It’s October, time to see any number of fake spiderwebs and pumpkins on our local store, and prepare to be surrounded bunch of kids in adorable costumes, adults in questionable ones, and waiting patiently until November so you can get amazing deals on cheap candy. But, since it is traditional, I bring you a question as seasonal as Pumpkin Spice Latte and and horned hairbands.
Cars. Beautiful machines. Slabs of metal, glass, and plastic that can make us feel wonder, passion, nostalgia, and in the case of the 1942 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Bertone Coupe, Mild arousal. They are also large groups of two-ton projectiles, hurling around the highways and byways of our planet under the control of people who haven’t the faintest idea of how they work. Every time we go on the roads, or even sit comfortably on a building next to a road, we’re trusting our lives on people who we’ve never met, who may have had a horrible day at work or one too many martinis on their lunch. Not to mention that even if they haven’t and are awake and alert, at any time one of the 10,000 components that make their cars could spontaneously stop working, leaving them a passenger
.
Add Pareidolia to that intoxicating cocktail of emotions and you end up associating certain vehicles to certain emotions. I know I am glad whenever I see a nice W126, and scared whenever I see…we’ll get back to that, but I’d rather hear your opinion first. It’s a pretty open-ended question. It could be the car itself that can be scary, like the 1959 Buick, the only car that has had clearly had enough of you even before you buy it, it could be a movie car, or a car that has something that makes it deadly like the widowmaker 911 Turbo’s. And now, here is what I think is the most terrifying car in the world.
Do not let its nice appearance lure you into a false sense of security. That innocuous little van is death in-car-nate. I could be driving a semi truck and I would still be afraid of its 34 Horse-of-the-apocalypse-powers. No matter who takes the wheel, they are instantly possessed by the dark spirits that lurk within. Crazed and drunk, the drivers proceed to drive at several hundred miles per hour, exploiting every little gap, cutting off and stopping so as to leave only a fraction of an inch between you and them. For the corrupted driver, we are but rolling chicanes in his slalom of death. Impressive, what when even the lightest of breezes would topple one of them on its side.
So how about you? Is yours from a movie or book? Or to paraphrase Mark Twain: “Truth is scarier than fiction.”?
These old XJs still give me the heebie-jeebies. One used to sit on the driveway down the block from where I grew up, almost entirely covered by a tarp except for its menacing eyes (taillights) and sharp teeth (bumpers). Later XJs in this generation kept the “evil” look at the rear but they didn’t scare me as much as a kid…
You’ve mentioned this before, and sorry, but it does amuse me. Firstly because the rear view is an integral part of a car often considered as one of the best-looking sedans ever made, and secondly, even though I can very, very faintly see what your young eyes did, I easier see a goofy, friendly face with quirked-up eyebrows and perhaps the buck teeth of a harmless simpleton. Nah, HE ain’t gonna hurt you, little William!
Terrifying doesn’t mean it’s not attractive. It’s a femme fatale.
Any American 3/4 ton 4×4 pickup with 35” mud tires and a 6” block lift, tailgating in the rain.
+1
Don’t know if it was intentional, but the first two feature cars both have movie connections.
The National Lampoon’s Vacation Wagon Queen Family Truckster was a 1958 Plymouth Sport Suburban Six station wagon as written in the original John Hughes National Lampoon story.
Similarly, the 1942 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Bertone Coupe in the second photo sure looks a lot like the car in which Michael Corleone’s Italian wife was killed by a bomb in The Godfather.
When I was a kid, the tail end of the ’68ish Buick Skylarks put chills up and down my spine when I’d have to walk past one. The concave rear treatment made them look smashed-in with nothing left to lose, especially when they’d been jacked up in the back. Those were also, IIRC, among the GM car with the gasoline filler hidden behind the licence plate at the bottom of the rear bumper. Not only a ridiculous nuisance to fill, but also a serious menace with or without a collision. I used to see a lot of these with a missing or faulty gas cap, sloshing gasoline all over the road every time the driver started forward or stopped rearward.
That wasn’t the only car. My Mustang has the filler in the back but at least it is several inches above the top of the gas tank. On the other hand the Dodge has a filler tube where it seems the bottom of the filler is level with the top of the tank. After getting the car, and having a full tank during one summer while on a slight decline, I kept smelling gas when walking around it. Turns out the heat expanded the gas and it was dripping out the filler tube.
The location of the gas cap on the Mustang became something of an issue when the 1969 Shelby with it’s center mounted exhaust outlets made its appearance. Someone seriously didn’t think that one through.
One from 1970’s Argentina:
This would have scared me as a kid, one of Peter Weir’s early movies.
I actually own a VHS copy of that movie. It was on COLUMBIA HOME VIDEO and the front of the box says “full un-cut version” which I took to mean when this Australian movie was first distributed in the U.S. it was further edited for time and content. That DVD artwork looks like a British release with the lil’ BBFC-mandated ’15’ on the bottom right.
