Hey Hollywood.....I'm available as a consultant....And desperately needed!!!

Musclecars are often featured in movies and T.V. shows, but Hollywood incessantly screws up when referring to them. Maybe for someone who knows nothing about cars it's not a big deal but for us gear heads it's maddening. Here's a few glaring gaffes that I found just this week on cable tv. # 1. "The Butcher". This made for cable action flick stars Eric Roberts as an ex-boxer turned mob enforcer who has to defend himself against the cops and other gangsters when he's wrongly blamed for robbing and killing a rival mob boss. The story and the action are ok, and everyone wants to buy his 1969 Dodge Charger. Except it's a '73 model!!!!  Yet, everyone in the film, including Roberts, says it's a '69!!  And several people say it's a 4-speed, yet when he's driving it, you clearly see an automatic column shifter!!  Arrrrggghhhh!!!!  # 2. "Love Ranch" This flick stars Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren and it's thinly veiled as "not" the story of boxer Oscar Bonavena's murder at the Mustang Ranch brothel outside Reno. They say it's 1976 at the beginning of the film ( which is when it really happened ). What drove me up the wall was they had the boxer driving a 1979 Trans-Am!!  Why? For god's sake they couldn't find a '75 or '76 model?  # 3. "Cold Case". This episode was about the 1972 murder of a teenage boy. On his bedroom wall was poster of a barefoot Farrah Fawcett-Majors sitting on the hood of a white and blue Mustang II, and the famous wet-t-shirt poster of Jacqueline Bisset from "The Deep". Both of them are completely wrong. Here's why. The one with Farrah is obviously a promo shot for "Charlie's Angels". I know because I had the same poster when I was in high school. Except Ford didn't introduce the Mustang II until 1974, and "Charlie's Angels" premiered in September 1976!!!  The "Deep" poster with Bisset wearing only bikini panties, a wet-t-shirt which clung to her awesome rack and showed her large nipples, and a scuba mask was also a best seller. Except the movie and the poster were released in 1977!!!  So how did this kid have them in 1972???  Ugh.  #4 "Vegas". This only lasted one season, probably because it was such a major offender. It starred Dennis Quaid as real-life sherriff Ralph Lamb,Michael Chiklis as a Chicago Gangster who owns a casino and Carrie-Anne Moss as the District Attorney. However, the series was set in 1960. Yet Moss drove a '63 T-Bird, Chiklis drove a '62 Continental with the Suicide Doors, and Quaid drove a 1964 Dodge pickup!!!  # 5. "The Dark Half". This Stephen King thriller pissed me off as both a book and a movie. The Killer drove a 1966 Toronado which is a cool enough ride,but in both the book and the movie they refer to him spinning the rear wheels!! How, when Toronados are all FRONT-WHEEL DRIVE!!!  And in the book they talk about him having a Hurst-shifted 4-speed in it!!! Except all Toronados are automatics!!  They should have had him driving a '60's Pontiac Gran Prix-which is rear-wheel drive,had a lot of power with 389,400,421 or 428 cubes under the hood, and was available with a 4-speed stick. # 6. "White Lightning". This is one of my favorite action flicks and one of Burt Reynolds best. Except when he gets the car from the feds and they show him the engine-He says "Looks like a 429 with dual quads..."  Except you clearly see one Holley 4-barrel under a Weiand Lynx air cleaner. And in some scenes it's a 4-speed-they show the Hurst shifter and him shifting it. In others it's an automatic-you see him put it in park in one scene, and in another Jennifer Billingsley slams it into drive and takes off. Nit-picky, I know, but still.... # 7. "Smokey and the Bandit". Another Burt Reynolds classic with the same problem. In some scenes the T/A is a 4-speed, you see the clutch pedal and him shifting it. In others you see the automatic shifter next to the CB radio on the console. Rumor has it that Sally Field couldn't drive a stick, and that Burt and director Hal Needham just gave up trying to edit it, figuring no one would notice. Well we did. Why doesn't Hollywood hire someone who knows cars to help edit this stuff??  Mastermind