Forgotten movie cars: The Plymouth Savoy from "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
There are three things everyone immediately thinks of when the name of Audrey Hepburn's perhaps most famous film is mentioned: the endlessly long cigarette holder, the black evening gown by Givenchy and the incredulous look over the sunglasses as Paul's "decorator" gets out of the cab that has been whistled for.
But hardly anyone remembers the cab in which the movie reaches its climax. It's not easy, to be honest. Although it is supposed to be the same car in the film, at least three different Plymouth Savoys were used during filming, meaning that the yellow cab cruiser gets older and older as the scene progresses.
When Holly is released from prison and Paul (or Fred, depending on your point of view) picks her up, only the rear of the car can be seen. But that is enough to clearly identify it. The forward-sloping tail fin and the chrome-plated extension of the tail light between the bumper and the trim strip identify it as a 1959 model.
A few streets further on, it is a 1958 model from which Holly releases her nameless cat into freedom and rain. Now, the tail fin is rakishly tucked back, the trim touches the bumper and the low-set tail light does not reach around the corner.
When Paul has had enough of Holly and wants to get out of the car, we see the front of the car for the first time and recognize vertical air slots under the bumper and a small turn signal inside the two headlights. The Plymouth only looked like this in 1957, as double lamps were not yet permitted in the USA.
And even if Holly would never have found her way back to herself and therefore not to Paul and her cat without the Plymouth, any other cab – from Checker to Chevrolet – would of course have done the job. And so it took another 22 years and another movie to finally make the Plymouth in the "Forward Look" world-famous.
