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By Jimmy Don Ventura, Movie Reviewer of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch and Special Contributor to the CMC Blog

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Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Jimmy Don, this is a Thanksgiving movie, not a car movie.” And you’d be right—except for the fact that every single beat of John Hughes’ 1987 classic depends on cars either breaking down, catching fire, being borrowed, stolen, rented, wrecked, or otherwise desecrated by fate. Which means this baby is as auto-centric as anything I’ve ever reviewed. And besides, it’s November, the month of turkeys, football games with lopsided scores, and relatives who bring Jell-O salads with suspicious floaties. What better time for Steve Martin and John Candy to remind us that the road home is paved with bad luck and carburetors?

The Rental Car (or, The Curse of the Chrysler K-Car)

Let’s start with the infamous rental scene. Neil Page (Steve Martin) trudges across an icy parking lot, only to find that the car he’s reserved is not there. The “O” spot is empty, a lonely reminder of 1980s customer service. Later, when he finally does get wheels, it’s a Dodge Aries K-car, boxy as a refrigerator and painted in the dull shade I call “Corporate Beige.”

This was peak K-Car era. Chrysler had clawed its way out of near-bankruptcy with these slab-sided sedans, and America was stuck with them like leftovers nobody wanted to reheat. Seeing Neil and Del Griffith (John Candy) bounce around in one brought back memories of my Aunt Leona’s Reliant wagon. That thing rattled like a tambourine and smelled perpetually of Aqua Net and meatloaf.

You want pathos? Forget Kevin Bacon in She’s Having a Baby—nothing will make you cry like trying to merge onto I-35 in a K-Car with four people and a pumpkin pie sliding around in the hatch.

The Burned-Out Chrysler LeBaron

Then there’s the pièce de résistance: the Chrysler LeBaron convertible. This poor machine goes from semi-presentable to crispy critter in under ten minutes of screen time. First it’s sideswiped, then set on fire, then still driven as a rolling hulk. The top is half-gone, the dashboard melted, and the doors barely hanging on. And yet—it runs.

That’s the most accurate automotive detail Hughes ever filmed. A LeBaron may look like death warmed over, but it’ll keep clattering down the interstate long after pride and upholstery are gone. Watching Candy and Martin freeze in that topless ruin, gloves smoking from the melted heater controls, is automotive slapstick perfection.

Other Honorable Mentions

• The taxi at the start: A Checker Marathon, boxy and yellow and exactly what you expect from late-80s New York. Still more comfortable than a Spirit Airlines seat today.
• The semi-truck that saves the day: Neil and Del somehow survive a spin-out between two Peterbilts. I’ve had less terrifying Thanksgivings, but not many.
• The Chicago L: Okay, not a car, but the El train is still transit with wheels. Hughes loved grounding his movies in Chicago steel and grit, and this one’s no exception.

Jimmy Don’s First Tangent (You Knew It Was Coming)

Now, speaking of LeBarons on their last legs, let me tell you about Thanksgiving 1979, when my folks loaded me into the back seat of our faded blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 and drove north to Enid, Oklahoma, to visit my Aunt Bess and Uncle Carl.

First off, the Olds was a land yacht. You didn’t drive it so much as suggest a direction and hope the suspension eventually caught up. We made it as far as Shamrock before the alternator light blinked on. Dad kept muttering, “We’ll make Enid if we have to push her,” which I took literally and spent half the ride staring at the taillights, preparing myself for a lifetime of shoving a 4,000-pound car through Oklahoma panhandle winds.

By the time we rolled into Enid, the heater was out, the AM radio only picked up one preacher out of Tulsa, and the right rear window was stuck halfway down. I remember huddling under a quilt, watching snow blow in like powdered sugar across the back seat.

When we finally pulled into Aunt Bess’s driveway, Carl came out in his coveralls, slapped the fender, and said, “Well, it made it. Want me to look under the hood?” Dad waved him off. “Don’t touch a thing. If it starts tomorrow, we’re going home.”

And that, my friends, is the true spirit of Thanksgiving travel. Just like Neil and Del, we endured indignities, breakdowns, and questionable pies, and somehow we made it to the table.

Second Tangent (This One’s Got Snow Chains)

Now, you can’t talk Thanksgiving travel without talking about chains. Not the figurative ones of family obligation—though Lord knows those rattle too—but the real kind you slap on bald tires when your Delta 88 is skating sideways across the Cimarron Turnpike.

Dad, being a man of eternal optimism and eternal cheapness, never bought proper snow chains. He had “a system.” His system was baling wire. He’d twist it across the treads, grin like he’d invented fire, and say, “There, traction.” By the time we hit Guthrie, the wire was flinging sparks, snapping loose, and clanging against the fenders like a poltergeist with a crowbar.

