Autopian Readers, I Need Your Help Finding A Car Part To Put On My Necklace (And Also COTD)

Cars, trucks, and RVs have been a lifelong passion of mine. I own too many cars and motorcycles as well as hoard literally hundreds of diecast cars. Yet, despite my love for all things with engines, I don’t really show it, or at least, not in the way I want to. That’s where I need your help, readers. I want to wear a car part on a necklace, but I don’t know what will work!

In the years before I started writing about cars, I was an IT drone. I started off by fixing desktops and graduated to writing SQL and Java. I tell you what, that career path wasn’t as fun as I thought it was. Still, I loved computers. I still love computers! Back in 2018 or so, I tried to make a budget super gaming computer out of a giant cluster of server CPUs. It didn’t work out, so I ended up reselling almost all of the parts I bought. I kept around one of the server CPUs, an AMD Opteron, for another project. I drilled a hole straight through it to turn it into a necklace charm.

I’ve been wearing this thing regularly ever since. Honestly, it’s always a talking point no matter where I go. Everyone wants to know what the heck is hanging from my neck. Only some people make the connection and ask if it’s a computer processor. Behold! The face of just 3 hours of sleep before a flight…

But here’s the thing, I write about vehicles, not computers! I need a new kind of fun necklace accessory. This came up thanks to Lady Gaga wearing a bumper cover on the red carpet. I don’t want to go that extreme, but a comment from Jb996 got me thinking. The context is that getstonyII thought the Lady Gaga post was probably sponsored (it’s not), which led readers to joke about who the sponsor would be:

Uh, sponsored by who?? I certainly missed it.

By SELVA? I’m not sure we’re the target demographic.
By a Junk Yard? Pushing people to buy old car parts for fashion excessories! Yes!

I still think it’s the Junk-Yard Lobby. They’re trying to get me to wear old brake rotors for a necklace, like some kind of Auto-FlavorFlav
I won’t do it!!

For a brief detour, I will give a second COTD nomination today. California wants to annoy speeders with in-car alerts that cannot be turned off. This has upset a lot of folks, but I think Sid Bridge clearly has the better plan, here:

I have long held that the best cure for speeding isn’t technology based. Speeders should just be sentenced to having to drive a 1986 Dodge Aries for a month in order to really feel how horrifying 80 miles per hour can be.

Okay, so with COTD out of the way, I need your help. What’s a car part I can wear? My wife bought me a piece of Fordite, which is awesome, but I have that on display rather than wearing it. Besides, that’s not exactly what I’m looking for. I want to wear a car part as jewelry, not turn car parts into jewelry, if you get what I’m saying.

But here’s the thing: It needs to be small, preferably roughly the size of that big server CPU. I don’t want to walk around with a clutch disk hanging from my neck. I also think wearing a badge would be cheating. However, now I’m stuck. What’s a car part that’s small, still identifiable as a car part, and presumably won’t tear up my skin? Maybe you can help!

Otherwise, have a great weekend, everyone!