There’s a lot of argument about who made the first “real” car, but there’s one thing that we can guarantee: within a week of purchasing the pioneering horseless carriage, somebody telegrammed the owner to talk to them about their warranty coverage, and by the time the first few automobiles had been built, there was a company formed to make absolutely useless accessories for them.
I was alive in the last century, as my kids say, and for years I received in the mail a publication that said “this could be your last Whitney Catalog” and was mesmerized by the awesomely stupid crap available by check, money order, or COD. A common item that I still see is “deer whistles” that have long since been proven to be not worth the plastic they’re made of. Supposedly they emit a high-pitched sound that alerts deer that you’re approaching at a speed that will render them instant venison, but I think studies have shown that you’d need to drive your car at near-supersonic speeds for enough air to go through them to make any kind of appropriately loud noise at all.
source: ebay
One old car I bought had these things stuck to the bumper, pressed firmly up against the vertical face of the car so that no air could pass through them at all, not unlike that Lexus shown in the ad above. Brilliant.
It’s hard to top the fake sunroof that our Jason Torchinsky uncovered a few years back:
I can’t imagine what I was thinking, but I did have a fake cellular phone antenna on one of my cars. I even had a plastic box on the other side of the glass, so it was quite believable that I had the technology of the day that (when real) cost thousands of dollars to buy and twenty dollars a minute to operate.
I wasn’t really serious, and it was an in-joke with my friends, but who knows? Maybe someone driving down the freeway really thought I was some kind of player in my big panther-body car.
How about you? Was there a Winky the Cat on your package shelf, or perhaps a modern equivalent like the “Formula 1 style” third brake light taped to your SUV’s bumper?
Let us know!
Top graphic image: eBay
My dad had a 1982 Buick LeSabre sedan in silver (not common that that time) over red cloth. Sometime In 1986 once CHMSLs became mandatory in all new cars, he shows up with an aftermarket light mounted to the rear deck, and it was wired to work correctly!
At 11-years old, even I knew that was a weak attempt to make your car look newer! That, plus the 86’s were downsized so much that it wasn’t fooling anyone.
My wife’s grad school commuter, which was later my commuter, was an older Hyundai Accent that the prior owner had put the cheap drilled pedals on. Except it was an automatic, and they used the kit for a manual, so just used the clutch and brake as one oversized pedal.
GT Styling taillight blackout covers. They were overpriced and immediately stolen . . . which was probably good because they made my already dark brake lights nearly impossible to see during the day.
I’ve got a couple. First one I installed a spoiler on my 1998 Contour because it was a sporty car to drive and I wanted it to look sporty. Only problem was the spoiler, while it looked ok, blocked the third brake light which was installed at the bottom of the back window. So form over function. Never got rear-ended luckily.
Second were crappy wire wheel hubcaps on my 1978 MGB. I didn’t like the silver-painted steel wheels so put the stylish wire wheel hubcaps on. They looked pretty dumb but I rode around with them on for a few months since I spent so much of my limited funds as an 18-year-old on them.
“I can’t imagine what I was thinking, but I did have a fake cellular phone antenna on one of my cars. I even had a plastic box on the other side of the glass, so it was quite believable that I had the technology of the day that (when real) cost thousands of dollars to buy and twenty dollars a minute to operate.
I wasn’t really serious, and it was an in-joke with my friends, but who knows? Maybe someone driving down the freeway really thought I was some kind of player in my big panther-body car.”
I had a HS friend who took that antenna idea that to the next step. He not only put the antenna on his car but he also put a blow molded phony inside. He’d pull up next to a car (often a VW cabriolet aka “bitch basket”) filled with girls and pretend to be a very important person on a very important call. *Insert big eye roll gif*. Sadly it worked, girls ate it up. He also sometimes wore fake eyeglasses as a prop to look smarter to girls. Those glasses worked too, girls dated him. He worshipped the character of Alex P. Keaton. He’d be your best friend, at least till something better came along. He told everyone he met he was attending an expensive private university when in reality he was going to the local junior college. He’d enthusiastically promise to show up at get togethers then flake without so much as a text.
He ended up living the dream; he graduated dental school, bought a giant country club house, owned his own dental buisness with, married an absolutely gorgeous woman and had two kids whom he showered with expensive gifts aka a brand new MB on their 16th birthdays. He was very active on FB constantly posting how amazing his life was.
He’s dead now. I’m pretty sure he drank himself to death after he lost his dental licence due to what the state dental board classified as “gross acts of negligence” and he failed to meet any of the very generous terms of his probation. The state tax board had also put a lein on his business for failure to pay payroll taxes. We also found out his beautiful wife was absolutely miserable. He was constantly pressuring her to stay thin and beautiful. She developed severe eating disorders to meet those demands. I’d have more sympathy for her but it was clear to anyone who spent any time at all with this guy what she was signing up for. Somehow none of that made it into his FB posts. I found out about all that while trying to discover why he had died so unexpectedly.
TL:DR fake phone antenna => fake life. Just say NO.
Slick 50. Jumped on that one hook, line and sinker on my first car.
Light up windshield sprayers.
First car – Plymouth Reliant….with shoebox 6×9 Kenwoods on the rear deck. I can only image the joy it brought other drivers
I bought a Silverado from a guy. When I went to use an OBD reader, I found one of those devices that plugs in to “improve efficiency” (light a small LED on the device). That’s the dumbest thing that’s been installed on one of my vehicles. I did put some of those stupid caps on the knobs in my Civic to give them a pop of color. When these companies say you just shove them on and they’ll stay, they are lying.
