Bollywood behind the wheel

Okay, so we don't have a Gone In 60 Seconds. Or a Bullitt. Or a French Connection. And we haven't even really tried getting into cars in our movies.

But there are times we've flirted with the topic. Here, memorable for one reason or another, is a bunch of Bollywood movies about cars and the nuts behind the wheel. Enjoy.

Akela

Okay, so this one's about a doctor struggling with his own alcoholism and a thriller woven around him, but the film does feature Amitabh Bachchan singing a song to a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle modelled shamelessly on Disney's Herbie. And none of us can ever quite forget Chal Chal Ri Chal O Meri Rampyari.

Feroz Khan slid in behind the wheel as he played a Formula One driver in this stylish heist film. And not just any F1 driver, Feroz raced for the World Championship... and obviously won it in grand style.

Not a car film per se, but Shah Rukh Khan's bumbling detective Baadshah made his way to a James Bond style laboratory and was given a car loaded with many push-button extras, leading to much on-road madness as he tried frantically to open a window.

The seminal mechanic romance, this one starred Kishore Kumar -- with brothers Anoop and Ashok -- as a garage owner who falls in love with Madhubala, easily the prettiest thing to walk in out or the rain.

There are a couple of cars to be seen in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's classic comedy, but the delightful film really makes it onto the list because Dharmendra pretends to be a driver -- and because he teaches us that 'vaahan-chalak' is Hindi for 'chauffeur.'

The inexplicably titled Taarzan The Wonder Car featured Vatsal Seth and Ayesha Takia while Ajay Devgan voiced the car itself. The film was meant to launch the Dilip Chhabria designed vehicle but turned out to be a colossal failure, which is why you don't see any Taarzans on the road.

Yash Raj Films showed us how not to make a sports film with this disastrous Saif Ali Khan starrer, one that took a spoofy comedy like Talladega Nights and decided to play it seriously. Khan plays a stock car racer, and the lesser said about it the better.

Milan Luthria's enjoyable romp features Nana Patekar as a Mumbai cabbie who runs into the moneyed John Abraham. There is much chaos and one tries to kill the other, but all is well in the end by the time the meter finally falls down.

Aamir Khan's career's biggest hit -- before Taare Zameen Par and Ghajini happened -- featured him as a taxi-driver in love with Karisma Kapoor. His character got memorably drunk and enjoyed kissing in the rain, and there really isn't much else to remember.

Again, not a film anybody really wants to remember or one that many people actually saw, but it did reacquaint us with Govinda who played a taxi-driver in love with some videsi booty. Lack of ambition was never a problem with this film, clearly.