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Sounds like you need to set up an Autopian personality test: what dictator do you have the closest car taste to?
My pick is Dear Leader Torch, His Serene Highness of Jasonia
This sort of thing is why I subscribe
I’m imagining Torch and May hosting a podcast from a corner booth at a local taillight bar…
That thought makes me smile.
Personally, Torch, I think this is a great article, though I do take issue with the last sentence. There’s no way you’d be on the same elevator. His was an express elevator down into the bowels of Hell. I have faith your’s would be going the other direction (assuming, of course, you believe in those concepts).
My grandma says all interesting people go to hell
Sounds like an interesting woman. (I jest.)
She was. Uh-oh…
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun…
Sounds like your grandma had some pretty dark interests.
There’s an important difference though. Torch likes these cars for himself, Shitler liked them for “the people”. The vehicles he went places in were not like that. 770K and G4 Mercs are not air cooled, and the Mercs he gave Stalin and Musolini were supercharged.
You know what would be fantastic is to get Torch and James May together. They could do a podcast! Hours of discussion on weird car minutiae! Perfect for those long road trips or when you are having trouble falling asleep at night, depending on your interests.
Yes!
I want to see Torch, David, and Mercedes do a Top Gear type TV show.
Netflix, are you listening?
Oh, I’m not going to lie, that would be the dream.
For us, too. : D
This would be amazing. I don’t know that I’d limit it to cars though – I wonder if Jason cooks? I found James May’s show “Oh, Cook!” every bit as entertaining as his segments on Top Gear. Maybe he and Jason can try making chicken cordon bleu or beef bourguignon on the manifold of the 2CV while discussing all the taillights they see on a road trip together.
Torch! So great. Never stop being you.
you’re a peach!
On another note you have to see this 2CV with faired-in headlights;
Citroën 2CV 1986 | 38ème Salon champenois du véhicule de col… | Flickr
wow that feels so weird
It’s about as deep in the uncanny valley as any purely mechanical object can possibly get.
Ewwwww
I’ve heard of Frenched headlights, but this is ridiculous!
If David said this I’d be sure he meant it the old way … Torch, how funny are you being here?
“I’ll meet Jeremy Clarkson and he’ll ask what sort of cars I like, and I’ll find myself saying “oh, you know, the kind of stuff Hitler liked,” and that will be, um, terrible”
Actually, I think that would be the perfect way to answer that.
Why even go there? Some things are better left unsaid, I switched from vinyl to cloth for my next subscription, stuff like this thinks maybe I’ll just skip a year. You guys have been having some misses lately.
aw, baby, don’t be like that! What’s it gonna take to keep you on?
Drag race between the 2CV and a kid on a bicycle.
Otto’s too old (teenagers on bikes are fast!) and Delmar too young. So I guess Jason’ll have to drive it to New York to race Hardibro’s daughter.
A little girl on a bike can be DETERMINED!!
This is a 2CV we’re talking about, Delmar has a chance.
How old is the kid? Asking for polymarket.
That’s old hat
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/parenting-influencer-slammed-for-accidentally-running-over-toddler-and-making-content-about-it-3353530/
Can’t speak for him but I’d like an “are you sure?” popup or something when signing out. It’s too easy to hit the “sign out” on mobile for how hard it is to sign back in. I’ve done it by accident twice.
Well since you’re asking, consider this is a member’s only feature, and the title is fairly click baity, so it could be viewed as trying to get people to sign up for membership with a click bait column on relating to Hitler. Probably not the intention, but there it is.
Most of the TFTS titles are meant to be at least a little click-baity to encourage people to sign up, but with the common understanding it’s usually just inside jokes and dumb banter so regular members don’t feel like “real” articles are stuck behind a paywall
Your humor can be a bit dark and obscure. Personally, I love it, but that can be an aquired taste for others. That is also why this site has so many contributors – I bet we each have our favortites.
I’m about certain you appreciate the absurdity of Monty Python. I know you adore The Muppet Show and I would bet that Mel Brooks is an inspiration.
accurate for all those inspirations!
So who are the Three Stooges here? I see David as Moe, Jason as Curly (the original). Maybe Matt is Larry.
Mel Brooks once said the only way to defeat evil is to ridicule it.
