Basic Trope: A clattering clunker of a car.
- Straight: Bob's car is old and rusty, tops out at 40 miles per hour, and does not always start right away.
- Exaggerated: Bob's car is old and rusty, might hit 40 miles per hour going down a steep hill, might just start after 20 minutes of vigorous cranking plus some precise kicks on the hood, and lacks functioning brakes. It originally came from a country that no longer exists due to civil war, economic collapse, or a brutal invasion from a neighboring country, and has more duct tape than paint on it. It also breaks down about once a week, has been in the news more times than it's been on the road, uses ridiculous amounts of gas, leaves a trail of thick exhaust fumes a mile long, has been mistaken for abandoned and/or stolen from a junkyard, and was once disqualified from a Soapbox Derby race for lack of structural integrity.
- Downplayed:
- Bob's car is rather rusty and kinda ugly, but it works decently enough.
- Bob's car looks rather fine, it could even pass for a Cool Car semblance-wise. However, it runs like crap and regularly breaks down at the worst possible moment.
- Bob's car needs some minor mainenance, but is otherwise OK.
- Rice Burner
- Justified:
- Bob is too cheap or poor to buy a Cool Car (or even a halfway decent one).
- Bob bought his car from an Honest John's Dealership.
- The car was a hand-me-down from a relative who (1) liked crappy cars and/or (2) Drives Like Crazy and/or (3) is too cheap or poor to get it fixed.
- Bob is purchasing the car as part of an experiment for a reality show (or a science class), in which the car doesn't really need to move.
- Bob is purchasing parts or scrap metal, not a whole car.
- Bob is homeless and needs a car (no matter how much of a clunker it is) to live in rather than to drive around in.
- Bob lives in a Communist country where manufacturing is of poor quality, and after ten years' wait he's glad to get a car at all.
- Bob bought it to check if it really is so bad.
- Bob is buying the car to tune it and is going to replace the broken parts anyway, so he doesn't bother buying a good one.
- The car is bought for the purpose of stripping it to parts.
- Bob is buying it for something that will end up with the car's destruction.
- Bob found the Benz Velo in the storage unit he just bought at auction. Judging from the cobwebs it's been there for quite a long time.
- They took it out of the museum, what do you expect?
- Inverted: Bob has a quite reliable Cool Car.
- Subverted: What a Piece of Junk: Bob's car may look like crap, but it actually works really well.
- Double Subverted: ...But there have been times when it's lived up to its reputation as an Alleged Car.
- Parodied:
- The car has an Embarrassing Nickname, which everyone in town knows from local newspapers, TV news, and YouTube videos.
- Not even the local junkyard will take in Bob's car for scrap.
- The car is shaped suspiciously like a lemon with patched-up square wheels.
- Bob has never invested in security systems for his car since he doesn't need to worry about it ever being stolen — Even Beggars Won't Choose It.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Sometimes Bob's car runs poorly, sometimes it runs well.
- Bob gets a luxury car, then a crummy car, then a So Okay, It's Average car.
- Averted:
- Bob's car actually runs well and looks good.
- Bob doesn't have a car.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "Is this thing even road legal?"
- Implied: The car is not seen on-screen (yet) but Bob is highly defensive of it, using lines like "It's the only car I could afford" and such.
- Invoked: Bob sees an ad in the paper for a used car priced at just $500, and thinks it's a good deal.
- Exploited:
- Honest John of Honest John's Dealership gives Bob a "deal" on a poor-quality used car to make quick money.
- The quirks work very well as an impromptu security system.
- Defied:
- Bob's car is a model with a terrible reputation, but the one he owns never seems to let him down.
- Local traffic laws outright forbid cars like these from being on the streets.
- Discussed: "I Have This Friend who bought this terrible car ... for me."
- Conversed: "The bad car is certainly an easy visual shorthand to hint at a character's Perpetual Poverty and probably not going to go out of style as such any time soon."
- Deconstructed:
- The car is dangerous, has cost him thousands in repairs, and is a threat to his physical and mental health.
- The oft-attached idea that a car this awful would not be stolen by any criminal just does not exists. The car exists, and is there. That's all criminals need.
- Reconstructed: Bob calls Xzibit from Pimp My Ride (or the in-universe equivalent) to get the car fixed up into something cool.
- Played for Laughs:
- Most of the chaos that occurs in the film can be linked in one way or another to the extreme crappiness of Bob's vehicle (example: a colossal backfire leads to him being Mistaken for Terrorist).
- Bob is out of the house when a disaster strikes his neighborhood. After he goes home to survey the destruction, he watches the news for information on the incident. His car is among the images of the destruction even though it wasn't anywhere near at the time.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob and/or someone close to him has a gruesome car accident because of the desecrated condition of the damned machine.
- Bob ends up in trouble with the law because his car breaks one or more vehicle codes (too noisy/polluting/unsafe). Bob ends up wasting too much of his time and money dealing with court appointments, paying tickets, and getting his car up to code or getting a new one… and that is if his problems only stop at the car.
- Played for Horror: The extreme crappiness of Bob's vehicle is such that he won't be able to arrive to his destination in time and he has to risk taking a shortcut. Cue him entering that road in the woods where thirty people were slain a hundred years ago, and the car giving up the ghost right in the middle of it.
You'll have to get out and push your way back to The Alleged Car.
