By Bunn Nagara

THE mystique of an iconic fictional hero's choice of car can seem so compelling.

It is the swashbuckling idol's personal ride, trusty steed, flashy carriage and mythical chariot. The thrusting powerplant under taut, muscular lines extends his masculine persona, glamorous image and gratifying sex appeal.

Size sometimes matters, but performance is all. So power, style and output are key ingredients of a well-heeled hero's wheels.

But sometimes the vehicle is just utility transport, like The A-Team's van, CSI's Hummers and The Italian Job's Mini Coopers despite a hectic chase through Turin, later only to be loaded onto the back of a trailer.

There are cars that seem too wayward to support the central characters, somewhat overwhelming the human personalities. At one end is the Volkswagen Beetle of The Love Bug / Herbie with a mind of its own, and at the other end in outlandish fantasyland is Batman's Batmobile.

A moderately successful example of this genre is the 1980s production Knight Rider. The talking hi-tech car KITT, from Knight Industries Three Thousand, outdid David Hasselhoff's character Michael Knight on personality appeal.

Last year's new series has an updated car with even more high-tech features and reasons for outshining the human driver.

Since technology has taken over, the type of car no longer mattered, so the original Pontiac Trans Am was replaced by a Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang with little fanfare.

Jason Statham's Frank Martin in the three Transporter films drives a variety of cars ferociously, most notably an Audi A8 W12. But between Corey Yuen's action choreography and computer-generated imagery (CGI)-assisted stuntwork, what difference does the kind of car make in these films anyway?

No, the real signature cars playing true supporting roles for central human characters are to be found elsewhere.

One place to start is Bullitt: Steve McQueen as detective Lt Frank Bullitt and his 1968 390 CID V8 Ford Mustang, pursuing hitmen in a Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum through the streets of San Francisco. This combination produced the mother of filmdom's car chases since Ben-Hur's epic chariot race.

So significant was Bullitt's chase scene that after 41 years it is still an icon, and all done without today's CGI.

However, some attempts at making signature cars build the character of fictional heroes were less successful, through no fault of the cars themselves.

There was the Ferrari 308 GTS of Tom Selleck's Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I., and before that the Ferrari Dino 246GT and the Aston Martin DBS of Tony Curtis' Danny Wilde and Roger Moore's Lord Brett Sinclair respectively in The Persuaders.

Earlier still were the Aston Martin of The Sentimental Agent and the Rolls Royce of Jason King. The cars tended to outdo their owners, except for fastidious author King's ironic quotes and endearing idiosyncracies.

There was also the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda of Don Johnson's Nash Bridges character in the series of the same name. The actor did better later as 'Sonny' Crockett in Miami Vice, with a Corvette-based kit version of a Ferrari Daytona Spyder.

Crockett's job as undercover vice cop explained his choice of car, originally supposed to be a Porsche. But Stuttgart's finest was not available when shooting began, so production had to make do with a make-believe Ferrari.

That made the Ferrari distributor so worried about quality issues that they provided not one but two of the flagship V12 Testarossa. It also neatly ended any chance Porsche might have had in offering their car.

An early hero with a signature car is Leslie Charteris' 1920s creation The Saint, with his red, fictional 'long-nosed Hirondel.' The hint of a phallic symbol in the long bonnet of a front-engined car was clear enough, in an era when frontal length indicated the power within.

With Roger Moore's portrayal of a buccaneering Simon Templar in the 1960s TV series however, the car became a white Volvo P1800. It was sleek and had a longish snout, but lacked the pace, presence, panache and performance pedigree of some of the British and European marques at the time.

Moore declined an early offer to play James Bond over scheduling difficulties while doing The Saint.

Another rising British star, Patrick McGoohan, was also offered the plum role in the first Bond film, Dr No, which he turned down unless he could play Bond his own way.

After his lead role in the series Danger Man, McGoohan played the rebel ex-spy 'Number Six' in what might be a sequel in the cult classic The Prisoner.

His individualistic streak is well captured in his personal car, the Lotus Seven, the nearest thing to a motorcycle on four wheels.

But Sean Connery played Bond the way the studio wanted, and was rewarded with probably the most iconic signature car in popular fiction: a highly customised Aston Martin DB5. Complete with machine-gun ports and an ejector seat, it bordered on Batmobile territory.

Bond would drive other 'company cars,' including a BMW, a Lotus (submersible Esprit) and at least five other Aston Martins. But in the novels, his favourite personal car is the Bentley all three that he owned in succession.

Fast, glamorous and highly desirable, Bentleys suit the champagne and caviar set Bond identifies with.

But he would still end up fully exercising and thrashing them much like his leading ladies, all political correctness and graft probes of the real world aside.

--The Star/ANN