Hence why our commander-in-Cheeto hates late night talk shows so much.
One must accept that it comes with the Job. Be it Chase and Ford, Hammond and Clinton, or Ferrell and Bush, you must embrace it. Mockery often highlights our own faults and pushes us to do better, or become bitter.
Upon actually meeting Eddie Murphey, the first thing Mr. Rogers did was give him a big bear hug. Fred knew the parody came from real love and pain.
I don’t doubt that Fred Rogers was a genuinely decent man.
That show however, creepiest puppets, overly sucrose characters, never met a kid that admitted to liking it.
I’m a born ’70s Pittsburgher. This show made us.
Lots of my friends and coworkers are from the area, never came up. They moved to follow work. It aired in the Philly suburbs in the early 70’s, born 64. Respect Fred, not the show.
The Reverend Rogers never set himself above ridicule.
Only the ridiculous try to. Excuse me while I don my doctor garb and teleport to the Waffle house.
Is that code for being black-out drunk? We’ve been there and don’t judge. Usually a hoodie though.
White robe, red sash, like all doctors wear, the hood part glows, black-out drunk?
You’ll have to ask the DOWTF
Last time I teleported it was due to an overzealous application of Bourbon. How did I end up in this Denny’s?
Predawn Grand Slam breakfast feasts stopped 30 years ago.
You probably transited through the Straits of Vermouth.
I love Waffle House, but they are rare up here in PA. Most Eat’n Parks now close at 11, so late night is Denny’s, Taco Bell or Sheetz.
*cries in northern New England* I hit Waffle House at least once whenever I’m visiting family in Florida.
Mr. Rogers is the rare celebrity or historical figure where, the more you learn about him, the better he seems. Its really sad that people like him seem to be the exception to the rule
Also, apparently, one time his car was stolen outside the studio, then returned to the same spot a few days later with an apology note on the dash, after the thieves realizes who they had taken it from. I’m not completely sure Sinatra would have been shown that kind of deference, and that would have been an actual life or death situation for the thieves
My best friend and best man at my wedding is really into cars. He even does a bit of car journalism. You’d think we’d have pretty similar tastes in cars.
Years ago he sent me a mail asking for suggestions for his next car.
I sent him a long rambling discussion on S15 Silvias, and he replied with the picture of the F360 he’d just bought.
Cars are weirdly personal.
I read that as F350 at first. Only off by 10 but what a difference.
Well either of them would be pretty far from the Nissan.
I drove the F360 a lot, it was great. It was like a big Elise, but with that amazing V8.
I’d rather have the Nissan.
Clarkson: You can’t be an American. You’re not fat enough.
Torch: Check the mirror, dumb ass. Sorry, arse.
To be fair, that’s how Adrian and Torch’s first meeting went…
“They’re ladies‘ glasses! All you need is that little chain around your neck so you can wear ‘em while you’re playing Canasta.”
Yeah, but Hitler idolized Henry Ford and you probably don’t.
Re: Clarkson
It is well known that in comedy duos the fool is usually played by the smart one, and movie villains are usually played by lovely sensitive people, whose empathy enables them to really freak people out. So it’s a real disappointment when people who portray jerks to comic effect professionally turn out to be actual jerks.
.
Penn & Teller. Penn admits he’s just the (far from) dumb loud-mouth braggard. Always watch his put upon (genius) foil, Teller.
History is full of people that have both created great things and done terrible things that overshadow the great things. Even just in recent times (Rowling/Whedon/Gaiman, off the top of my head)
At some point you have to separate the art from the artist, or you’ll just end up not interacting with the world.
It’s shitty, and it creates uncomfortable parallels like this article. But humans are imperfect and have created an imperfect world.
Hitler is also the one to come up with the nickname “Beetle” for the car. He sketched out a drawing for Porsche of revisions he wanted on the front end and wrote that it “should look like a beetle”, and that Porsche should look at nature to learn about streamlining. Except, obviously, he wrote all that in German, because he was more fluent in that than English
The question I’d ask Clarkson: Are you really such a boorish and pompous ass, or is it just schtick?
The question I’d ask Hitler: What did you do to my Great Aunt Justina?
They’re not the same.