Also, I’ve noted the movie 1971 U.S. Tv movie ‘DUEL’ has been mentioned with its sinister truck but what about the 1990 made-for-cable-TV movie WHEELS OF TERROR starring Joanna Cassidy? It’s an obvious variation on DUEL with a mysterious early ’70s Mopar menacing Joanna Cassidy’s daughter in a small Arizona (or is it New Mexico) town. Joanna’s a school bus driver, btw. I bought this movie on Paramount Home Video many moons ago and I clearly remember the tagline on the box front:
[b] Evil waits . . . with the motor running [/b]
WARNING: Sinister Mopar At Work! 😀
Anyway, the movie is rated [PG-13] so says the PARAMOUNT video box.
Ford F-150 or the latest RAM. Gigantic machines whose fence-height chrome grilles fill an aesthetically dead face, one that looks designed solely to threaten and injure.
I should add that the few sold in this country are driven accordingly, which doesn’t help.
They look friendlier with kittens…
Sans chrome, it looks like a huge masked robber (“Ed also had a mysterious after-hours job”).
And the only reason that kitty isn’t fluffed-up with a tail like a tram’s trolley pole is because of that towbar you’ve fitted at the wrong end to confuse her (“Hmm, that’s the back, it must be leaving”).
Great examples from everyone. On my drive to work, it’s anyone texting in the chaise-lounge reclined seat and with a giant Garmin or tablet mounted on the dash illuminating their own face. Perhaps while making breakfast or taking a nap. Doing anything but looking out the windshield. Trying to figure out why that lever left of the steering wheel makes that little flashing light and clicking sound…
Is this only limited to classics? Because I get nightmares seeing anything from Lexus these days. Plenty of jokes about the “Predator” face, but the SUVs are the most awkward adaptation of the “Lexus” styling to the utilitarian Toyota bodies.
Wow. So much grille there. Just make it the entire front end already so you can go on to something new, Toyota…
Meeting one of these with a 12-row corn head on a narrow road…
Good lord! I don’t mean to pry, but is the 12-row corn head a relative from one of the, er, more remote and mountainous parts, and if not, why was he in your car?
You’re on a roll today, aren’t you?! (c:
Okay, one more, from high school days… my buddy and I would drive around growling at little children through a PA speaker I had mounted in the engine compartment.
This…
Gigahorse…from Mad Max Fury Road
how about………….
or…..
lets get mean…………..
Two fins aren’t enough.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Ds-7xQhpBImY&ved=2ahUKEwii6ZaZzJ_eAhViy1QKHRm0BVwQtwIwAHoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1786PPt265NOt9r7CPi7Zq
To see Paul’s ’66 F100 in this condition would be terrifying. The driver survived, but with major injuries, a 3 point seat belt upgrade would have helped a lot. I’m impressed on how little the steering column got shoved back in this high speed impact.
Here’s a scary one.
The car itself, and the guy on top.
As an aside, I imagine the car doesn’t go far on a gallon of fuel even without the roof ornament.
What is not more terrifying, or beautiful than a 1950s era Buick ??
Especially a ’50.
When the triple-black Dodge Charger glides to a stop underneath the San Francisco overpass, it just oozes malevolence.
I walked by a black 1961 big Mercury on my way to grade school, which has a slightly menacing look to it.
But I agree that the scariest cars are huge SUVs, especially when they are getting old and rusty. I got hit by a Ford Expedition while walking two dogs, fortunately I was OK, just scraped up, the little dog went under the vehicle while I dropped the Pit Bull’s lease- she licked my face while the Expedition slowly drove off.
“The Simpsons” nailed it with the MARGE’S ROAD RAGE episode and her new Canyonero F Series, which aired at the start of the SUV craze:
Can you name the truck with four wheel drive,
smells like a steak and seats thirty-five..
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Well, it goes real slow with the hammer down,
It’s the country-fried truck endorsed by a clown!
Canyonero! (Yah!) Canyonero!
[Krusty:] Hey Hey
The Federal Highway comission has ruled the
Canyonero unsafe for highway or city driving.
Canyonero!
12 yards long, 2 lanes wide,
65 tons of American Pride!
Canyonero! Canyonero!
Top of the line in utility sports,
Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts!
Canyonero! Canyonero! (Yah!)
She blinds everybody with her super high beams,
She’s a squirrel squashing, deer smacking, driving machine!
Canyonero!-oh woah, Canyonero! (Yah!)
Drive Canyonero!
Woah Canyonero!
Woah!
If you lived in the former East Germany (aka German “Democratic” Republic, or DDR) as so well described in Roger Carr’s posting today:
Museum Classics: 1953 DKW F91 and 1955 IFA F9 – Separated At Birth
Depicted: Wartburg 353 and Lada.
A very practical wagon … plenty of room to haul you away.
Any Escalade, which was designed to balance between its rough, workday GMC truck origins and implied glossy sophistication of its nameplate. Always looks to me like it’s about to consume more asphalt, which it does.