Every time I see Del Griffith’s LeBaron limping down the road with sparks trailing, I flash back to that night, Mom shouting over the wind, “We’re going to die because your father thinks he’s MacGyver!” Dad just tapped the wheel and said, “She’s gripping fine.”

I learned two things that trip: one, baling wire is not a substitute for snow chains; two, Oldsmobile fenders are tougher than they look.

The Motel Parking Lot – An Automotive Graveyard

There’s a scene in Planes, Trains & Automobiles where Neil and Del pull into that budget motel with the burned-out Chrysler. You remember it—the LeBaron glowing like a marshmallow left too long in the fire, the whole parking lot full of wheezing compacts and station wagons, each one a rolling reminder that Americans will drive anything if it’ll get them ten miles closer to Grandma’s green bean casserole.

That scene reminds me of the time we stayed at a Travelodge outside Blackwell, Oklahoma. Snow had iced the lot, and every car there looked like a crime scene: bumpers wired up, mufflers dragging, frost creeping in through duct-taped windows. The next morning, Dad went out to start the Olds and found the wipers frozen solid, mid-swipe. He banged the windshield with a Thermos until the glass cracked. Not shattered—just a hairline fracture running across like a fault line. “Adds character,” he said.

When Hughes shows Martin and Candy brushing snow off the LeBaron, that’s not comedy. That’s documentary footage of every Midwest motel parking lot from 1965 to 1992.

Third Tangent (The Enid Turkey Debacle)

One year—I think it was 1983—we made the Enid trip in Dad’s “new” Ford LTD, which was only new in the sense that we’d never driven it to Oklahoma before. It had a vinyl roof that peeled back in strips like a bad sunburn and a carburetor that coughed every time you hit 40 mph.

Mom had balanced a turkey in the trunk, wrapped in foil pans and tied down with bungee cords. Somewhere around Ponca City, the LTD hit a pothole and that turkey launched. When we unpacked at Aunt Bess’s, the bird had rolled into the corner, foil peeled back, stuffing scattered like confetti. Aunt Bess took one look and said, “We’ll call it ‘shredded turkey.’ Pass the gravy boat.”

I can’t watch the scene where the LeBaron’s trunk lid won’t stay closed without smelling cold turkey stuffing rolling around in the dark. That’s the genius of Hughes: he knew Thanksgiving travel wasn’t about arrival—it was about all the half-broken things that somehow got you there anyway.

Jimmy Don Gets Philosophical (With a Side of Mashed Potatoes)

Here’s the thing about Thanksgiving road trips, and why Planes, Trains & Automobiles feels so true: cars don’t just move people. They move grudges, secrets, and casseroles balanced on the back seat. Every squeak and rattle reminds you of what you’re hauling emotionally.

Neil’s K-Car isn’t just uncomfortable—it’s the embodiment of his uptight, joyless approach to life. Del’s LeBaron is a rolling disaster, but it’s got heart. And when those two men are stuck in it together, we’re reminded that even the worst jalopy can deliver you somewhere worth arriving.

And Lord knows, nothing bonds two humans like a heater that doesn’t work in November.

Epilogue: The Cars as Characters

If you line them all up—the Checker cab, the K-Car, the LeBaron, even the trucks—they’re as memorable as the actors. That’s why I argue Planes, Trains & Automobiles is secretly a car movie in disguise. Hughes cast those machines as carefully as he cast Candy.

• The Checker is New York itself—loud, utilitarian, impersonal.
• The K-Car is Neil—stiff, functional, and boring.
• The LeBaron is Del—ruined, ridiculous, but still somehow lovable.
• The semi-trucks are fate—massive, indifferent, always one swerve away from flattening you.

Together, they tell the same story the actors do: life is humiliating, exhausting, and sometimes hilarious. But if you hang on, even the worst car can get you home in time for pumpkin pie.

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Closing Ramble (Jimmy Don Style)

So when I sit down this November, plate piled high with turkey, stuffing, and the obligatory cranberry sauce nobody eats, I’ll raise a toast to Neil, Del, and that poor Chrysler LeBaron. And I’ll think about every Thanksgiving trip to Enid, every cracked windshield and flying turkey, every snowstorm and half-bald tire, and I’ll be grateful that somehow, against all odds, the car always started one more time.

Because that’s what Thanksgiving’s really about. Not the food, not the football, not even the relatives who ask when you’re finally going to cut your hair. It’s about survival. It’s about the miracle of machines that shouldn’t run, still running. It’s about gratitude for wheels that wobble their way back to the driveway, where they can rest until Christmas comes calling.

And with that, I give Planes, Trains & Automobiles my highest holiday honor:
Six cracked windshields out of five.

Now somebody pass me the pie before I start talking about the year Dad tried to deep-fry a turkey with a lawnmower engine.

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