For fifteen seasons and 327 episodes, Supernatural was more than just a show about two brothers hunting monsters.
It became a cultural phenomenon – one of the longest-running genre series in American television history. From its debut in 2005 to its emotional finale in November 2020, it built a fiercely loyal fanbase that grew up with Sam and Dean Winchester.
At the center of it all was a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala – the ultimate demon-hunting machine. What started as a practical choice for trunk space quietly evolved into the emotional heart of the series and the third Winchester brother.
Why a 1967 Impala? The Choice That Made Everything
When Supernatural creator Eric Kripke was developing the show in the early 2000s, he needed a car for his monster-hunting brothers. His first instinct was a 1965 Mustang – clean, iconic, pure American muscle. The studio loved it. His writing partner didn’t.
Kripke: Having a car that was like the third lead of the show was really important to me. When I told my neighbor in Venice [California], who was a mechanic, that I wanted a badass car and was thinking of a ’65 Mustang, he said, “Yeah, a Mustang is the perfect car if you’re a p**sy.” And without missing a beat, he said, “You want a ’67 Impala because you can put a body in that trunk.” I ran to my computer to look it up, and it was perfect.
The argument against the Mustang was simple and ironclad: it’s a two-door fastback with limited trunk space. Two grown guys can’t haul a trunk full of weapons, rock salt, holy water, and occult gear across the country in a Mustang. You need real cargo room. Something built in an era when American cars were designed for long-haul American roads.
The 1967 Impala has one of the largest trunks ever put in a passenger car – 18.3 cubic feet of usable space (even more with the rear seat folded down). It seems like a minor detail until you realize it shapes the entire logic of the show. In nearly every episode, the Winchesters pull something essential out of that trunk: a flare gun, a sawed-off shotgun, a bag of rock salt, or their father’s battered leather journal. The trunk itself became a character – a portable armory and archive that traveled hundreds of thousands of fictional miles and never quite emptied out.
But the choice wasn’t just about logistics. The 1967 Impala Sport Sedan was one of the best-selling cars in America that year, with roughly 575,600 units produced. These cars were everywhere – in driveways in Kansas, parking lots in Alabama, used car lots from Maine to Nevada. It was specific enough to feel real, yet invisible enough to blend in. Exactly what you want when you’re hunting monsters. Not a flashy showboat, but a car that simply fits.
What the Car Actually Was – Before the Show Made It Famous
The fourth-generation Impala was produced from 1965 to 1970, and the 1967 model is widely considered the peak of the lineup. Chevrolet had been refining the Impala since 1958, and by ’67 the formula was fully matured: a full-size body on a 119-inch wheelbase, a smooth roofline with a near-fastback greenhouse, and a bold horizontal grille that looked aggressive without trying too hard.
Standard equipment on the base 1967 Impala Sport Sedan included a 250-cubic-inch inline-six – perfectly adequate, but utterly forgettable. The real excitement was on the options list. Buyers could choose a 327 V8, a 396 big-block, or the legendary 427-cubic-inch engine that made 385 horsepower in its base form. Transmissions ranged from a three-speed manual to the Turbo-Hydramatic 400 automatic – one of the toughest gearboxes Detroit ever built.
The car on the show is all black – no chrome delete, no performance badges, no custom touches. In the show’s universe, it’s a 1967 Impala Sport Sedan, black-on-black, powered by a 327 small-block V8 (327 cubic inches / 5.4 liters). According to Dean himself in 1973, it’s a “327 four-barrel, 275 horses.” Fast enough, imposing enough, and nondescript enough. In real life, that combination was common – tens of thousands were built. Which turned out to be lucky, because the production team would need several of them.
How Many Impalas Did They Actually Use?
The honest answer is: a lot – and it got complicated fast.
