You could drive a Model T Ford in a Benetton sweatsuit and it would be fine. You need not wear a Savile Row tailored suit to drive an Aston DB5. Still, more often than not piloting a vehicle will either consciously or unconsciously affect your manner of dress. At the same time, what you’re wearing often points to what kind of car you drive. What examples of this can you think of?
Come on, you’re an Autopian. Tell me you don’t sit in a restaurant and try to match the patrons with the cars you see out the window in the parking lot.
For example, if the guy yelling profanities at the waitress about how long he’s been waiting for his food is clad in a Ferrari baseball cap, prancing horse logo jacket, and those signature Rossa Corsa Pumas, I can say with virtual certainty that he does not drive a Maranello product. No, he arrived in the rust-bubbled-door-bottom, twenty-year-old, 200,000 mile “murdered out” AMG E-Class you rolled your eyes at on the way in. Spoiler alert: he’ll be waiting for his food longer than his Check Engine light has been on.
If there is a Ferrari parked outside the restaurant, its owner likely the slightly disheveled-looking seventy-year-old in a wrinkled T-shirt and khakis. His meal materializes almost before he sits down since he’s always “how’s your daughter doing?” to the waitress and puts down a fresh C-note as a tip after finishing his artisan cheeseburger. His portfolio made more today than most people do all year, or all decade, and that waitress works hard, doggone it.
Thirty years from now, some lady with a restored 2026 Toyota Sienna will show up at a “CyberWood” car show dressed in “period 2020s attire” like an oversized sweatshirt with LAKE LIFE and a big boat anchor graphic on it, plus Lululemon-knockoff Kirkland yoga pants and pink Hoka sneakers. She’ll win Best In Show.
We know these observations don’t always ring true. You’ll never see our Griffin Riley wearing white tube socks and tucking a Corvette shirt into his shorts, do you?
Let’s hear from you. How would you dress if you owned a certain car? What fits broadcast the type of car the wearer likely owns?
topshot: NBC Television
Big scarf and Jackie O sunglasses for women in convertibles.
I have a 1960s Les Leston scarf like this in red… has logos from various upscale and sporting European car makes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/355573816825
If I’d owned a mid-seventies Alfa Romeo GTV I’d wear wool or linen pants and jackets (depending on weather). And a silk scarf.
Nope; I always look like I just went dumpster diving no matter what I’m driving.
When cycling, however, I do have a preference for replicas of vintage spandex: I ride wearing early 80s Gitane Renault or late 70s Bic colours (the Gitane Renault is especially appropriate since I ride a ’78 Gitane, and often drive the Renault 4 to the outskits with the bike on a hatch rack just to ride on flatter ground).
I own an MGF, a collection of flat caps, some nice suits (one of them tweed) and two Barbour jackets. Thoughts?
It’s not absolute, but I do tend to wear clothes to match the ride. If you see me driving the ’66 Biscayne, it’s likely I’m in a grease-stained Rat Fink T-shirt and jeans. The ’94 Fleetwood? Probably jeans, a polo, and a comfy old formal-style leather jacket, although that’s also the car I’m most likely to wear a suit in as it’s usually the vehicle of choice for weddings, funerals, and court dates. As to either of the Jaguars, it’s probably going to be an IMSA or WEC shirt of some sort. Scruff-wear and steel-towed boots generally make an appearance if I’m in the old ’99 Ford F-250 work truck. Past that, it anyone’s guess what I’ll be wearing in the Volt or the Acura RDX.
My dad had a phobia of driving behind men who wore tweed hats in cars. This is England in the 1960s and ’70s, so when I say tweed hat, I mean tweed with a sloping brim all round.
A tweed hat and a pipe turned the phobia up to 10.
Tweed hat and a pipe, driving a Rover: 11
My grandmother used to complain about Volvo drivers and their pipes – stop trying to light your pipe and just drive the damn car, stunato
He had it in his head that all Volvo drivers were inattentive pipe smokers