SNL’s Bigoted ‘Kerbie’ Car Ended Up On Facebook Marketplace

The magical but shamefully bigoted car from a recent Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Chris Rock has found a new home.

The 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air used onscreen in December’s “Grandpa’s Magic Car” pretape was put up for sale shortly after appearing on the show. A Facebook Marketplace listing advertising the vehicle made only passing reference to its SNL stardom, but included some behind-the-scenes photos of the vehicle on set.

The vehicle came from Progress Picture Cars, a company that has provided vehicles to Saturday Night Live for use in short films and sketches for nearly a decade. While the company will usually scout cars for rent or lease, it actually purchased the Bel Air for use on SNL. The car “was found to be in such good condition and for such a good deal we could not pass it up,’ Progress Picture Cars owner Raphael Santos told LateNighter. 

In the short, Mikey Day plays Benny, a man cleaning out his late grandfather’s old barn with the help of his neighbors. While Benny describes his grandfather as “the greatest guy I’ve ever met,” he winds up learning the truth when the grandfather’s old car is uncovered.

“That’s grandpa’s old car. He got it when he was a teenager in the ’50s. It broke down, but man, he loved this thing,” Benny tells the group. “He talked about it like it was alive. He even had a name for it. He called it Kerbie.”

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As the sketch name suggests, the car winds up being a magical vehicle somewhat similar to Herbie the Love Bug… with one notable difference. Being from the 1950s, the car winds up displaying racist and misogynist tendencies toward the group played by Rock and cast members Andrew Dismukes, Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, and Devon Walker. It locks the doors before the Black characters can get in, opens one of its doors by itself to smack a woman’s butt, and tunes its radio to repeatedly say “white power.”

While the sketch ends with Day’s character and his neighbors burning down the barn with the car inside, the actual vehicle didn’t suffer the same fiery fate.

Given the sketch’s allusion to Herbie, SNL sought a car that was similar to—but different than—a Volkswagen Beetle, Santos told LateNighter. After presenting the SNL production team with a few options, Santos believes the Bel Air was chosen because its grill and bumper worked best for creating the car’s CGI mouth in post-production.

The car is entirely original “down to the tires,” and despite having 18k original miles on it and left sitting in a garage since 1970, still runs. (There’s no reason to believe the real vehicle is magic, nor racist.)

It was listed for sale at $6,500, but according to Santos it went for less. He said the car’s new owner, who had long sought a 1953 Bel Air plans to restore it to its original condition. “I left a script from SNL in the car, and he got a kick out of that,” Santos said. “He said he watched the episode a few times before taking the ride to grab it.”

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