I think you missed on this one. Seeing ‘Hitler humor” on the blog makes me deeply uncomfortable. An article written strictly about your differences with Jeremy Clarkson maybe would have been a wiser choice.
it’s not exactly Hitler humor, it’s a genuine and uncomfortable realization! But yeah, maybe not the wisest choice, but part of the point of being a member is you get to see some unwise choices! And who doesn’t love those?
It’s a funny piece with a legitimately serious undertone. Please don’t stop writing those.
Bro, if you were looking for a site with wise choices, you came to the wrong place.
Terrible people can do great things.
Great people can do terrible things.
Torch just does… things. Try not to do terrible things, Torch. We all think you’re pretty great. A little strange, but pretty great.
Have you seen what he did to that poor battery with a chainsaw?
we’re all monsters sometime
Now that I think about it, there was something Mengeleesque about the lunch meat bumper experiment as well…
Love you Torch. Shine on you crazy diamond.
Hey, he took safety precautions! He was wearing purple dishwashing gloves! And he did it while his kid was in school instead of waiting until he got home and telling him to film it over his shoulder!
I thought we had agreed not to talk about the incident.
I think this is a pretty good sketch on how messy it is to be human. For all the boundaries we have and don’t have, prejudices and desires and foibles, deeply held beliefs and passing fancies, all the things we think we can separate into One or Two, black or white, we all exist in this vague electron cloud of us-ness. Most of the time there’s a good chance you’ll find us there; sometimes you won’t. Sometimes we’ll have uncomfortable affinities we didn’t want, and sometimes we’re bonded so tight we’re sharing our very energy as hard as we can and would give up pieces of ourselves before we’d break those bonds.
Say what you will about Hitler, but he did kill Hitler.
But not baby Hitler.
Comment of the Century right here!
Standing in for May, all he has to say is: CLAAARRKKSSON!
In defense of Clarkson, while he has often pissed me off throughout his BBC “journalism” career via his prejudices and antics, he certainly has been entertaining. Hitler was never entertaining to my knowledge. Clarkson is a compassionate and caring human, (and at times a consummate asshole) when compared to Der Fuhrer, who was the proto anti-christ. Hitler was as much a part of the design team for the original VW as Clarkson was to the Tuk Tuk and the Artemis II.
What would it have been like if Clarkson were Der Fuhrer, instead of the Mein Kampf Rectal Sphincter?
Actually, Hitler took public speaking lessons from a professional magician, part of how he rose to power was because lots of people *did* find him entertaining, that’s how he manipulated crowds.
One of the reasons Hitler rose to power was that he had great charisma, and people backed him who thought he could be pushed aside later.
A depressingly familiar story.
I’ve always heard that and it has always puzzled me. Have you seen any speeches? Maybe it’s because I don’t know that much German, but there’s no evidence of charisma present. I think people used what he said as excuses, permission, to indulge their worst selves and he was merely a place to outsource responsibility and guilt—they used each other. I think “charisma” was an easily accepted apocryphal reason for most people to accept how ordinary people could be driven to do such abhorrent things, especially when we needed some of those people to maintain whatever bureaucracy and infrastructure still existed and to rebuild after the war. Demonizing them would have meant that couldn’t happen and we couldn’t plunder their scientists. No, ordinary people can be driven to do horrific things because that capability resides in most or all of us, but most people cannot accept that of themselves. However, dismissing this as brainwashing or hypnotism by charisma allows it to more readily happen again (looking around me here in the US where a decidedly uncharismatic empty soul is effectively being worshipped by some terrible, terribly ordinary people for similar reasons).
I learned a number of things processing decades of PTSD, but perhaps the most important one is that you can’t keep the horrible part of you in a cage that you constantly have to fight to keep locked up, you have to recognize and embrace it. Only then can someone become a whole person and, perhaps contrary to instinct (certainly my own), that incorporation makes the relationship far more harmonious. Instead of a constant enraged battle, it’s (perhaps disdainful) debate or you have to listen to their ideas, but the push to follow through is gone, they’re just happy to be heard and given reasoned consideration. Shit, I better post this before the other heads read it. (Orthrus the 2-headed dog would have made more sense as an avatar, but it’s too obscure).
