I’m sure you’ve all heard about the controversy involving Sydney Sweeney and jeans and accusations of eugenics or hellenics heuristics or fennics, or something like that. The truth is, I haven’t really been paying that much attention. What I do know is that this controversy seems to have jeans at its heart, and you’d have to be a fool not to make the connection between public discontentment and the alarming lack of denim-upholstered cars in this current age.
I know what you’re thinking – surely the world has a plentiful and ready supply of denim jeans-upholstered automobile choices, right? I mean, it must, if we’re all to get along and make civilization work in harmony. That’s just how it works!
Well, get ready for some hard truths: there has not been a denim/jeans-themed car available to buy new since 2017. That’s right; it’s been eight long years of no jeans-themed cars, and even then there was only one lone option.
The truth is that there has been a steady decline of jeans-themed cars since their origin and heyday in the 1970s; if we plot the major jeans-themed car releases on a timeline, you can easily see the steady decline:
Look at that; the ’70s were truly the Golden Age of Jeans-Themed Cars, starting in 1974 with the AMC Gremlin Levi’s Edition and the first of Volkswagen’s many Jeans Beetle special editions. And, remember, the 1970s had almost no major social, environmental, or political problems whatsoever. (Not counting Vietnam, Watergate, rampant environmental issues, social/racial/class struggles, the success of Rick Dees, and more, none of which count.)
Things continued into the later 1970s with the Jeep Levi’s Editions, which had both CJ5 and CJ7 versions, and Dodge got into the game with the Jean Machine pickup truck variant of the D100.
From there things started to wear thin; Volkswagen was the lone holdout of jeans-edition cars with denim upholstery in the 1980s and 1990s, with new versions of their Jeans Bug, and it wasn’t until 2007 that we saw entirely new denim-themed cars available.
Mitsubishi had a version of their i-Series cars with the Kurashiki edition in 2007, named for the region of Japan where they produce blue jeans, and then the next year fashion brand Diesel had a special edition of the Fiat 500 with denim upholstery. After that, in 2017, VW had one more denim-themed car, this time based on the second-gen liquid-cooled modern incarnation of the Beetle.
Since then? Nothing.
And the nation, perhaps the world has been suffering. Suffering so much that this commercial with whatshername in jeans is causing all sorts of angst and division and controversy, the discussion of which is not really suited to these electronic pages, and, more importantly, tires me greatly.
So, I have to look past the accusations, past the partisanship, past the madness and vitriol from every corner, and get to the truth of things: this is happening because there are no more jeans-edition cars available today.
The good news is this problem can be solved. Any major carmaker could get a deal with Levi’s or Toughskins or Calvin Klein or anyone who makes denim trousers and make an announcement of a new jeans edition car tomorrow and end this long national nightmare.
Who will be the first to step up? It’s time. It’s jeans-car time, motherscratchers.
That’s great, but what about those Epstein lists?
Fun topic riffing on the official designated Distraction of the Week (and counting).
My mother had one of our sofas upholstered in denim in the late 1980s.
Just to note, she did a restoration of a 69 Bronco a while back. She seems to be more of a wrench than many of us are.
I’ve never seen the ad in question here or seen any of her acting work. My daughter did send over a few of her TicTok videos when she was wrenching and that made me happy.
It just struck me, I have jeans, of course, as well as leather pants, but I seem to be missing velour and vinyl, however I note that they are available online. Maybe I should try to match my car’s upholstery. How bad can it be I’ve got AC?
This is the most Torch-esque solution. Why argue about if whatever company made this ad is declaring Sydney Sweeney a perfect representation of the master race (they’re not) when we could unite to demand denim car interiors make a comeback? Every American work truck should have denim, the most American of fabrics, as a no-cost option over vinyl. The platinum/latinum/adamantium trims can offer seats made of denim personally worn by Ms. Sweeney as a $100,000 upgrade. Everybody wins.
Denim was the top trim level of the 2021 Hyundai Venue
This article describes the interior as “generously wrapped in leatherette and denim cloth”, although cautions “the cloth doesn’t immediately strike an observer as being pulled from a set of blue jeans, and is far less cheeky than the beloved Levi edition AMC Pacer”
https://www.hagerty.com/media/new-car-reviews/review-2021-hyundai-venue-denim-edition/
Could be a good article; cars with unusual interiors.
There were some Ford Falcons in Australia with
QuiksilverRip Curl branded neoprene (wetsuit material) seatinghttps://imgur.com/a/TV4HSlD
Today I learned there was more than the Gremlin with jeans.
Toughskins. I don’t know how it was for others, but in my youth they marked you as one of the poors. A Chevette Scooter Toughskins Edition would have been a perfect pairing.
STILL nothing as scratchy as the inside of Toughskins jeans. Hated those.
Not suspecting a Disco Duck reference this morning, but then I reminded myself that this is The Autopian.
I am not so sure that the commercial caused to the angst and division. I think the angst and division were caused by people who wanted angst and division in their lives. If it wasn’t for whatshername (not her real name), they would have found something else and screamed about it and the same people who amplified and promoted the angst and division would make sure we all know and are aware and discussing/arguing about that. Some people just need to get some jalopy, jump in it and take an aimless road trip. Maybe they might meet some fungi and realize the world is not All About Them?
I wonder what car would have the JNCO edition interior?
Had bring up the JNCO’s didn’t you? I’m ok repressing those memories.
A 1998 Pontiac Grand Am with a fart can exhaust, two 12″ Subwoofers, and LED underglow based on my experience with JNCO fans. 🙂
If your going automotive, why not market airbags? Are they safer today than they were in the past? Are they all the same size? Are some softer than others?
Surely Sydney could effectively be the face of the campaign.
Ha, Toughskins… I always remembered the commercials with the Toughskins-clad kids jumping on the trampoline because it was an early lesson about truth in advertising, as my parents bought some of my siblings and me some Toughskins only for them to end up ripping much more quickly than the cheaper jeans we usually had (my parents were raising seven kids plus several friends who sometimes spent more time with us than with their own families as well as the occasional long-term guest all on one parental salary so things would sometimes be pecuniarly tight, lol.) In fact I actually tore a hole in the knees of my own pair of Toughskins the first time I wore it. My other siblings’ pairs fared little better.
Thereafter, my parents went back to buying the bargain brands as well as the Levis at Sears and Kmart especially since those actually lasted a lot longer.
As a naive kid I found it all to be rather the eye-opener about the honesty of corporations and truth in advertising especially since those Toughskins trampoline commercials were such a fixture on all the TV stations in my hometown.
Nobody really wants car seats made out of jeans. What we want is pants made out of MB-tex.
I’m honestly hoping more for a Duluth Trading Co. themed vehicle, complete with lifetime-warrantied Firehose upholstery.
I want Armachillo seats.
And the angry beaver…as a mascot or something.
Norbert or Daggett?
“Ballroom” seats with a gusset for extra room, and optional “buck naked” A/C vent below the steering column. Special Edition comes with an electric bait well / beer cooler in the back.