Used Cars (1980) on Netflix
Rudy Russo sells used cars at Luke Fuchs's struggling New Deal lot and wants to run for the state senate. Across the street, Luke's brother Roy schemes to take the lot.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.7/1018,898 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Luke Fuchs owns New Deal Used Cars, a struggling dealership in Arizona, and Rudy Russo is the salesman who works the lot. Rudy wants a seat in the state senate, and Luke offers to put up the ten thousand dollars his campaign needs if Rudy keeps the business alive. Directly across the street sits the more successful lot of Roy L. Fuchs, Luke's brother, who learns that a proposed freeway exit will demolish his property. Roy wants Luke's land instead, and he has been paying off the mayor to bring the new interstate through the area. To get his hands on the lot and on Luke's life insurance, Roy sends his mechanic Mickey to take Luke for a ride in Luke's restored 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Used Cars (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- They had wanted to cast George Hamilton in Kurt Russell's role of Rudy, and Universal Pictures passed on the film, so it went to Columbia Pictures, where studio president Frank Price, who had sold used cars as a young man, quickly said yes.
- Used Cars received the highest ratings in test screenings in Columbia Pictures history, but Zemeckis and Gale blamed its failure on Columbia, which moved the release up a month on the strength of those screenings, gave it little advance marketing and put it out one week after Airplane!
- The idea originated with producer John Milius, who pitched it to Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis while they were writing the script for 1941; Milius said he and Spielberg had hoped one day to write a story about a used car salesman based outside Las Vegas.
- John Candy was originally cast as Sam Slaton, but dropped out because of scheduling conflicts with 1941 and was replaced with Joe Flaherty.
