity-defying jet-propelled supercar]].

* This trope, as applied to gaming [=PCs=] circa 2011: Imagine a quad-core processor, many gigs of RAM, solid-state hard drive, powerful graphics card, power supply, and cooling system...housed inside a mid-90s 'Beige Box' Compaq Presario case with "Pentium II" and "Designed for Windows 95" case badges; behold, the Sleeper PC!

** Tens of thousands of American trucks (mostly Studebaker US6 models) were provided for the Soviet Union during UsefulNotes/{{W|orldWarII}}W2. These were far better than home-produced vehicles and enabled the Soviets to focus their industry on making tanks and things. While the supply ended after August 1945, it is a known fact that the supply and transport train behind any Russian invasion of western Europe, even well into the 1970s, would have largely been running on American largesse. One can even occasionally find a working Studebaker now in many parts of the former USSR.

* The UAZ 452, also known as the "Loaf", is a Soviet/Russian 4x4 van that is used as a minibus, sports/utility vehicle, ambulance, military medevac, small cargo hauler and a dozen of other roles. Its design changed little since its inception in 1965, and it is still in production. The reliability of Russian motors is notoriously cantankerous even when they are new, and the Loaf is often encountered 20+ years old, rusty and battered. However, it has excellent off-road capability, none of its many malfunctions require expensive parts to fix, it runs on the cheapest gas available and it's really spacious inside (also, warm in winter). Hence, a used Loaf, usually bought for $1000 from some farmer, is a very desirable purchase for many Russians.

** The VW Bus T3 (1979-1991) got [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2_%28T3%29#Petrol.2Fgasoline a similar high-performance version from Oettinger]], with a purposely-built 3.7 liter / 180hp engine and an automatic gearbox. From the outside, it is not distinguishable from a stock T3.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M35_series_2½-ton_6x6_cargo_truck M35A2]]. A K A the Deuce-and-a-Half, or Deuce. No power steering, wimpy brakes, underpowered engine, [[DrivingStick iffy choice of gears]] (Big step between 3rd and 4th), and less than half of them actually had heaters that could keep the windshield clear on really cold days. The US Army got rid of them at the turn of the century after almost 40 years of continuous use, but thousands bought on the surplus market still survive in private hands because they're the ultimate un-killable work/farm truck. There's nothing you could subject one to as a private citizen that would ever stop them for very long.

* [[http://jalopnik.com/5297014/oklahoma-home-of-the-sleepiest-sleeper-truck-ever The Farm Truck]] Looks like a beat-up old Chevy, but runs 12.3s quarter miles

This Trope, like TheAllegedCar, ''seriously'' depends on how benevolent traffic laws are in the show's universe (to say nothing about RealLife): if the car looks too battered to be street-legal, then chances are you may get pulled over and have the car impounded or even ordered to be destroyed -- to not mention that some modifications may give you legal trouble, from being fined up to an automatic prison sentence (if it's something like concealed weapons or classified tech). To get around this, some more realistic examples may [[BoringButPractical look perfectly functional but just as ordinary]] until their hidden high-performance capabilities or other abilities are revealed.

** In the ''Literature/StarTrekTheLostEra'' novel ''Catalyst of Sorrows'' has the ''Albatross'', which looks like a junky freighter because that's exactly what Starfleet Intelligence ''want'' it to look like.

* Bella's truck in the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series could count as this. At first, she's apprehensive when her dad says he bought her a truck since it was old (fifties or sixties) and she was afraid it would always be needing repairs. But she ends up loving it at first sight, it never gives her trouble, and it's strongly implied that it only died in the end due to her control-freak fiancé's sabotage. Having a "Bella truck" [[ProudToBeAGeek became somewhat of a geeky status symbol]] with fans of the series.

''Literature/Everest2002'': In Book 2, the expedition briefly travels in a UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar surplus helicopter with visible duct tape repairs. Contrary to Tilt's snide prediction, it does actually manage to lift off and take them to their destination.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' had a fake commercial for the "Chameleon XLE", a high-end luxury car with a powerful engine and fine leather interiors disguised to look like a piece of crap junker from two decades prior. Features to pull off this illusion included three mismatched hubcaps and a schoolbus-yellow painted rim, driver-side door that seemed to have been recycled from a different model car and a false transmission fluid leak to tell thieves "Hey, not worth the trouble."

* In ''Videogame/Cyberpunk2077'', V's starter car, an Archer Hella EC-D i360, has clearly seen better days and bears makeshift repairs including the whole rear bumper being replaced by a welded pipe. The Hella also boasts one of the best overall performance of the game, being slightly slower than average but turning ''very'' well and being able to take some punishment before giving up the ghost.

* ''ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}'': The first Redbird looked like an old boxy poorly maintained beater until a button was pushed on the dash and it shifted panels and glass around to resemble an angular sports car, and in both modes it was bulletproof and plenty fast with great handling and many of the same gadgets as the Batmobile. The second one looks like a commercially available sports car in "civilian" mode and strongly resembles a Porsche.

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'''s [=DeLorean=] TimeMachine, while iconic and cool-looking to modern audiences, was based on a vehicle which was TheAllegedCar when the film was made. To put it in context, it was so poorly built, so lacking in performance (88 miles per hour would have been a real accomplishment), and so poorly sold, that the company had gone bankrupt three years ''before'' the film's release. This is why Marty asks Doc, "Are you telling me you built a ''time machine''... out of a [=DeLorean=]?" Doc admits that ''(a)'' the [=DeLorean's=] unique steel bodywork makes the time travel work better and ''(b)'' he wanted to build a time machine with ''style''. The whole thing is seen as proof that Doc is a MadScientist in every sense of the term. And indeed, the [=DeLorean=] really does behave occasionally like a piece of junk; in the first film alone, it breaks down on three separate occasions, and in the second film, Doc dismisses Marty's suggestion to [[RammingAlwaysWorks land on top of Biff's car]] because Biff's driving a 1940s Ford which would rip through the [=DeLorean=] like it were tinfoil.

* Miyuki Kobayakawa's mini-patrol car from ''Manga/YoureUnderArrest'' Looks like a stock Honda Today with a police paint job but under the hood, it's got the larger 657cc engine from the 1990-on iterations of its generation[[note]]The first-gen Today was originally powered by a 547cc engine, with ''kei'' car regulations at its time mandating a maximum capacity of 550cc. The larger engine was introduced after regulations were changed in March 1990, which increased the max allowed capacity to 660cc[[/note]], turbocharger system, nitrous oxide boost system, race brakes, and four-point restraints. This leads to ''lots'' of very nasty surprises for would-be traffic violators.