Have you considered a career in the arts? It’s one way of channeling other parts of you in a constructive manner, and in a way that both give form to a thing and be critical of it at the same time.
Anyway Hitler looked good on the radio, or from a great distance at rallies, TV wasn’t a thing yet, and Leni Riefenstahl, who basically invented the heroic leader form, could make an overcooked cabbage look heroic.
Triumph of the will is well known, but the film that really got things going was
https://archive.org/details/1933-Der-Sieg-des-Glaubens
All but a copy that happened to be in England were destroyed a year later when Hitler had most of the people depicted as being close to him murdered.
In 1960, Riefenstahl worked with L. Ron Hubbard on a screenplay for a remake of The Blue Light, which was the film that got Hitler’s attention in the first place.
So that’s something.
It’s funny that Dziga Vertov, a Soviet, and Leni Riefenstahl pretty much invented 90% of cinema.
I’m reminded of Al Franken’s story about having gone to an event where one of the questions was “which historical figure would you like to be?” and most people named ones they admired until it came to Ann Coulter who said she’d want be FDR so she could call off the New Deal and just not do any of it. Franken was next and said, “you’d want to be FDR? I’d want to be Hitler! That way I could not do the Holocaust, put the kibosh on World War 2, preventing tens of millions of deaths.
I’d go ahead with the Volkswagen though!”
And if you think the Beetle thing is awkward, let me walk you through the connections between Hitler’s disastrous plan to put all Europe under his thumb leading to total defeat, unconditional surrender, the decades-long and ongoing American military presence in Germany, and the existence of one David Tracy…
In fairness, the post war success of VW is because the British for some reason saved it. Major Ivan Hirst, the British Senior Resident Officer, saved it from being dismantled for reparations, then ordered 20,000 Volkswagen Beetles, and then Horst organized the first exports of VWs
There is a fascinating documentary here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VysqC-TEeoU
Too bad that the Brits couldn’t do that to their own auto industry.
It was mainly to provide employment, the western Allies were under pressure to get the economies of their occupation zones back on their feet, since the Soviets were taking advantage of the postwar devastation to spread Communist influence into the western zones. Also, helped solve a major transportation shortage issue in the British zone, and made use of equipment Allied automakers had passed on after being invited to inspect the plant to see if they wanted it
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how many of the cars I like were often built by people that I’m sure I would not care to meet (from what I know of them), but I was thinking more of notorious dicks like Enzo Ferrari than one of the worst mass murderers in history. As for most evil or worst, I think that’s open to a philosophical discussion. I’m not sure numbers are the best way to measure or if suffering can even be quantified, though number should certainly factor, but then there are some with possibly higher numbers, like Stalin, Ghengis Khan, Timur, etc., though how does one compare campaigns of conquest, consequences of harsh policy, “typical” send-in-the-troops genocide, and systemized mechanized murder in terms of “worse”? Then you have people who “merely” ordered killings vs those who set up a horrifically well planned murder system like Himmler vs those who enjoyed direct killing within the system like a Joey Mengele or Ilse Koch or run-of-the-mill serial killers who commit horrific acts because they are driven to do them, but could never achieve the scale even if they had no legal worries because its personal and that takes too much time per individual? Yikes. Suffice it to say, the bottom of the barrel of hell I hope he inhabits is crowded.
Also, that car sucks and I’m going to be petty because f Hitler. Those seats are way too high for anyone to sit in, the space utilization looks terrible, and is that f’n door in the middle like a Tropfenwagen (or Dymaxion)? It’s like he stole the idea, but missed the point. And, holy Athena, the line work is worse than my margin scribbles in high school.
While I hate the Beetle and am not quite as fond of cars that resemble enclosed lawnmowers in performance, I’m a lot closer to you in what I like than I am to Clarkson.
Enzo Ferrari was such an arsehole, he inspired multiple other people to go out and produce their own cars (eg Lamborghini, Ford GT40 etc.)
So I guess he was a good thing for the car industry?
Definitely. Even without that, he was the force behind some legendary cars, both road and racing. I might not care for what the company is or makes today, but he’s long gone. I didn’t mean for him to be an exemplar of bad car industry people as there were far worse than him, but I also didn’t want to crowd the comments with more anti-semitic/wannabe founders of “ideal” dystopias, though someone else mentioned Henry Ford, so he’s here, anyway.
