If the hands on my calendar are accurate, there’s going to be a Thanksgiving tomorrow! And, with this Thanksgiving coming off the heels of a very divisive national election (I want to say we picked a new Chief Alderperson or Comptroller or something?) I realize that many of you may be pretty damn sick of politics and all of the associated heightened emotions and feelings and threats and recriminations – so why put yourself or anyone else through that? The good news is you don’t have to, thanks, as always, to cars.
Yes, cars! Thanks to the near-universal appeal of automobiles of all sorts, and the inherent joy nearly any functional human feels upon encountering someone talking about cars, at length, with unfocused eyes and a fierce intensity, I think we can safely rescue you from your weird uncle or aunt or cousin’s neo-monarchist or anti-third-amendment rants.
The way we’re going to do this is with these five sure-fire, car-related conversation – carversation, if you will (I hope you won’t), starters. Actually these starters are so potent, I’m going to say they’re conversation igniters. Whip these babies out and before you know it, everyone will be animatedly engaged discussing cars with delight and glee, any urges to wrap hands around yielding necks because of political disagreements long forgotten!
So, here you go; just print out this page, fold it up, and keep it in a readily accessible pocket – you’re now ready to make your Thanksgiving joyful and homicide-free!
Carversation Starter 1: Did You Know There’s Lots Of Cars Named For Food?
This is a good one to ease into everything with because there’s already lots of food around, and it allows you, the carversation leader, to carefully shepherd and guide the conversation via your knowledge of some fascinating facts about cars named for foods.
Here’s a quick starter list: the amazing Alldays & Onions, Nissan Cherry, MG Hot Dog, Suzuki Cappucino, Mitsubishis Pistachio and Minica Lettuce, as seen above. Oh, and I wrote all about a carmaker called American Chocolate a bit ago, too.
That’s a good list to get you going, and once people are suitably enthralled, you can encourage them into coming up with their own food-based car names, as you all enjoy a good chuckle imaging what a GMC Ribeye might look like, or how you’d never be caught dead behind the wheel of an Oldsmobile Haggis.
Carversation Starter 2: First Cars!
You know what’s a powerful way to keep people talking happily? Nostalgia! Nostalgia is a potent drug, and if you ask people about their first cars, I can all but guarantee they’ll have stories, fond stories of long-expired youth spent in vinyl-upholstered deathtraps that will have even the hardest-core Fox News watcher and NPR tote-bag-haver laughing together over shared memories of what shitboxes their first cars were.
For the younger people, you can ask them what they want their first car to be, and that should spark all sorts of good discussion. You’ll just have to figure out how to navigate around Tesla. That’ll be tricky, but if it starts to get strained, just tell them about how you remember your grandma’s amazing 1973 Tesla.
Carversation Starter 3: Weird Connections
See that car up there? That’s a Jutta, and strange microcar-like versions of it were actually built. I show it to you because the dude that invented Whac-a-Mole built it! Or how about how Brooks Stevens, the man who designed the famous Jeep Wagoneer, also designed the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile? Or how about how one of the programmers of GM’s car-computer systems went on to design the iconic video game Centipede?
Any of these should wow even the crankiest of relatives into a reverie of marveling at the strange and beautiful interconnectedness of the universe.
Carversation Starter 4: Car-Noise Making Contest
Okay, this one is in case things get desperate and you need to really derail a conversation that is edging far too close to becoming dangerously political: Declare a car noise-making contest!
You’ll want to have a few of your own ready to go. Thinking about this made me remember this book I had as a kid, called MouthSounds, which made the bold promise that one could “whistle, pop, click, and honk your way to social success.”
This was a lie.
But, what it did deliver on was a really great passing racecar sound, a sort of combined buzz and tounge-rolled “r” noise along with a Doppler Effect start-low-GET-LOUD-go-back-low sort of thing. It had a little flexi-disc record, too, one side of which seems to be online:
Man, look how ’80s that cover is! This sort of design/topography was very common in the ’80s for fun coffee table books. Anyway, you can make that sound and maybe a good car-starting sound? Look, this guy is amazing at it:
So, just give that a try and get everyone to try, the more embarrassing the better! But be aware that spittle will be flying around, so take precautions.
