Trivia for
Used Cars (1980) More at IMDbPro »

• The stunt coordinator felt the impact of the 1974 Mercury Montego jumping the train, and hitting the pavement was too much for a stunt driver to take. So, a dummy was put in the driver's seat, and the car was pushed toward a ramp at high speed, and let go.
  
  
• Roy L.'s line about "politicians staying bought" was first attributed to steel baron Henry Frick about President Theodore Roosevelt after massive donations to the Republican party by big business helped Roosevelt's reelection and Roosevelt subsequently began proposing legislation to increase regulation of steel mills and railroads.
  
  
• This is Robert Zemeckis's only R rated movie to date (October 2007).
  
  
• According to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, the film's release was botched by the studio. The film tested extremely well in previews and Columbia Pictures pushed the film out of its original late-August release date to mid-summer with little publicity and poor advertising. The film only played across half the United States rather than receiving a true wide-theatrical release and consequently flopped upon release.
  
  
• Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had originally developed the script for Universal, but when they passed on it they took it to Columbia Pictures, who was the co-production company of 1941 (1979), which they had written. Head of the studio Frank Price immediately loved the script and quickly greenlit the film. Steven Spielberg who was directing 1941 at the time would go on to executive produce this film.
  
  
• John Candy was originally cast in the film playing Joe Flaherty's role, but ultimately dropped out because his agent erroneously double-booked him while he was filming 1941 (1979).
  
  
• In the scene in which Gerrit Graham's character starts shooting at Roy L.Fuch's cars for the commercial, real ammunition was used to shoot the windshields and the headlights.
  
  
• When Rudy (Kurt Russell) comes home from his promotional car spot with the hookers, he makes a nod to the statue of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley that's sitting on his dresser. Russell began his film career with a cameo in Presley's It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), and later portrayed Elvis in Elvis (1979/I) (TV). He also played an Elvis Impersonator two decades later in 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001).
  
  
• The used car lot set was built across an actual major Highway in Arizona which made filming very tough.
  
  
• Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale have said that there were attempts to sabotage the filming, claiming that there were props stolen from the set, and that reports were made to executives at Columbia Pictures saying that Zemeckis and Co. were out of control.
  
  
• The scene where Rudy's commercial in the parking lot of the football game was re-shot because Columbia Pictures executives were appalled by the "Dicknose" Glasses that Geritt Graham had worn in the scene. Snippets of it could be scene in the final cut of the film when Kurt Russell holds the glasses at the camera for an instant as his scenes were not re-shot.
  
  
• The film was shot in only 28 days which was unheard of for a film by a major studio at that time.
  
  
• The T-Birds' white convertible and the Scorpion's black Mercury (w/ flames) from Grease (1978) are two of the cars that Rudy Russo palms off on the driver ed. teacher.
  
  
• At the football game when "Lenny & Squiggy" hack the satellite, just before the camera comes on you can see the two original "penis noses" in a box. These were the original gags for Gerritt Graham and Kurt Russell, but the Columbia executives put the kibosh on those gags, replacing them with bouncing eyeball glasses.
  
  
• In the scene where Roy Fuchs (Jack Warden) walks up to Rudy (Kurt Russell) and Jeff (Gerrit Graham) as they're finishing shoveling dirt over the spot where they buried Luke, Gerrit Graham didn't have any lines and kept pestering Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale for lines. Finally, he just decides to repeat whatever Kurt Russell said to Jack Warden. Appearently, Warden was unaware of what Graham was doing, thus his line "What're you? A fuckin' parrot?". It was Warden's genuine annoyance at Graham which worked so well in the scene that it was included in the film.
  
  
• A rejected score was composed by Ernest Gold
  
  

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