6 Of The Coolest Cars To Appear On The Simpsons

"The Simpsons" first aired in 1987 as a short on The Tracey Ullman Show and became a weekly series three years later. Its running total of 771 episodes at the time of this writing makes it the longest-lived primetime scripted show in television history by a wide margin. During its historic run, "The Simpsons" has featured guest appearances from the likes of Steve Martin, Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, and Mark Hamill. While following the misadventures of the Simpson family and their Springfield neighbors, the series has also shown viewers vehicles from nearly every automaker on the planet, and some that exist only in the animated universe of the show.

The ever-evolving opening credit sequence that opens the show features Homer's pink 1986 Plymouth Junkerrola, an entirely fictional model from the Chrysler division that went belly-up more than two decades ago. Marge's nondescript red sedan also appears in the opening sequence, but there are many more distinctive cars that have appeared on the show during its 35 seasons. These are some of our favorites.

"The Simpsons" lampooned the American obsession with gigantic SUVs in Season 9, Episode 15, "The Last Temptation of Krust." The television clown gives Bart a ride home in his gigantic Canyonero, at which the youngster marvels, "Wow, this is roomy." As they ride away, the scene cuts to an ersatz commercial for the beast, set to a country-western jingle sung by Country Music Hall of Famer Hank Williams, Jr. The commercial touts the Canyonero as "the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown" and claims it "smells like a steak and seats 35."

A disclaimer announces that "The Federal Highway Commission has ruled the Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving" before the commercial goes on to boast that it is "12 yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American pride." The song is accented by the sounds of a cracking whip, the perfect accompaniment to Williams' booming baritone. The ad ends with a Canyonero branding iron setting fire to an American flag as the massive SUV drives through the void left behind by the burning banner. 

The beast returned in Season 10, Episode, 15, "Screaming Yellow Honkers," in which Marge becomes a road-raging madwoman when she gets behind the wheel of a Canyonero. The Canyonero is entirely fictional, but not long after it appeared on "The Simpsons," Ford introduced the Excursion, a nearly 19-foot long SUV. Fuel economy concerns led Ford to discontinue the Excursion in 2005, but the Canyonero lives on in syndicated reruns and YouTube clips.

What the Canyonero achieved in terms of pure size, the Powell Homer matched in undistilled weirdness. In Season 2, Episode 15, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," which aired in February 1991, Homer learns he has a long-lost half-brother, Herb Powell (Danny DeVito), who is the head of a Detroit carmaker that bears his name. When Homer expresses his disenchantment with the industry's current offerings, Herb enlists him to design a car that will appeal to "an average schmo." Homer comes up with an outlandish design that he calls "powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball." The Homer includes multiple transparent bubble enclosures, shag carpeting, and a massive rear wing. The car is priced at $82,000, which equals more than $191,000 in 2024 dollars. 

Herb calls the car a "monstrosity" and laments, "What have I done?" The Homer drives Herb's company out of business, but it actually had a few features that have found their way into modern production cars. While sadly we have yet to see a car leave the factory with a bowling trophy as a hood ornament, Homer's complaint that "you can never find the horn when you're mad" foretold the installation of multiple horn buttons. This feature can be found on many of today's cars, although you have to buy an aftermarket add-on if you want yours to play "La Cucaracha." The Homer's soundproofing, giant cup holders, and huge engine are also common these days.

"The Simpsons" is famous for predicting future events, from a Lady Gaga Super Bowl halftime show to a Trump Presidential administration. One episode includes an invention that's been on everyone's wish list for decades but has yet to come to fruition: a flying car. In Season 16, Episode 15, "Future-Drama," Professor Frink offers Bart and Lisa a peek eight years into the future. The United States currency is called Reagans, Lisa is headed to Yale on the Montgomery Burns scholarship, and Gulf War 5: Operation Find Our President's head is underway.

Bart is dumped by his girlfriend Jenda (Amy Poehler) on prom night, and Homer decides to take him out on the town to drown his sorrows at Moe's Tavern. After ascending from Homer's underwater house, the two head out in the first hovercar ever made, a turquoise convertible with giant tailfins that has difficulty staying aloft. The hovercar thuds to a stop in front of Moe's, and pieces of the bodywork fall into the road. Inside, Moe and his clone are arguing over which of them is the original Moe, and Bart runs into Edna Krabappel, his fourth-grade teacher. 