Ford was truly brilliant in how he invented the automobile factory, although I think he took a lot of it from the gun and clock industry in Connecticut. The River Rouge complex is a great achievement
He was also Hitler’s biggest inspiration, probably bears some blame the holocaust, and was generally an evil guy.
His son Edsel on the other hand seems to have been a truly good person who worked himself to death trying to move Ford the man and the company in the right direction.
Someone ought to write an opera about Henry and Edsel. Its really cruel that the named a car after Edsel, but it would make a great opera.
One of my favorite operas is in part about a cigarette factory, so why not the Rouge?
Henry is a great example of what happens when someone is too successful and ends up surrounded by sycophants, whether by design or not, and has nobody to genuinely call out or temper their bad ideas or simply say, “no”.
Edsel seemed to be pretty amazing. While I only know a little about him, to have been raised by such a guy with so much wealth and appear to be grounded and with a mind of his own is remarkable, if not as uncommon within the car industry as I’d expect. Like Jean Bugatti and maybe ‘Dino’ Ferrari, had they survived, what might they have been able to accomplish when they took the reins of their respective father’s company? Bugatti would have been the most interesting, IMO, as they fell apart after the war without Ettore or Jean, though maybe it would have been little different as the French government was overtly hostile to the high end manufacturers. Would he have moved it to Italy? He was arguably even more aesthetically gifted than Ettore and the post war environment was explosive in that regard. What would they have used for top of the line drivetrains when they had to move away from their signature I8?
Laura Ferrari had a lot to do with it for better or worse. She got him to switch from driving to being a manufacturer, and kept the company solvent in the early years. She also managed to be even less popular than Enzo while doing it.
Elon Musk has entered the chat…
Fordlândia on Mars?
If you are unfamiliar with Fordlândia, look it up.
Imposing a diet of canned peaches, brown rice, and brown bread on the workers, or planting rubber trees close together for efficiency, just scratches the surface.
I really appreciate your usage of the acento circunflexo in Fordlândia, as even I have forgone most of my accents in typing since I’ve used North American keyboards for my whole adult life (except on cellphones, where a long press pulls up the accentuated versions of letters).
Fordlândia was thanks to cut and paste, but all the extra characters in the iPhone keyboard are great
I can spell Straße correctly!
Also good for fake Bordurian with Tintin fans about the sad state of affairs in Szohôd.
Coincidentally, I’ve been re-reading some Tintin with my wife as she learns Portuguese (Tintin and Asterix were very popular in Brazil and I read my dad’s entire collection growing up).
It must be fun translating Captain Haddock in other languages,
Very!
Wow, I love The Autopian, and all the writers are excellent, but I’ll admit that I read just about everything you write, Torch, while I pick and choose with the others. You’re a deeply strange guy and I love it.
aw, I appreciate that a lot! Thank you.
Ted Bundy was fond of VWs, also. Face it, it’s not possible to find a car make or model that lots of truly despicable characters like, so we’re all lumped in with those miscreants one way or another. Could be cars, art, sports, entertainment, name it. Rather than fretting over an affinity for cars that Hitler liked, be thankful you don’t have more in common with Jeremy Clarkson.
James Earl Ray drove a Mustang. What can you do?
After seeing those car drawings I can understand why Hitler’s art career never worked out. Those drawings are more third-rate than third reich.
He had a difficult time with reich angles.
He also had a lot of trouble drawing people. Was OK, not great, but OK, with buildings, basically sold tourist/cheap motel room art. I think he also had issues with shadows and staying consistent about where the Sun is supposed to be
Overall, it sounds like the best advice for ol’ Dolph is to not quit his day job to pursue art as a career.
That probably seemed like great advice until 1938 or so…
Both Hitler and Jeremy owned “Grosser” Mercedes, Hitler a 770K and Jeremy a 1960’s 600. So if you say “the kind of stuff Hitler liked” that might not be quite the conversation-killer you thought?
Yes, there was that episode where Jeremy listed out all the dictators who owned one as proof to James that his car was better.
But he also gleefully destroyed a 2CV in Carnage a Trois.
And then finished the list with “Elvis”.