Cars With Unexpected Celebrity Owners
You’d think people with unlimited money would all drive the same rotating cast of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. And sure, plenty of them do.
But dig a little deeper into what some of the world’s most famous people actually drive — or have driven — and a much stranger picture emerges. Some of these choices are practical. Some are nostalgic.
Some make absolutely no sense at all. All of them are worth knowing about.
Daniel Radcliffe and His Very Sensible Fiat Punto
Winning such a big fortune by playing the most popular wizard in fiction, the very logical next step for a person is probably… a small European city car? Daniel Radcliffe made that decision, after turning eighteen. Instead of a flashy car, he got a Fiat Punto, mostly because of its good environmental rating.
For a person who had as much money as most adults will not see in their entire life, it was a very humble choice. He has since then bought many cars BMWs and Range Rovers are now common sights in his garage but the story of the Punto remains, and quite rightly so.
Tom Hanks and the Scion xB
Tom Hanks has won two Oscars, his acting career lasts for more than 40 years, he is considered one of the most likable personalities in show business. Besides once he was even driving a Scion xB.
You are more likely to spot a car like this, the boxy little vehicle that was starting at about $17,000 new, in a community college parking lot rather in front of a movie premiere. Nevertheless, Hanks has always maintained a humble image, and the xB was a good match for that character.
At the same time, it also makes one think that he either really liked the car or could not care less what others thought. Most probably, both.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Acura TSX
The founder of one of the most valuable companies in history has been spotted regularly driving an Acura TSX. Not a Ferrari.
Not even a high-end German sedan. A mid-range Japanese car with a starting price that a solid number of accountants could afford.
For someone whose net worth sits in the hundreds of billions, the TSX is less a car choice and more a philosophical statement. Zuckerberg has spoken about minimising decision fatigue, which might explain the grey hoodies and the practical car — but it still catches people off guard every time the photos surface.
John Goodman’s 1997 Ford F-150
John Goodman has had an extraordinary career: Emmy wins, Golden Globe nominations, a place in some of the most beloved films and television shows of the last thirty years.
And he hauls himself around in a 1997 Ford F-150. To be fair, the F-150 is the best-selling truck in America, which makes it about as American as it gets — and for an actor with Goodman’s particular on-screen energy, the truck fits in a way a Bentley never would.
Still, the year matters here. A 1997 pickup, however reliable, is not what most people picture when they imagine how a film star gets to the airport.
George Clooney’s Tango T600
Before electric cars became a mainstream talking point, George Clooney was driving something called the Tango T600. Built by a company called Commuter Cars, this vehicle is extraordinarily narrow — so narrow that its two seats had to be placed one in front of the other, like a car designed by someone who had only ever heard cars described and never actually seen one.
Clooney became the first celebrity to own one back in 2005, making him a very early adopter of electric vehicles at a time when the dominant image of a movie star’s garage looked nothing like a glorified commuter pod. Whatever you think of the car, the timing was genuinely ahead of its moment.
Janis Joplin’s Painted Porsche 356
Janis Joplin did buy a Porsche — so far, so rock star. But what she did to it belongs in a category of its own. She paid her roadie, Dave Richards, $500 to cover the car in a sprawling hand-painted mural called “The History of the Universe.”
The Porsche 356, which she picked up for $3,500 in 1968, went from a grey sports car to a rolling piece of psychedelic art. The car survived her and stayed with her family after her death in 1970.
It still exists today, which means somewhere out there, the History of the Universe is preserved on the bonnet of a 1964 Porsche.
LeBron James and the Kia K900
When LeBron James began appearing in advertisements for the Kia K900, the internet’s first reaction was more or less uniform scepticism. A global basketball icon endorsing a mid-range Korean luxury saloon felt like an obvious cash arrangement.
But James pushed back on that reading, insisting he had already been driving the car before any deal was on the table and that authenticity was important to him. Whether or not you take that at face value, it’s still a strange image: one of the most decorated athletes alive pulling up to the arena in a Kia.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Toyota Prius
In the early 2000s, a small but committed group of Hollywood celebrities started driving Toyota Priuses — and DiCaprio was among the most prominent of them. Given that he’s an actor who could clearly afford almost anything on the road, the Prius was conspicuous in a different way: it announced environmental priorities rather than wealth.