Later in the episode, Bart arrives in the hovercar just in time to save Lisa from settling down with (and settling for) Milhouse, who pleads with Bart to "let her destroy" her life. Bart and Lisa speed off in the suddenly flawless hovercar, and they return to Professor Frink's house to learn their fates, along with those of Homer and Marge.

The "Treehouse of Horror" Simpsons Halloween episodes usually put the family in surreal situations, and the third segment of the Season 34 special, "Simpsons World," lands them in a "Westworld" styled theme park where visitors can interact with robotic versions of Springfield residents. A Cybertruck is used in one short sequence, hauling faulty park robots in for repairs. The episode aired  a couple of years after Tesla CEO Elon Musk hosted the Cybertruck's somewhat uneven unveiling event, but "The Simpsons" gave us a prescient glimpse of the wedge-shaped EV long before that in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" In that much earlier episode, one of Homer's design sketches bears an astonishing resemblance to the Cybertruck, even though the episode aired in 1991, many years before Tesla was founded.

The Cybertruck and the Powell Homer also share the screen in the Season 34 "Treehouse of Horror" special. As the Tesla drives behind Homer's dad Abe shaking his fist at a cloud, Homer goes by in the opposite direction in his ill-fated green monstrosity. While the production version of the Cybertruck has been plagued by multiple recalls and can bring down derision upon its owners, its sheer novelty makes it "cool" enough to land a spot on this list.

While it may be stretching things a bit to call it a "car," The Ultimate Behemoth RV is so cool it has to be included here. The massive double-decker had some truly amazing features and made the Canyonero look like a Toyota Yaris. In Season 1, Episode 7, "Call of the Simpsons," Homer tries to buy the massive RV in an attempt to one-up his neighbor Ned Flanders. The Ultimate Behemoth has its own dedicated satellite and four deep fryers ("One for each part of the chicken," salesman Cowboy Bob tells Homer). The lavish living room includes a fireplace, big-screen TV, and glass-top coffee table. A gold chandelier hangs in the kitchen, and Lisa gushes, "This is better than our house." Ultimately, Homer's terrible credit rating scuttles his hopes of driving away in the Ultimate Behemoth, and the Simpson family settles for a dilapidated, much smaller model.  

The Ultimate Behemoth shares some features with a $2.5 million motorhome owned by actor Will Smith. Smith's RV, called "The Heat," also stands two stories tall and has an impressive large-format video screen (The Heat's TV room seats 30 people and has a 100-inch screen). The kitchen in The Heat doesn't have four deep-fryers, but the $25,000 bathroom has a sauna and a door that can quickly switch from clear to opaque. While you can't buy an Ultimate Behemoth, you can rent The Heat through Anderson Mobile Estates for a reported $9,000 per week.

In Season 5, Episode 10, "The Simpsons" featured one of the most interesting cars ever made, the Amphicar Model 770. The episode has the lengthy title "$pringfield (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)". The episode begins with a black-and-white newsreel that highlights an emerging Springfield, "one of America's 400 fastest-growing cities." The reel focuses on some of Springfield's booming industrial efforts, including Springfield Galoshes and "the state's first aqua-car factory." The Aqua-car is a dead ringer for the Amphicar 770, an amphibious convertible designed by German engineer Hans Trippel. The Amphicar 770 took its name from the top speeds of seven knots in the water and 70 miles per hour on land. It went on sale in 1961 for about 10,000 Deutschmarks (or roughly $2,500 at the exchange rates of that time). 

Accounting for inflation, that equals just over $26,000 in 2024 dollars — far less than the typical going price for a used Amphicar 770, if you can find one for sale. Of the 3,878 produced between 1961 and 1968, 3,046 were imported to the United States before new EPA and DOT regulations stopped the flow of Amphicars. The Amphicar 770's major issues included an estimated 43-second 0-60 time, but it still had many notable fans. President Lyndon Johnson owned one, Alan Jackson and Madonna used them in music videos, and John Lennon and Dan Aykroyd both drove Amphicars.