Carversation Starter 5: Talk Shit About The Lancia Gamma
Oh, this is one everyone will appreciate: Lancia once made a car that could destroy its own engine if you started it with the steering wheel turned all the way in one direction, like if you were, say, parked on a hill and didn’t entirely trust your parking brake, which was probably a good call.
It’s true! The power steering pump was driven off the left-side camshaft, via a belt. So, if you started the engine when cold, with your steering wheel at full lock, the load from the power steering pump would cause the cam belt to break or jump, at the very least bending valves, or at worst lunching the whole damn thing.
If that’s not enough, you can tell them about how rear visibility was accomplished by looking through a window in the car above the rear seat, and then through the trunk and then through another window in the trunk lid. It’s gleefully absurd, and everyone should have a great time pondering the madness of it all.
I hope these help! And remember, these are just starters – used properly, you should have everyone talking cars with unbridled glee, and everyone will forget all of their stupid ideas, no matter what they are, and just gorge on turkey and fistfuls of ham, as the good whomever intended.
Talking about paint color names is a fun conversation. You can try to figure out what the manufacturer calls the color of your car. Mine is Nebula Gray. My kid’s truck is Cayman Blue Metallic. How fun is that? Then, once the juices get flowing, pick random objects and come up with names that car manufacturers would use. The color of that green table clothe? Seafoam or maybe Spring Fern or how about Summer Aspen. What do you thing Ford would call the color of that turkey? Merry Thanksgiving to all.
Nebula Gray Pearl? Gotta be a Lexus?
Suggested Article Title: The one that got away!
I worked at a Mazda dealership in the early 70’s. The Rotary Engine Heyday!
Back then demos were Free! Had the whole line of rotaries eventually. RX2, RX3, RX4, and Rotary Pickup. Came with 700×14 Bridgestone Skyways. Bias plies! Burnt the rear tires off in 6k miles. Doing hill climbs on a gravel hill to impress prospective buyers! Lol
To get rid of leftover 73’s, we had a $1000 guaranteed trade in sale! Push it in, tow it in, whatever…we took some interesting cars in during that sale. Including a 37 Packard sedan. Running gear done, needed paint and upholstery. But….I had a family come in and the husband looked at the leftovers and said we’ll take that RX2 sedan. I said don’t you want to test drive it? He said, it’s new, it’s got a warranty, right??!! I was like wow, not happy. What’s your trade in Sir? He says, Let’s go in your office and just get this done!
I’m like wow, what’s with this guy.
I do the write up, and Sir what’s your trade in?
A 1959 Morgan 4/4. I about fell out of my chair! Does it run I ask?
Yeah it runs! You’ll have to come and get it though…
I took the write up in to my manager and I’m like , Boss can I buy this Morgan and give you the $1000. He says Yeah, I don’t care, but it’s getting late. Go with customer and drive it back in the morning. If you have the $1000 it’s yours! He didn’t even know what it was!
So picked it up, drove fine had TR4 running gear, and except for a dent in the RF fender and a crack in the windshield looked pretty good.
I had just got married, had no money, so went to see my Dad that night and tried to borrow $1000. What for he says? Told him look out the window. For that? Are you kidding? Nah…don’t think so…
Next day drove it in and sadly watched ti go bye bye. By 1 pm that day sold to a wholesaler for $2500! Damn it Skippy!
In retrospect, should have went to HFC (a low rent loan place), hocked my furniture and ….
Yikes never heard of Brooks Stevens mentioned on the Autopian before. David asks to send in tips so I mention Brooks Stevens. Then what do I see? Hopefully I beat you to the punch.
Happy Thanksgiving and good health to all!
I’d love to see a brief article on the Zephyr Land Yacht. There’s a model of one in my local museum that fascinates me.
My cousin’s partner still insists that EVs only have one moving part, so we can’t talk about cars.
James Acaster has a handy tip for conversation: after putting all your effort in to an ice-breaker to get the conversation started you really need to finish it with something to close that ice back up. He recommends ending conversations with “death comes for us all”.
I was SO sure the Minica Lettuce was something you just totally made up! 😀
But it seems like it might have existed actually: https://carfromjapan.com/specifications/mitsubishi/minica/5814270e2afaa2c4b286cd82
They exist.