The Prius actually became something of a status symbol in Hollywood during that period, which is a very strange thing to say about a car best known for its fuel economy. DiCaprio has since moved on to more expensive vehicles, including collectible Jeeps, but the Prius chapter of his life remains one of the more genuinely principled car stories in celebrity history.
Ryan Gosling’s Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu
When Ryan Gosling filmed “Drive” in 2011, his character spent a significant amount of time in a 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu. The car was all over the promotional material for the film.
At some point after filming wrapped, Gosling simply kept it. His co-star Emily Blunt jokingly accused him of stealing it from the set — which he denied — but either way, the result is that one of Hollywood’s most recognisable leading men drives around in a fifty-year-old Malibu that got famous because of a film about a Hollywood stunt driver. There’s something perfectly circular about that.
Justin Timberlake’s Volkswagen Jetta
At the peak of his fame, Justin Timberlake drove a Volkswagen Jetta. Not a limited edition.
Not a custom build. A standard Jetta, starting at around $18,000.
For someone whose concert tours filled arenas and whose albums sat at the top of charts globally, the Jetta reads as either genuine indifference to material status or a very deliberate low-key statement. The car works fine.
It gets you from place to place. But it does raise the question of what it must have been like to pull up to an awards ceremony in it.
David Spade’s Buick Grand National
David Spade, who has made many people laugh through his performances on Saturday Night Live, Just Shoot Me, and many other projects, is primarily known as the king of comedy. But the car that he drives is a 1987 Buick Grand National, a turbocharged 3.8-litre, 245-hp firebreathing beast that when it was released wowed everyone around it.
Car enthusiasts who call themselves fans of the Grand National have turned it into a cult car. It really does not fit, one bit, the picture that most people have of Spade.
A car that only the most muscled-up petrolheads would be able to afford, is not what you would expect from a comedian whose public image has always been the sardonic one.
John Lennon’s Austin Maxi
John Lennon’s relationship with cars was, by most accounts, not a happy one. In 1969, he borrowed an Austin Maxi for a family road trip to Scotland.
The journey ended when he drove the car into a ditch, injuring several people on board. After that, Lennon relied entirely on chauffeurs for the rest of his life.
The Austin Maxi itself was a fairly unremarkable British family car — not the sort of vehicle you’d associate with a Beatle under any circumstances. But the Scottish ditch incident turned it into one of the more memorable celebrity car stories simply because of how badly it went.
Bryan Ferry and the Studebaker Champion
Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry bought a 1957 Studebaker Champion Coupe while he was still a fine art student at university. The car was elegant, American, and gloriously out of place in a student’s budget.
Ferry spent most of his student grant on it — which, if nothing else, tells you something about his priorities. The Studebaker even found its way into the lyrics of the band’s debut single, Virginia Plain.
The catch: Ferry spent more time pushing the car down the road than driving it, because it broke down constantly. There’s a certain poetry in a future rock star standing behind a beautiful broken car on a British road, trying to get somewhere.
Conan O’Brien’s Ford Taurus SHO
While Jay Leno’s car collection gets most of the late-night television attention, Conan O’Brien quietly owns a 1992 Ford Taurus SHO that deserves far more recognition. This wasn’t just any Taurus — the SHO was a sports version with a Yamaha-built 3.0-litre V6 producing around 220 horsepower, and the five-speed manual transmission made it genuinely fun to drive.
For 1992, this was a properly quick car. O’Brien’s choice has a kind of nerd-cool logic to it: the Taurus SHO is exactly the car someone buys because they’ve done the research and don’t care about surface appearances.
Which, if you know Conan O’Brien at all, tracks perfectly.
The Cars Say More Than the Owners Think
There’s something quietly revealing about the cars people choose when nobody’s watching the brand decisions closely. A Fiat Punto from a Potter-era millionaire.
A Buick muscle car in a comedian’s garage. A psychedelic Porsche rolling through San Francisco.
These aren’t accidental choices — or at least they don’t feel that way. The cars that sit farthest from expectations tend to be the most honest ones: things bought because they meant something to someone, or because the sensible option was simply more appealing than the flashy one.
You can read a person in their car. Sometimes the reading surprises you.
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