It’s New Autopian Member Shirt Reveal Time!

Exactly one Earth-year ago today, we announced our latest member T-shirt, which featured a 29 hp Citröen 2CV and a 1479 hp Bugatti Chiron, and reminded you that to us, the Greater Autopian Collective, those two cars are equally welcome. And we mean it! I was quite pleased with how that shirt turned out, but I can’t just rest on those cotton laurels, as soft and comfortable as those may be. No, we need an all-new shirt, because life is for the living and time marches on and we all seek novelty like mothrats seek cheeselight. I’m happy to inform you that yes, a new shirt has been designed and Autopian Apparel Mills are spinning up their waterwheels in anticipation of full production.

As you likely have learned, we’re making shirt colors to match the spectrum of colors of light, and in that order. We started with black, the absence of light and color, then went to red (the LEGO-themed shirt), orange (the one noting that weird is good by an Ro80 drivetrain), and then the yellow 2CV/Bugatti shirt. That means, according to the ROYGBIV order, we’re now at green! We picked a green that’s pretty close to British Racing Green, and this time I did a design that’s more dashboard/steering wheel focused, since we’ve had exteriors of cars and engine diagrams and toy cars so far. Why not, right? We spend a lot of time behind steering wheels and in front of dashboards.

Huh, now that I type that out, that’s sort of weird: the same seat is behind the wheel but in front of the instruments? I feel like that’s describing some kind of mobius car interior? That makes my brain hurt. Let’s soothe our tender brains by looking at the all new member shirt!

Is that genuine honey mustard color for the steering wheel rim and the Autopian logo and some details? It sure is! Does it taste like honey mustard? Probably? You better sign up to be a member so you can check! Seems important.

You’ll also note that the needles in the two gauges don’t point to speed or engine RPMs, but rather point to the words LET’S and GO, which, when combined, are a bold call to action that any Autopian understands – no, feels – deep in their guts, perhaps just ahead of the coccyx.

I know you’re likely wondering how this shirt will look at you, so I fired up the Artificular Intellisense system on the Autopian Mainframe, an Acorn BBC Micro with a specially laminated and enhanced crow’s brain in the secondary CPU “tube” interface slot and asked the system to comb our membership roster and get a sense of what our members look like, then take that composite member and generate an image of them in our latest 2026 Member shirt. Here’s what it generated:

Huh. That is, of course, the famous ancient Greek sculpture of Laocoön and his sons, depicting the Trojan priest who warned about the Trojan horse and was subsequently attacked, along with his sons, by a couple of sea serpents.

I’ve written about the Laocoön Group here before, comparing them to a smashed car in a 1977 Atari racing game:

Anyway, point is look how good Laocoön looks in that shirt! And, since that’s roughly the level of physique held by the vast majority of our Autopian Members of all kinds and genders and bodies, you too can expect to look just as great!

I think it’s worth restating that one of the biggest and most important decisions we made around membership was that if we’re asking someone for money, we’re going to make sure we’re going to earn it. And not just with our delightful posts. If you’re a Cloth-level member or above, you’re getting an ad-free experience, special access within our Discord, and special member newsletters. If you’re Vinyl or above, you’ll get a t-shirt and a sticker. And so much more! Check out the Membership page for details.

Just a reminder: We switch shirts around December 8th, meaning that if you sign up before then it’s most likely that you’ll get a yellow shirt this year and a green when if/when you renew (if you’re an existing member who hasn’t gotten your yellow shirt yet, don’t worry, we have enough to cover all renewals). There’s a chance that if you sign up really close to December 8th that we’ll be out of a size and you’ll get a green shirt, but looking at the existing inventory that shouldn’t be an issue.

Top photo: The Autopian