Magic Bus



"Gimme a hundred

I won't take under

It goes like thunder

It's a bus-age wonder!"

- The Who, "Magic Bus"

A vehicle which is capable of much more than you would expect from a standard vehicle of that same make and model. May or may not actually be alive to some degree or another (sentient AIs don't count, except when they're not supposed to be sentient in the first place). A Wizard Did It or Clap Your Hands If You Believe is pretty much inherently part of the description as to why it has these abilities; mundane causes like user customization / upgrades don't count.

Typically has quite a bit of overlap with Cool Car / Cool Ship, etc.

Trope Namer is The Who's song "Magic Bus," although that is not an example.

Anime and Manga

 * The catbus from My Neighbor Totoro
 * A Studio founded by Satoshi Dezaki (Osamu Dezaki's brother), for the studio, click here.

Film

 * Herbie, the Volkswagen Beetle from The Love Bug.
 * The Bluesmobile in The Blues Brothers.
 * The titular car from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Literature

 * The Magic School Bus, of course.
 * Several from Harry Potter:
 * First is the Weasley family car, which is an enchanted Ford Anglia which can fly and is sentient.
 * The Knight Bus, a heavily enchanted, purple, triple-decker bus that transports witches and wizards.
 * Sirius Black owned a flying motorbike, which he lent to Hagrid the night Harry's parents died.
 * The Hogwarts Express, while being probably the most famous vehicle in the series and exclusively used by the wizarding world, is an aversion as it shows no signs of magical properties at any point.
 * In The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, the aforementioned mouse is able to ride a toy motorcycle as if it were the real thing just by sitting on the seat and making engine noises.
 * The Scalawagons, in the Land of Oz, a whole series of sentient, flying taxis invented by the Wizard of Oz in book 35 of the series, for public transit in the Emerald City. They run on Flabber Gas.

Live Action TV

 * In My Mother the Car, the main character's mother has somehow reincarnated as a classic car.
 * Nekomaru from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger.

Video Games

 * The King of Red Lions from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. He's later revealed to be a human who has magically enchanted himself to take on boat form.
 * Actually it's never quite clear if the King is a human or ghost, but the boat appears to exist independently of him unless he chooses to act through it.
 * Completely, utterly, wholeheartedly, and deliberately averted by Desert Bus.

Western Animation

 * Crazy Bus, from Arthur.
 * The Magic School Bus.