I saw them personally when living outside Tokyo.
This was back when almost every product, store and TV ad in Japan included an English word/phrase as a name or byline that was either obliquely related or completely out of context.
The red Jutta illustration for Carversation Starter #3 looks like retrofuturist fantasy from the mind of Bruce McCall.
He’s worth checking out – a very Autopian path into his works would be The Last Dream-o-Rama (but All Meat Looks Like South America also demands your attention based on nothing more than that incredible title).
Oh man, talking about first cars is a bad topic in our family. My 1960 Maserati 3500 GT spyder that my mother sold while I was at college for $2000 because that’s how much I paid for it. Her 1934 Ford wooden station wagon that she loves to tell about driving from the top of the Berkeley hills to the flats with no brakes when she was in college, but later one of her brothers set it on fire to make it into a farm wagon. My sister’s Jenson Healey that she had restored after taking it to college, and my mother moved it to a barn where it was eaten by rats.
It goes on, big family, lots of first cars.
Not going there thank you very much.
Hugh, I feel your pain… My first car purchase at 17 was all set to go with my savings and it was a 1969 Maserati Mistral Coupe for the princely sum of $6,500. My mother caught wind of it and said absolutely “No” and when I kept going forward with it she called my father (they were divorced and never talked) and used him to put the damper on it hard. I still haven’t forgiven them or their good sense.
The 3500 GT was after my parents would not let me buy a 1929 Rolls Royce hearse. I wanted to have it converted into a panel delivery van. It was for sale in San Francisco for $750.
Just before I got the Maserati, our Mercedes mechanic offered us a stop dead gorgeous 1960 Mercedes 300 SL roadster. It had worn valve guides and smoked a bit so that was vetoed as well. Either would have been better investments, but the Maserati was an amazingly capable car. In 1970 Ferrari 250 GTOs were selling for $3500 and you could get a Bugatti 35 for about the same.
I do not believe I could manage to remain on speaking terms with such people.
Well I moved to NYC for 40 years, I don’t know how big a factor that was..
“Real New Yorkers aren’t born there, they are just too weird to fit in their home town and move there”
Back in California to take care of of my 95year old mother, who is still a character, just less filtered.
She did try to buy Stanguellini Formula Junior as a living room decoration a few years ago.
I’m going to tell everyone there is this great car website out there that found out there was a book written about the worst cars ever made. Upon initial reading it infuriated the cofounder who promised to debunk all of the vehicles in the book. He started off at an uproarious rate and then the ghost of vehicles past showed up at his home which scared him into submission and to never mention of the book again even though every single rebuttal was logical well researched and entertaining. Now us autopians are just hoping and waiting for the next installment of the series. Please Jason- don’t stop never give up!!!
Okay, okay, I’ll have another one this coming week!
Thanks Jason you’re the best.
Good post Torch! I plan on asking the relatives what sort of cars the celebrities that actually moved out of the country are driving now and their new places they call home…. And of course, how much more gas prices and emissions and insurance and inspections and all that nonsense are… bottom line everybody can eat some turkey and celebrate the USA!
I think you can get almost everyone to agree that touch screen controls are bad, and even the galaxy brain contrarians who think they are good can be diverted into complaints about how the implementation is bad somewhere along the line.
And if you want to flip things, you can get people to talk about bad manual controls. Everyone has a complaint about window crank placement in their first car, or how hard it was to tune the AM radio, or the trick you needed to get the intermittent wipers to work in a light mist.
With the right steering you can get everyone to share horror stories about trying to roll down windows and pay to get out of a garage anywhere from 1950 all the way to getting the rental car out of the airport lot this evening.
It’s a good way to get from carving the turkey to pumpkin pie.
Won’t #1 just prompt an angry rant from your grandfather? About how there are no domestics named after food you punk, except for the misbegotten Plymouth Radish of the ’70s, damn you OPEC.
My favorite for #3 has to be that when DeLorean went under in 1982, the remains of the company were bought by…Big Lots. Seriously. Had a different name back then, but I love to imagine scenes like “Look at this…stainless steel automotive panels? Do we need any? It’s a really good price…”
So which do you prefer, three headlights or two?
Way to draw out the Subaru perverts.
