Stars Who Had Ridiculous First Cars

If you pass your driving test, at some point you're going to need a car. And more often than not that car will be an unexciting hunk of junk that does little more than go from A to B, if you're lucky. But when you add celebrity into the mix, first car choices start to get a little more interesting. Here are a few stars whose first cars were kind of on the wacky side.

Jerry Seinfeld is a bit of a car guy, to put it mildly. More accurately: he is a complete nut with a particular taste for Porches, and who at one point reportedly owned 46 of them, and rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport to keep them in. So it might come as a bit of a surprise to find out that his first car was a lowly 1977 Volkswagen Beetle. You can see a car like that offering a budding standup comedian plenty of material to fuel his career, but it's hard to say whether he loved it or hated it. Since the Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche are related (you can see it in the eyes) it's not hard to imagine that he liked the Beetle so much he simply upgraded when he could afford to. Alternatively, it could be suggested that he was so embarrassed by the experience of driving a plain Jane Beetle, that he had to marry 46 of her prettier sisters to make up for it.

Soccer star and all around pretty boy millionaire David Beckham is known for having a few pennies to rub together, living in multi-million dollar mansions and rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous at his wife's exclusive functions. But back in the days before he was really good with balls, he didn't live such a high life, and he drove a Ford Escort. That all changed when he started scoring, because pretty soon after that he was raking in the cash, dating Victoria Adams, and didn't need to hang around with a cheap old Escort anymore.

While most of the cars on this list are ridiculously crappy, there are a few that are definitely not. Having seen early success with her acting career, Scarlett Johansson was in the fortunate position of having a bit more cash to spend when she went out to pick out her first car—but that might not have been such a good thing. Having a crappy and slow first car can have the useful side benefit of keeping a new and inexperienced driver out of trouble and under the speed limit. And that is exactly what didn't happen with Johansson, who went for the ill-advised choice of a fast and powerful BMW Z4, which she then crashed, narrowly avoiding serious injury. She later admitted the BMW was "too fast and too wild," but then that's what you get when you're too quick moving from A to Z4.

It's probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that some nerd somewhere might have had fantasies involving Cameron Diaz and a VW Camper Van. Unlike most nerd fantasies however, these fantasies bear some relation to the truth—Cameron Diaz actually owned a Camper Van. Not your usual choice of a first car unless you're a surfer, the VW Camper does have the advantage of a bit of shabby chic to go with the tiny wheels and vintage styling. The Camper Van has been known to turn heads, not unlike Diaz herself. But for a young fashion model and soon to be actress growing up in California in the '80s it's more likely to have provided some valuable camouflage against unwanted attention.

If you were told that LeBron James owned a Hummer H2, you might not be too surprised—unless it was his first car, which which his mother gave him for his 18th birthday. What's even more ridiculous though is that LeBron was such a hyped player before he finished high school that his mother was able to get a loan for the Hummer based on his future earning potential. Good thing he came through on that potential, otherwise his mother, who struggled to find work when LeBron was young, would still be on the hook for it. But then everyone knows you gotta fake it till you make it.

Put Jon Stewart and an AMC Gremlin in the same sentence and you might expect a punchline to follow, but there's really no mileage in it. The AMC Gremlin was Jon Stewart's first car, and Jerry Seinfeld used that fact by briefly featuring the pair on an episode of his online car show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee—before quickly ditching the Gremlin. Described in a 2007 Time magazine article as one of the 50 worst cars of all time, the Gremlin was nevertheless a popular '70s option for the budget-conscious driver and was often seen in high school parking lots. Unfortunately, according to Stewart, while the Gremlin was a good option for those of fewer means, because of it's "unique" styling, driving it should effectively be considered a form of contraception.

Taylor Swift is the second person on this list to receive a car for her 18th birthday, but in her case it was not a Hummer from her mother, but a bright pink Chevy Silverado from her record label. For some reason, Taylor Swift driving a pink Chevy Silverado is both ridiculous and perfectly reasonable at the same time: ridiculous because a Silverado is a massive hulk of a vehicle for a first-time driver to get to grips with, but perfectly reasonable because of course Taylor Swift drives a pink Silverado.