Over the show’s fifteen-season run, production used nine different 1967 Impalas. There were “hero” cars for close-ups, interior shots, and any scene where the car needed to look pristine. Stunt cars handled the driving sequences, near-crashes, and anything that might risk damage. There were also insert cars built for tight detail shots and at least one kept as a rolling spare.
As the seasons went on, the fleet grew. Cars were repaired, modified, and sometimes replaced. By the later years, the crew knew every dent and creak in those vehicles like old friends. One car was reportedly wrecked so badly in an early-season stunt that it had to be rebuilt from the frame up. Fans nicknamed the main car “Metallicar,” and the name stuck – especially since it spent so many scenes cruising to a classic rock soundtrack.
The attention to continuity was impressive. The prop team kept meticulous records of every item in the trunk, every detail on the dash, and every change to the exterior. When the show jumped forward in time or flashed back to the brothers’ childhood, they aged or restored the car accordingly. A series famous for occasional continuity slips somehow kept its signature car remarkably consistent across hundreds of episodes.
Baby
At some point – no one can pinpoint exactly when – fans stopped calling it “the Impala” and started calling it Baby.
The name came straight from the show. Dean Winchester, the older brother, treats the car with a tenderness he rarely shows people. He washes it by hand. He winces when it gets damaged. In one of the series’ most quoted lines, he explains his philosophy: the Impala isn’t just transportation – it’s home. The only real home two kids who grew up in motels and on the road ever truly had.
That idea – the car as home, as the one constant in a chaotic childhood – resonated deeply with audiences. The Impala became a symbol of a quiet kind of love: the deep attachment to an object that holds your entire past. Every mile on the odometer is a memory. Every dent is a story.
It was the show admitting that the car was its emotional center of gravity. Everything else orbited around it.
Most Iconic Impala Episodes in Supernatural
While Baby appears in every single episode, certain ones elevate the car from reliable transportation to a true co-star with real emotional and narrative weight.
“Baby” (Season 11, Episode 4)
The entire episode is filmed exclusively from the Impala’s point of view – cameras never leave the interior. You experience the hunt, the brothers’ conversations, fights, and quiet moments as if you’re sitting inside the car with them. It turns Baby into a literal character and gives fans an intimate look at life on the road. Many consider it one of the most creative and heartfelt episodes in the whole series.
“Swan Song” (Season 5, Episode 22)
Chuck (God) narrates the history of the Impala from the day it rolled off the assembly line in 1967. He highlights the small personal details – the army man stuck in the ashtray, the Legos rattling in the vents, the brothers’ initials carved under the carpet – that make the car truly theirs. These memories tied to the Impala become the emotional key that helps Sam regain control and stop the Apocalypse. It’s one of the most poetic and moving tributes to the car in the entire show.
“In the Beginning” (Season 4, Episode 3)
Dean time-travels to 1973 and personally convinces a young John Winchester to buy the Impala instead of a VW van. He even pops the hood and lists the specs: “327 four-barrel, 275 horses.” This episode literally shows how the car entered the Winchester family – and how Dean helped create the very home he would later cherish.
“Changing Channels” (Season 5, Episode 8)
In a meta, humorous twist, Gabriel traps the brothers in TV show parodies. One segment turns Sam into the Impala itself – a talking “Sampala” in the style of Knight Rider. It’s funny, ridiculous, and a perfect example of how deeply the car is embedded in the show’s identity and fan culture.
These episodes prove that Baby isn’t just a set piece. You could argue that Supernatural has three main characters: Sam, Dean, and the car.
The Trunk That Launched a Thousand Memes
If the car’s body is the emotional heart, the trunk is its operational core. And over fifteen seasons, it became a legend in its own right.
The prop team maintained a canonical list of what lived in the trunk: rock salt – always. Multiple firearms (legal and otherwise). Flare guns. Containers of holy water. A well-used first-aid kit. Demon-killing daggers. Angel blades. A grenade launcher that appears exactly once, to massive audience delight. An EMF reader built from a Walkman. Fake IDs for about forty federal agencies. And John Winchester’s leather journal – the same battered prop that appeared in the pilot and returned in the finale seventeen years later.
