Badass Driver



"Some say that his first name really is "The", and that his left nipple is in the exact same shape of the Nürburgring. All we know is, he's called The Stig."

- Top Gear

Most people drive cars. Many are competent. A few are exceptionally skilled. And a minuscule fraction can do things behind the wheel that'd make your head spin faster than the driveshaft. These gods among wheelmen are a marvel to behold, with skill, timing, or luck so solid they can start and stop on farthings, drive through your coat closet without scuffing the drywall, pivot in place, or power-slide round entire municipalities. Such beings will often possess Machine Empathy, detecting when something's wrong due to subtle changes in how their vehicle is acting.

The natural habitats of the Badass Driver include tracks, car chases, and anywhere where something with wheels is trying to be faster than something else.

Compare Improbable Piloting Skills for the Badass Drivers of the skies and Badass Biker for Badass Drivers on two wheels. See also Drives Like Crazy, which is often either this or its exact opposite.

Anime & Manga

 * Speed Racer: He's a demon on wheels!
 * This is surprisingly a skill of the geeky, Non-Action Guy Martis in Pumpkin Scissors. In one episode, when he is in danger, this role is filled by an even more unlikely character, the cute Genki Girl Stecchin, who combines this with Drives Like Crazy.
 * Bean Bandit of Riding Bean and Gunsmith Cats.
 * Also Riff-Raff the Speed Angel; while not on Bean's level, she is considered one of the best professional drivers in the area.
 * Rally herself is no slouch behind the wheel either, though her true talent is with guns.
 * Gouzou "Mr. No-Brakes" Maguruma of GetBackers is a badass truck driver.
 * And let's not forget Ban Mido, who sucks at driving in a calm situation but is quite competent at driving across lakes, taking corners at 90mph, driving backwards, etc etc...
 * Fletch, Iono-sama's personal driver in Iono the Fanatics.
 * Lupin III.
 * This is the entire premise of the (rather stupid) manga D-Live. The company the protagonist works for when not in school gives him vehicles and he bonds deeply with them and does impossible, incredible things. Even if he's never driven one of these before. Then they cite something that they didn't like, like he crashed whatever-it-was or got seen on the job, and screw him out of his pay. He never seems to catch on.
 * Yui Narumi from Lucky Star Drives Like Crazy, but there's no denying she's horrendously good at it.
 * Bunta Fujiwara from Initial D. He can drift an 80's Corolla Hatchback at insane speeds. While lighting a cigarette. WITH HIS EYES CLOSED.
 * The taxi driver from Canaan.
 * Leigharch from Black Lagoon mixes this with The Stoner. Hilarity and Crazy Awesome ensue.
 * The unnamed Bus Driver from Rosario to Vampire.
 * Straight Cougar of S-Cry-ed can not only turn any vehicle into a supercharged, pink race-car, but also drive it like you wouldn't believe. Yes, he Drives Like Crazy. No, he's not going to hit anything unless he MEANS to.
 * Alex from the Manhwa The Breaker. He is a transporter whose driving skill is described as god-like.
 * Just about every single racer in Future GPX Cyber Formula, but Bleed Kaga in particular. His field racing background explains it a lot.
 * Joe "The Condor" Asakura from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman in both his superhero and civilian forms.
 * Togusa in Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex has this as his skill to lend to the Section 9 police squad. The rest of the team rely on him when they need to initiate a police chase. He's so good at vehicular maneuvering that he's the only one in Section 9 to
 * Miyuki from You're Under Arrest.
 * Edo-Natsu from Fairy Tail.
 * Eriko from Dragon Crisis.

Comic Books

 * Diego Zhao (a.k.a. 'Rush') frpm the Rush City mini-series in The DCU.
 * Freeway, a member of the criminal organization the Network and sometimes foe of Batman.
 * Razorback, a little-known Marvel character, has the mutant power to, ahem, operate any vehicle at an expert level, just by getting at the controls.

