Here at The Autopian, we pride ourselves on celebrating all types of car enthusiast cultures without judgment or favor. (Well, I never got the love for all the Bailout Cars, but nostalgia’s a hell of a drug, Zoomers.) To me, the best ones are the ones that teach me something new. Yet I can’t figure out what the deal is with these “Sports Mind Produced By Sports” decals I see everywhere in New York City—often multiples on the same car.
I’ve been wanting to write about these for months and with this being my final day at The Autopian, it’s probably my last chance. It’s not the huge investigation full of interviews that I wanted to do, but maybe one of you can explain to me what the hell I’m looking at.
I grabbed this photo on a car parked near our place in Brooklyn yesterday (which is what reminded me to do this story.) There it is: “SPORTS MIND,” and below it, “Produced by SPORTS.” What on earth does this mean, and where does it come from?
Some cursory Google searches reveal these are nothing new—car forums and Reddit boards have been asking about them for close to a decade, maybe longer—but I never really noticed them until I moved to New York in 2017. Nobody really seems to know what they are. It feels vaguely JDM-y to me, like the kind of lettering you used to see during the glory days of Japan’s Bubble Era. But I have no clue if that’s the correct provenance or not.
They can be had for any kind of car, usually with some branding attached. You can get them on eBay or Etsy or Amazon. Here’s one example that’s assuredly unofficial:
The quality, and English lettering, is often deeply questionable. Here’s another one from Amazon: “Sports Mind Powered by RACING.” Racing! You hear that? In all-caps, too. That’s how you know they’re serious.
They can be had, or used on, any brand; I’ve seen them here in New York on BMWs, Ford Tauruses, AMGs, Hondas, Toyotas… just about everything. In fact, on the times I’ve considered picking up a cheap lease on a Tesla Model 3 for the hell of it (then I decide not to when I read stuff like this), I knew I wanted to get a “Sports Mind Powered by TESLA” decal as a goof. Also, it would make mine stand out a bit; the damn things all look the same.
And yes! It exists on Etsy for under forty bucks! Look at that!
But none of this abates my confusion. What is this? What does it all mean? What is the Sports Mind? Do I have it? Do YOU have it? And what is “Sports?” What the hell is that (who, maybe?) and how is it producing things? Should The Autopian start selling these in their official store? Should the site hawk “Sports Mind Powered By RUST” decals for our growing fleets of dangerous shitboxes?
I have so many questions and no answers. Perhaps one day, I too will get the Sports Mind. Then I might understand.
[Ed note: I, too, see these everywhere in and around the city. What the hell is up with these? –Â MH]
I’ve never seen one of these particular decals before, though the basic idea’s nothing new, and we’ve had “this sticker adds 5 HP” types for generations.
While I’d love to slap “???????????????????????? ????????????????” on the lower leading edge of each of my Yaris’s doors, I wouldn’t want the added attention – right now my car looks exactly as slow as it is, and if I decorated it, even jokingly, I’d fear someone (police officer or G35 owner, who knows?) might believe I was serious.
Edit: Those question marks are what you get if you try to generate “Sports mind” as fancy cursive text and paste it in.
I’ve never seen those in my part of the country. Much more likely to see camo wraps.
They’ve been around and annoying those of us that don’t understand them for years.
It’s the All Your Base Are Belong to Us of the early ‘20s
Oh no!!! somebody set us up the bomb!
You have no chance to survive make your time.
Umm, what?
There is a Honda Accord near where I live that has a few of these. Every time I walk by it, one more “accessory” has been hotglued onto that poor car by its presumably proud owner.
It’s just another mark of absolute confusion.
I’ve never seen one before, but it sounds like the tagline for a knockoff Amazon product from world-renowned company XGZYVNP. What do you mean you haven’t heard of them? They’re huge in Sports-World!
I have NEVER seen these in the Los Angeles exurbs, or even in the city for that matter. To me, these bizzarre decals prove that NYC drivers don’t know shit about cars. Change my mind!
Never saw those before, but I suspect they’ve been around me on attention-seeking shitboxes I ignore. If I thought a sense of humor was a thing with these, I’d attribute it to some kind of viral irony mocking “Powered by Honda” and such, but I think it would be an out-of-date reference, not really funny when it’s commonly seen, and doesn’t look applied to cars meant to be a joke. It does have that imperfectly translated look and it makes no sense to me, so it being a weeb thing (along with some followers who just imitate what they’ve seen without knowing the origin) sounds like the most likely explanation.
I have wondered this very thing many, many times. The weirdest thing is the stickers usually end up on extremely normal cars owned by very normal people. I don’t think they even know where the stickers came from, Patrick.
Meth. Not even once.
I’ve always been perplexed by ‘Sport” decals on pickup trucks, especially F150s. What sport are we talking about? Competitive drive through latte fetching? The kid drop?
It’s kind of like calling a garden rake fine dining cutlery. (I bet DT has a take on that, though.)
It’s “sport” in the sense that figure skating is a sport. Or fishing.
Pickup Bed Usage Avoidance Champions ’23
You live in the slope?
last day? noooo! not again! first at jello picnic years ago, now here?! I hope i dont have to follow another car site
Lol. So much agreed
“Uhhhhhg, x is going to another car site…? Guess I’m never hearing from them ever again”
Is this where we type “eat shit?” I think that’s still the tradition.
Patrick was a part-timer here helping us get things dialed in. So though it’s sad to see him go, we knew it was temporary.
I read it first as “Spirit animal” before reading the article. I think i like that better?
Spirit animal powered by dinosaurs
It feels a lot like the descriptive plaques Suzuki used to put on the Alto Works, but way less coherent
If we don’t get a goodbye roast article from the staff/contributors, I’m gonna be very sad.
What? No! Why? Say it ain’t so!
Maybe a riff on the sportsball meme?
My favorite has always been the “Powered by X” ones that riff on the classic, actually-made-sense-once Ford decal (used back in the day when its engines were in bodies it didn’t build, like open wheel race cars).
“Powered by Acura” is of course the best.
“Powered by Acura” was part of the greatest automotive desecration I ever saw. It was the early oughts and some kid took an RX-7 Turbo, rattle canned it black and stuck Acura shit all over it to make a fake Integra.
For us here, that has to be the most cringey 2000s thing ever (which is saying a lot, as The Office was on then too).
Maybe they’re big Huey Lewis fans…?
Ask Torch about it. He’s the guy driving around a vehicle with a random “FASHION” plastered on the side. This guy gets it.
It’s been a pleasure having you here. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. 😉
What the heck! Will be curious where he’s landing.
it’s in the morning dump, he’s going to be Editor-in-Chief of InsideEVs
That’s cool! Yay snarky writing about EVs!
Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!
It’s like Good Vietnam Shirts
These are incredibly cringy. I was thinking about them the other day and I suspect they were not originally designed by a native English speaker. Possibly by the same person who writes all of the manuals for my cheapo Chinese electronics.
I have just this minute read the instructions for a cheapo Chinese air brush ” pointing the nozzle toward the eye will lead to a poorly day” Clear enough I suppose.
Every time I want to laugh, I have to remind myself they speak better English than I speak Chinese.
So well done.