The trunk became shorthand for the show’s entire mythology. New monsters meant new weapons, and the trunk expanded to match. When the brothers faced pagan gods, the trunk had god-killing bullets. When they needed to trap a demon, it had a devil’s trap kit. The running joke – and the dramatic logic – was that whatever they needed was probably in the trunk.
Fans built replica trunks. Cosplayers recreated the layout down to the exact model of road flares. The trunk showed up on merchandise, in fan art, and even in academic essays about material culture and genre television. A storage compartment in a 57-year-old American sedan became the subject of serious cultural analysis.
The Car Survives Everything
One of the show’s recurring visual motifs is the Impala getting destroyed and coming back. It gets rammed, shot up, crushed, thrown off a bridge, and in one memorable episode, smashed by an angry telekinetic. Every time, Dean rebuilds it. Every time, it returns.
This was intentional. The writers used the car’s destruction and resurrection as a mirror for the brothers themselves – beaten down, damaged, patched back together, and still moving forward. The most emotionally devastating moment in the early seasons isn’t a death scene. It’s the end of season two, when Sam watches the Impala being towed to a salvage yard, barely recognizable, and realizes for the first time that some things don’t come back the same after they’re broken.
They do come back… but never quite the same. The car carries its history in its metal. That’s the whole point.
What Happened to the Real Cars
After the show ended in 2020, what became of the hero cars turned into a minor obsession for the fandom.
Several of the main production vehicles were preserved. Warner Bros. kept at least one for their archives. Members of the crew reportedly developed deep personal attachments to specific cars – people who had spent fifteen years maintaining, driving, and “dressing” them. At fan conventions, original production cars appeared alongside the cast. Crowds gathered. Some people cried in front of them. That’s what happens when an object carries that much shared memory.
The aftermarket for 1967 Impalas didn’t explode the way some TV cars do – partly because the Impala was already common, and partly because a correct-spec hero replica is surprisingly achievable. Clean black 1967 Impala Sport Sedans in good condition typically sell for $25,000 to $60,000, depending on specs and provenance. A documented, screen-used production car would go for multiples of that.
The Impala’s Place in the Longer Story of American Car Culture
The 1967 Impala was never the fastest, most powerful, or most prestigious car of its era. It was the best-selling car in America because it was competent, affordable, and perfectly sized for American roads and American life. It was a car for people who actually drove, not for collectors.
That’s exactly why it works so well as a symbol for the world of Supernatural. The Winchesters aren’t rich. They’re not cool in any aspirational sense. They’re just two guys in a black car, doing a dirty job no one else will touch, on roads most of the country doesn’t even know need traveling.
The show ran for fifteen seasons and 327 episodes. It wrapped in November 2020, with an audience that had grown up alongside it – teenagers at the premiere, early thirties by the finale. The car was in every single episode. Not always front and center, not always meaningful. Sometimes it was just parked outside a motel while the brothers slept. But it was always there.
There’s something powerful about that consistency in an era of streaming and disposable content. A black 1967 Impala, engine off, parked under a sodium light outside a highway motel. Fifteen years. 327 episodes.
Specs at a Glance
1967 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan
Body: Full-size, 4-door hardtop, 119-inch wheelbase
Engine (show-spec): 327 cu in (5.4 L) V8, 275 hp (327 four-barrel, as Dean described it)
Transmission: Turbo-Hydramatic 400 3-speed automatic
Trunk capacity: 18.3 cu ft (one of the largest in its class)
Original MSRP (1967): ~$2,800–$3,100 base
Current market value (restored, show-correct spec): $25,000–$60,000
The 1967 Impala wasn’t built to be iconic. It was built to be everywhere – and it was. That’s a different kind of greatness. And in the long run, probably the more lasting kind.