Tatra T87 and the Tucker would like a word.
Those familial partisans stopped talking to each other before Eisenhower took office.
As a kid in the 60s my little brother’s favorite was:
“Hey Grandma, guess how many times Dad threatened to pull over on the 6 hour ride here to leave one of the little shits on the side of the road?”
One time he actually left my brother. Drove a couple of miles then turned around to retrieve him. He was gone. Really.
It was like 10 degrees outside and almost dark.
As we passed the next gas station on the very rural road in the UP, a trooper pulled my old man over.
Guess who was sitting in the back of the cop car?
True story. But it did not deter the old man from doing it again for many years to come.
Good times…great memories.
Oof.
“Don’t make me turn this car around”
Topic #6: We need a new car but OH MY GOD THE INFLATIONS
Three conversation starters I like
1 Ford or Chevrolet?
2 carburetor or fuel injection?
3 automatic or manual?
Then I leave the room
You aren’t an agent of chaos, you are Chaos
Chev, injection and manual
Chrysler, Turbine, Torqueflite
We like to discuss this:
Who was the dumbest asshole you got behind in the totally packed WalMart parking lot whist shopping.
Then it evolves into “who was the dumbest ass you got stuck, or trapped by in the store aisles?
Wishing all a Happy Turkey Day, and kindness to everyone one involved…
YMMV of course.
I like to combine 1&4. Declare a Pinto as a food car and begin making fart sounding engine noises going through the gears. Try it!
Horses are so stuck up, we should remind them of their place in the food chain.
Broncos, Mustangs, Pintos, Colts, Ponys, Equuses, and so many more all count as food cars.
All of these are better than my idea. “If you don’t shut the hell up I’m going to break every piece of glass on your car with a claw hammer. Who wants cranberry sauce?”
I can see this going sideways really fast…
“So Nephew – What car do you want when you turn 18?”
“I want a Cybertruck because they’re bulletproof and waterproof and indestructible and Elon Musk is awesome and they only go up in value and MAGA!”
“Uh, well actually, they’re not bulletproof….”
“What are you, Uncle – Some kind of stupid Libertard?”
“So Grandma – What was your first car?”
“It was my Father’s Tesla Model T. Did you know that Elon Musk invented the Electric Car? And Free Speech? And Dog Money?”
“Uh, well, actually…”
“I know my facts! And what’s your name again? Who is this Libertard?”
“Did you know that the Lancia Beta…”
“What in the hell is a Land-see-a Beta? Is it a car for Beta, Cuck Libertards?”
“Did you know who designed Centipede?”
“Elon Musk”
“Uh – Okay… Did you know who designed the Jeep Wagoneer?”
“Elon Musk! Okay, I got one! Who invented Brawndo?”
*entire family* “Elon Musk! It’s got what plants crave!” (“And have you seen the price of eggs lately…?”)
*groan*
“Did you say something, Libertard?”
Some of us would be better off making reservations at a locally owned, non-chain restaurant this year.
OMG! This sort of shit is why I am staying home and eating leftover pizza.
Legit choice.
Use your Air Fryer to warm your pizza – It’s better that way.
I think you can still get legally emancipated from your family at this point. Probably worth looking into, at least.
My family’s still fighting the great “Do You Stuff Your Turkey or Dress Your Turkey War of 1967” every Thanksgiving. Electile Dysfunction is mere trivia compared with that. Have a happy Puritan Propaganda Day and remember Black Fridays Matter, or something like that.
If the awesome savory starchy goodness is cooked inside the turkey, it is stuffing.
If said goodness is cooked outside the turkey, it is dressing.
Thank you for coming to my Bread talk.
But, which is superior? There’s the rub. No, wait, the rub goes on the outside of the turkey. Damn, this is hard. Maybe I’ll just have pie. But is it pumpkin or sweet potato, I can’t tell. Aaagh! Too much food input! Need to recover. Must have tryptophan. Zzzzz …
They’re both excellent, but dressing has a much lower chance of making me really sick if it’s not fully cooked, so it wins.
That was my mom’s choice, too. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you very much, and the same to you! 🙂
I have one word for you:
Spatchcock.
Enjoy!
That works, but if I’m going to that extent, I might well go full on turducken.