Film
"Sol: He's a natural. Ain't you, Tyrone?
 * Wesley, Fox, and Cross from Wanted.
 * Frank Martin of The Transporter series.
 * The hero of the Smokey and the Bandit films, who started the Dukes of Hazzard fits a "moonshiner on the run from the law" character type.
 * A number of the characters in The Italian Job.
 * Any main character from The Fast and the Furious films. But especially Vin Diesel. But then, it's Vin Diesel.
 * Though he doesn't start the film this way, Max from Collateral evolves into this when he
 * Most characters in the Mad Max series, especially Max himself.
 * Jackie Chan plays a version of this in The Tuxedo, in which he becomes a chauffeur for James Bond.
 * Samy Nac? as Daniel in the french Taxi movies does incredible things with his car at ludicrous speeds.
 * There are not few of these in Ronin, as evidenced by the against-traffic freeway car chase.
 * Ryan O'Neal's nameless character in The Driver.
 * H.B. "Toby" Halicki as Maindrian Pace and Nicolas Cage as "Memphis" Raynes in their respective Gone in Sixty Seconds incarnations.
 * In Halicki's case, this practically qualifies as Real Life, too, because he drove Eleanor himself all through the movie, including every single crash and stunt scene.
 * Elwood J. Blues in Blues Brothers. It takes a lot of Badass to turn a car around at the end of an unfinished bridge like Elwood did. He can even speed through the dark of the night and outrun dozens of police cars with his sunglasses on.
 * Just about every character in Torque.
 * Lindsay Lohan played a budding Badass Driver in Herbie Fully Loaded. Though Herbie did most of the awesome stuff, "Max" had her moments too.
 * Herbie "himself" manages to be a badass driver without needing a pesky human behind the wheel; even when segmented into two or more parts, the parts can also drive themselves.
 * Jason Bourne, as shown in The Bourne Series movies.
 * Kim in Death Proof.
 * Niobe from The Matrix is regarded to be the BEST driver in both the Matrix and The Real World.
 * Driver from Drive.
 * Subverted in Snatch with Tyrone. He's introduced as an experienced getaway driver, but doesn't really live up to his hype.

Tyrone: 'Course I am. [backs the car into a parked van]

Vincent: A natural fucking idiot!"


 * Italian race car driver Franco Bertolli is hired for his reputation as one in The Gumball Rally.

Literature

 * Believe it or not, Miss Havisham from Great Expectations is one of these mixed with Drives Like Crazy in the Thursday Next series. Her crazed driving scene is for the intent of getting bodice-ripper romances. No, really.
 * The W40K universe has the gunner Jurgen, who is determined to make sure that Commisar Ciaphas Cain IS NEVER LATE! To achieve this, he will defy physics and all known road laws to ensure this. To add to that, he's gotten away with it, though this is most likely related to the fact the vehicle he's driving being a heavily armored war machine, and that his passenger can legally shoot just about anyone they meet.
 * Shane Schofield from Matthew Reilly's books took an offensive driving course to justify why he can bypass a blockade by sliding along a concrete guard rail.
 * Just FYI: the teacher of the course was an ex-stunt driver.
 * The 39 Clues has Nellie and one time, ! (Oh, crap.)

Live-Action TV

 * The main characters of The Dukes of Hazzard.
 * Knight Rider: Michael Knight. Although you could say KITT did most of the work in the series, the episodes where Knight is behind the wheel of other automobiles make his own abilities abundantly clear.
 * The Driver from The Hire, BMW's short film advertisement series. But then he's played by Clive Owen.
 * Nathan Fillion's character in Drive.
 * Top Gear: Some say it's Jeremy Clarkson, or some of the guests they've featured on the show... all we know is, it's really The Stig.
 * As a testament to how badass he is, he held the record for fastest time on the Top Gear Test Track in the Suzuki Liana for over five years, racing against a half dozen past and present Formula One drivers.
 * Don't forget Jim Rockford from The Rockford Files. Of course, he is James Garner.
 * Most of the Kamen Riders fit this to varying extents. They traditionally ride motorcycles, and being Henshin Heroes, are usually pretty damn good at it.
 * Dillon of Power Rangers RPM establishes himself as this in the first episode, when he drives through Venjix's barricade in broad daylight using his beaten up, old car.
 * Dillon of Power Rangers RPM establishes himself as this in the first episode, when he drives through Venjix's barricade in broad daylight using his beaten up, old car.

Video Games

 * Pretty much any sandbox game with driving in it (Driver, Grand Theft Auto, Crazy Taxi, Saints Row, Total Overdose, etc) requires badass driving to complete the missions on time.
 * Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has the characters mercilessly mock your driving. At one point, they tell you to go to driver's ed. And then you do. Harsh.
 * Admittedly, those classes teach you how to be an even badasser driver.
 * A sci-fi variant, Joker in Mass Effect can do ridiculously awesome things with a spaceship, in this case, the Normandy. Joker is another Non-Action Guy due to his brittle bones medical condition. He is also snarktacular.
 * Anyone who doubts that he fits this trope obviously hasn't seen what he did at the beginning of the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2.
 * Mention the name 'Greger Huttu' in sim-racing circles and expect an awed silence and people asking why the guy isn't in Formula One yet.
 * Top Gear Magazine did an article putting him in a Star Mazda open-wheeler. While the skill is certainly there (he was quickly setting some very quick times), the physical fitness required of actual racing wasn't.
 * Milo of Wheelman and its film sequel.
 * The Driver Series, especially the first two games, which rely pretty much on driving alone. (Except for a couple of times when you have to run around in Driver 2) Heck, you've got a dedicated key/button for burn-outs!
 * Starting in the second game, Jak became one of these, with Daxter showing at least potential. In the racing spinoff, everyone who was playable became one of these by default, even Pecker.
 * Sgt. Moody from Call of Duty, who runs a little Peugeot through the German lines with his two subordinates to send an information to the American HQ. In United Offensive, he did the same thing with a Jeep through the freezing forests around Bastogne, this time with the help of an M2 heavy machine gun.
 * Pretty much everyone in F-Zero, especially Captain Falcon.
 * In Liberal Crime Squad, any liberal with enough points in driving skill becomes this.