Whistle tips. Woo -Woo!
https://youtu.be/zUXow3d3-b0?si=geb0a-Jn3IbBbgu9
And one time I saw a guy driving a Pontiac Sunfire with all manner of cheap stick on “accessories” attached. But the best was the brushed stainless-look “Bling Bling!” on the back bumper.
As I remember, he used a lot of hair gel. Not sure if that’s related.
No truck nuts ??
I installed a silly little hooded sweatshirt on the gearshift handle so the knob doesn’t get cold. It’s ridiculous, but it makes me very happy.
Silliest as in fun was the JC Whitney sound effect PA system I had in my HS Subaru. It played an array of sirens, animal noises, and there might have been a 3rd category, but it was the animal sounds that were the best—rooster, cow, and dog barking (big one and a little one responding or vice versa, I forget) were believable enough to get the attention of a herd of cows or drive my friend’s dog insane when I went to pick him up.
Most of the higher end CB radios had PA ability. I fancied myself a DJ in high school, always ‘transmitting’, either music or what was on the top of my mind. Of course looking back, 99% of what I said was obnoxious. I got a talking to (three times) by LAPD about ‘noise disturbances’.
My roomate and I once, under cover of darkness, affixed several accessories to a friend’s car; the only ones I can specifically remember were a pair of rubber accordion boots and a pair of finned hold down “spoilers” to the wiper arms; both were day-glo pink. The car was a bright yellow 1993 Geo Metro convertible to begin with, which maybe diminished the shock value a tad
I remember seeing a car with those little wings on all the wipers, including the rear wiper!
I remember thinking “Does he realize he needs to be going at speed IN REVERSE for that to work?”
I will always appreciate my dad for playing along and installing the wiper “spoilers” and the double-blade wipers (remember those?) on his ’80 Blazer when 9-year-old me thought those things were cool as all hell and gave them to him for father’s day one year. Dad was a good dude.
Fuel shark.
Drop mic
Sadly, I’ve seen advertisements on Facebook.
Everything in the 90s import scene. No Ragrets
So, no regrets? Not even a single letter? LOL
I have, somewhere, an “eject button” cigarette lighter, and both Dragon Ball and Pokeball shift knobs. Dumb dorky fun stuff like that.
Vintage Radio Shack “Destroyer”. A little black box tied down with velcro. It made a laser sound, grenade sound, machine gun sound and something else.
I appreciate the extra brake light.
Even if it’s kitschy.
Maybe I’m jaded with the great many tinted brake lights or burnt-out lights on the road, having a backup light is nice.
Bolt on chrome exhaust tip on a 1990 GMC S15 Jimmy-my first car, they had them on sale at Checker one day and me and a friend both bought them for our respective cars. It was a relatively tasteful one, pretty sure it fell off on a gravel road at some point.
Where I grew up a lot of people had those deer whistles and I am also under the impression that they do nothing.
Oh boy. My race car, The Homer, is chock full of dumb accessories. Last month I spent a good 30 minutes last month epoxying on an antenna ball so it could sustain 100 MPH racing speeds.
I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum, but I think a subset of Wrangler owners have the most god awful taste in accessories in the entire automotive kingdom. Angry eye grilles, the ducks, corny hood decals like “THE REAPER”, or the handprint on the mirrors…The other day I saw a green one with purple accents on the door hinges, a pretty awful color combo. Still, all of that is worlds better than the bedazzled airbag things you see on Altima’s and Malibu’s.
Now that all the Wrangler owners hate me (sorry), I’ll go. I once made a mesh grille out of chicken wire.
I’ve owned several Wranglers and you are not incorrect here.
Yeah, I don’t know what it is about Wranglers, specifically, that seem to just attract owners with the absolute worst taste imaginable, it makes shopping used ones challenging
Are you expecting to understand a Jeep thing?
Two things about my parents always drove me insane when I was in one of their cars. The first is those stupid wooden bead seat covers. They’re supposed to be massaging, but they just make your seat feel like a wooden bench, and they literally pull your hair out at any opportunity if you dare touch the headrest. The other is cloth steering wheel covers. I’m not against them in principle, but the ones they always got could slide on the wheel itself and had elastic bands that kept you from fully wrapping your hand around the steering wheel. The spokes were the only thing you could reliably steer with.
Taxi drivers love those beaded seat covers
Let’s see…a Japanese head unit (with no English menu for full JDM experience), a Pokeball-shaped shifter knob and an usb lamp with disco lights.
Oddly enough, I had it all in the same car (1st gen Suzuki Wagon R+).
Probably the silliest is one of those third brake light circles that goes inside the spare tire on my Jeep TJ. I generally don’t care for them, since they are most commonly installed on Jeeps that won’t see dirt outside of road construction, but in my case there is no provision for a third brake light on the bumper, so I needed a third brake light to verify that the notoriously dim TJ brake lights were, in fact, illuminating. I later drilled out the center of the spare mount arm and put a light in the center that shines through the absent center cap of the wheel.
As wrangler owner I deeply dislike the scowling grills. To each their own. I do not add anything to my jeep unless it is functional.
I hate the scowling grills as well, and I die inside a little bit each time I hear someone thinks they are cool or tells me I need one on my TJ.
Those are functional. They tell everyone around you that you’re not to be trifled with.
Be sure to add a punisher decal, Calvin pissing on something, several flags, and the angry eyes to let them know you’re serious.
Another function is to accurately connote anger and frustration when the Jeep the scowling grill is affixed to inevitably breaks down
I always mutter to my self “awww, sumwun is GWUMPY today!” when I see one of those, seem to be quite the man-child accessory.
They do make Wranglers look like an angry locomotive from Shining Time Station
Oh god, CANNOT UNSEE! DAMN YOU!