Web Comics

 * The Adventures of Dr. McNinja's titular Dr. McNinja, with a car, a motorcycle, and a private jet in the most recent arc, but this might be a given considering the general craziness of the series.
 * The current story, Army Of One, hand waves it nicely.
 * Kamikaze Kate from Misfile.
 * Ash is a pretty good case of this as well. Consider this: When Ash and Kate race, Ash is driving a car that, as Kate points out, "is almost as old as you (Ash) are". Kate herself was driving a freaking Jaguar (and a modified one at that). Kate barely wins. To be fair, Ash's car has one monster of an engine.
 * Kate was rather distracted during the middle of that race.

Web Original

 * Formula One, a Badass Normal superhero from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, who uses a tricked out Cool Car to fight crime. Other heroes suspect he has the mutant power to drive any vehicle as if he was an expert, but the truth is, he's just a very, very skilled driver.
 * Whateley Universe example: Skids, whose mutant powers involve incredible driving skills, and the ability to psychically improve her vehicle, even while she's driving it.
 * Red vs. Blue: Grif. Yes, that Grif. Don't believe me? Watch Revelation episode 3.
 * In the S9 flashbacks, Agents Maine, York, and ultimately Tex give Grif a run for his money. It takes a whole Warthog full of balls to catch someone falling off a building in your car, about as much to ram a truck that your buddies are fighting on with said car, but what Tex can do on that motorcycle probably violates laws of physics.
 * Wheelman from Metro City Chronicles. He can drive across the country in a matter of hours and drive up the sides of buildings. His powers basically revolve around the ability to do impossible stunts with cars.

Western Animation

 * Henry Chan from The Amazing Chan and The Chan Clan.
 * Override and Hot Shot from Transformers Cybertron are quite proficient. Being a Badass Driver is a requirement to become the planet Velocitron's leader, for the Transformers of Velocitron decide such things by racing. Override is the leader at the start of the series, and in the final episode when she abdicates to captain one of the ancient starships for the Space Bridge project Hot Shot wins the race to determine her successor.
 * Firstly that's an anime, but a special mention should go to the fact that Hot Shot, unlike the many other Velocitronians who were racing for planet-wide supremecy, did not even know that leadership was the prize for winning the race and he won thinking there was nothing to win.
 * Coop in Megas XLR, who naturally kicks it up to Car Fu when he gets ahold of hyperadvanced technology.
 * And from the same people, Motorcity's main cast is full of them, but The Hero Mike stands out in particular.
 * In ThunderCats (2011) Panthro is this in his highly-customized Thundertank. He's even up for a game of chicken with the occasional giant war machine.
 * Asami Sato from The Legend Of Korra qualifies. Demonstrating her amazing driving skills during a tense chase scene where she is blinded by smoke bombs. She not only manages to tail her quarries but manages to shock a couple into submission.

Real Life
"Alan Prost: Ayrton has a small problem. He think he can't die."
 * Ayrton Senna, even The Stig said he was the best driver in history.
 * It should be noted, however, that a lot of Senna's brilliance stemmed from his apparent total lack of an instinct for self-preservation.

"Have four hours to sleep, most sleep have had in a week. Car is perfect. Fuel pump fixed by the side of the road. Fixed rear sway bar. Changed to fresh tires. Fabricated new hood tie downs with a borrowed welder -- had to borrow a larger generator to run it, too -- b/c mine cracked off. Trans brace was held on with only one nut left and loose and halfway undone. Got lucky."
 * Any race car driver's skills are fairly easily transferred to street cars, be them open-wheelers or modified production cars. Therefore, pretty much all competent race car drivers are capable of Badass feats behind the wheel.
 * One example of such a driver showing off on YouTube is Ken Block.
 * Niki Lauda. Yes, he crashed and burned horribly, but they say he got back into the cockpit of a Formula 1 racer when he was still smoking. If that ain't Badass...
 * Anyone who can drive in the Monaco street circuit at top speed, barely centimeters from the walls qualifies. Take a look at some F1 onboard laps to see just how fast and how close it can get. You'd be damn sharp if you could just register what went past you. As Niki Lauda put it, Monaco is like driving a motorcycle inside your living room.
 * Prohibition gave rise to an illegal and dangerous, but quite economically rewarding, activity: dodging the police while hauling contraband moonshine on modified cars. The famous "Bootlegger's Reverse" was named for just one of the maneuvers that such drivers would pull. After the prohibition ended, a few of those drivers went legal, and most became quite badass, winning many races. See here.
 * Dale Earnhardt. Some say that he could see how the air moved, which is why he was so damned good on super speedways.
 * He was nicknamed "the Intimidator." That just about says it all.
 * "Precision drivers" like Russ Swift, who's skills include parking cars with a handbrake turn, and on this clip imitating the movie 'The Driver' using the walls of a car park to knock bits of the car off.
 * The land speed record overlaps with Improbable Piloting Skills, since the driver who steered Thrust SSC to 763 mph was Wing Commander Andy Green of the RAF.
 * Wait a minute, isn't The Stig a real life example?
 * Le Prince Noir (The Black Prince), a French motorcyclist, became famous in 1989 for riding one whole "lap" on the Parisian Périphérique expressway. Despite heavy traffic and a layout that's far from perfect for high speeds, he reached an average speed of 190km/h and top speeds beyond 250km/h. Don't forget that this was when stock motorcycles were limited to 98bhp.
 * The most famous biker of this kind is a Swede: Ghost Rider (not to be confused with this or this fictional one). He did similar things as the Black Prince, but as he had better bikes at hand, he took them Up to Eleven. He managed to ride 68km of quite crowded six-lane motorway between Stockholm and Uppsala on a Suzuki GSX-R 1000 tuned to 185bhp in less than 15 minutes, reaching an average speed of 270km/h and often spending a minute or more at the governed top speed of 299km/h. He also did insane stuff with a 499rwhp turbocharged Suzuki GSX 1300 R Hayabusa streetfighter such as wheelies at beyond 300km/h on a runway as well as on a crowded motorway while weaving through the traffic. Ghost Rider even redid the Black Prince's Périphérique Run as a tribute—and became the first to break the Black Prince's record.
 * This Russian Ghost Rider follower has balls and nerves of steel, too.
 * Speaking of speeding in Sweden, there's also Getaway in Stockholm. High-performance cars with cameras mounted on them tease the police in Stockholm to chase them, let themselves be chased but not caught for a while, recording the chase with said cameras, and then head for an expressway where they escape at speeds out of reach for Swedish police cars. Like Ghost Rider, the drivers of these cars cannot be convicted thanks to the very special Swedish traffic laws.
 * The whole mounting-a-camera-on-your-ride-and-flooring-it-on-public-streets thing is Older Than You Think, by the way. The French director Claude Lelouch already did it on an early August morning in 1976 in his short movie C'était un rendez-vous. He mounted a camera on the front end of his Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 and raced the comparably heavy and cumbersome luxury sedan through the streets of Paris. Although this was indeed released as a sort of movie, this does qualify for Real Life because absolutely nothing (except dubbing the engine sounds with a Ferrari 275 GTB) was edited, not even sped up, absolutely no special effects were applied, no preparations beyond mounting the cam on the Mercedes were made, and there wasn't even really a script except the route.
 * This deserves recognition. Extra badass point for the fact that he was driving an IFV.
 * Sabine Schmitz, the most badass female driver ever lived. Has done around 20,000 laps of the Nurburgring Nordschleife, and crashed "many times, can't count actually". This being a circuit that's 13 miles around which there continue to be fatalities on a yearly basis. On Top Gear she blew past motorbikes and sports cars...in a VAN. Which halfway around the lap "got no more ABS". And they say Danica Patrick is making headlines...
 * As a measure of badassery, anyone who's completed the big 3 in motor racing - The Indy 500, The Monaco GP and the Le Mans 24 hours.
 * Speaking of Le Mans 24 hours, take a look at the onboard cam at night and you'll see just how little of the track ahead is barely visible to the drivers. Sometimes you don't know a corner's coming until they actually take it.
 * Nascar drivers Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison after crashing into each other on the last lap of the lap and getting into a fight in the 1979 Daytona 500.
 * Even before they got into the fight they were some of the toughest drivers of their time.
 * Jalopnik.com's hoon of the year, Bill Caswell. Enters a WRC Mexico rally race against $400,000+ cars driven by the likes of Ken Block (see "showing off on YouTube", above) with a $500 19-year-old rear-wheel-drive Craigslist car and no crew. Finishes third in class.