Apropos of nothing, I suddenly had to know the history of Little Tree Car Freshners (not fresheners, it’s freshners) and that got me thinking about today’s Autopian Asks question – though I gotta say, it’ll be hard to beat Little Trees as a truly iconic car accessory. Especially if we’re thinking about accessories that go beyond the items car people clamor for (or used to) such as Recaro seats, Holley carbs, Nardi steering wheels and such.
The true icons, to me, are those car accessories that even “normies” know about and purchase. Like my college buddy who didn’t know beans about cars, but he knew a foot-shaped gas pedal was cool, and by gum, he had one. What qualifies as such a thing today? Perhaps a skull shift knob? Chain-link license plate frame? Stick-on fender vents? I don’t know, you tell me.
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Oh, and back to Little Tree Air Freshners real quick, in case you were wondering:
In 1952, a milk truck driver in northern New York complained to Julius Sämann about the smell of spilled milk. To address this issue, Julius combined exceptional fragrances with specialized blotter material and invented the first car air freshener. He gave it the shape of an abstract evergreen tree in honor of his years extracting aromatic oils in Canada’s pine forests.
These air fresheners proved an efficient, high-quality solution to a common problem and soon they were flying off shelves. Orders started rolling in from all over the country and quickly gained a strong international following. Julius’ pioneering product has become a global symbol of freshness and quality.
Now you know! Let’s get to it in the comments: What Are The Most Iconic Accessories For Cars?
Top graphic images: Little Trees; Curboom via Amazon
Deer Whistles.
No. 1 accessory for your 1990’s luxobarge. Gives off a stately look for less than $10 and keeps your car from becoming one with nature.
What, I’m the first to mention the Fuel Shark?
It’s not an accessory, but a necessity. And a way of life.
That seems to have fallen out of favor, it’s offspring are the fake dongles that go in the OBD2 port that do nothing other than blink a LED at you to appear to be “on” and “tuning” your car to use 90% less fuel while also making 50% more power.
Plastic cupholder that clip into the window. The drink sweat would drip down onto your forearm.
Better than sticking between your legs….
Until you take a turn and the too big cup you shoved in it dumps in your lap.
That’s how you get “Beer Nuts.”
Well for me it was the CD’s hanging from the rear view mirror. Flashing the sun. never got that.
My buddy’s sister got pulled over for fuzzy dice on the mirror.
*Technically* they block your field of view and are therefore not legal. Also technically parking permits and the disabled placards fall in that same boat. So practically, it’s all a “gives cops who already want to pull you over a reason to pull you over” thing. So yeah, no CDs for me (or dice, or graduation tassels, or rosary beads, or any of the dozens of things people hang from their mirror) even though I’m not a teenager dealing with bored hometown cops anymore.
Another accessory is mud tires that get chewed up too fast because they’re on pavement all the time. See that a lot.
A single novelty bumper sticker offset to one side of a car.
You mentioned the fake vents, but fake hood scoops are definitely up there these days.
Tint is probably the biggest one, at least in warmer climates. Whether it’s just to reduce heat or the illegal limo tint some folks throw on, it’s on all sorts of cars driven by all sorts of people.
Near me in metro west Boston, there is a Cadillac SUV that is covered in spiky silver studs. And a couple stick-on vents
There are a lot of the spiky studs on Nissans around here, but I haven’t seen them on much else. A couple of those Nissans also have window stickers promoting their Instagrams, which seems weird.
This one, every horizontal surface is outlined with em. It even has a stick on hoodscoop that is outlined
Wow. That’s dedication to the craft. I’ve done some arts and crafts, and I would never have the patience to glue that much shit to anything, even if I didn’t find the idea ridiculous.
Oh yah. You can’t look away, it really is some kind old statement. It’s gotten more elaborate over time
This needs more upvotes, as it is the real “icon”. Stick on or screw on fake hood scoops date back decades and have endured to present day. Some fad accessories like chrome trim come and go, but I think the fake scoop has consistently existed the longest.
those stick on aero fins along the rear roof…
On almost every Altima and some Hondas around here. I’m starting to feel like they’re a factory accessory from Nissan and Honda.
Those are vortex generators, and they always seem to be on the front and installed backwards around here.
The golden fake hood scoop on my Geo Prism back in the day really jazzed things up.
Yosemite Sam “Back Off!” mudflaps.
Had them from PO on my 88 Chevy k1500
Also too the reclining woman silhouette mudflaps. In chrome if you have any class at all.
Personally I’ll take the reclining large man.
This is the one I was going to suggest! Classy!
Antenna Balls
Well Torch being a style leader/trend setter, expect big growth in hood switches.
In particular switches that control something that you’d absolutely want to be inside of the car. Hood mounted AC, hood mounted headlight switches, maybe hood mounted window switches or answering a hands-free phone call?
Stick on Deer Alerts.We would always laugh when a car came in the shop for bodywork with deer damage and those alerts were stuck on the bumper.We had one guy that had them on the roof,bumper,fenders but still ran into a deer.My personal favorite was always the Sidewalk Scrapers.
listen, you don’t know the pain of scraping your new wide whites on 15X8 wheels on your malaise era caddy pre 360 camera systems. Curb Feelers were a god send to many a Pimp.
Maybe he had the deer things backwards. They attracted them.
Louvers on 80s coupes.
Have em on my 83 280zx, from PO. They don’t clear the rear wiper
Fart can on a Honda.
Smokestack on a brodozer
for EVs it would be the NACS to CCS adaptor
Drop hitches. I’m convinced 90% of truck owners don’t use them regularly (and they sure as f*ck don’t remove them when not in use!) and that it’s just a subtle reminder that their truck is lifted. The irony the other day was seeing a Z71 Silverado with ~3″ of combined lift, scraping its hitch on a normal residential driveway because the departure angle was about as good as a luxobarge.
Rant over.
Before manuals started dying, I would say custom shift knobs — golf balls, 8-balls, T handles, you name it. That was often the first (or only) thing that manual drivers did to set themselves apart from the mainstream.
Also RIP: Aftermarket stereos, which largely disappeared along with DIN slots.
For sure on the hitches. Most I see have a spotless chrome ball with no marks or grease to indicate it has ever been used. I think most have them for the sole purpose of inflicting more damage if any car were to rear end them. As if a bumper at face level wasn’t enough of a deterrent.
I’ll take this as confirmation that it should be greased. Just started using a utility trailer for dump trips in my Outback and I was like “that metal-to-metal contact on something that rotates and bounces seems sus. I’m gonna grease that ball”
I’ve always greased mine, but I also take it out when I’m not using it so I may just be doing things wrong.
You are doing things right. I’m always tempted to remove tow hitches and throw them into the bed when I see them, but I don’t need a confrontation (or a bullet hole) for messing with someone’s vehicle.
I also remove mine and curse myself for greasing it because of the mess on my hand. Washington state has a law that if you get rearended with the hitch installed you will be ticketed. Insurance companies lobbied for that I think because it makes claims way more expensive from the increased damage.
For what it’s worth – when I worked at U-haul the drawbar “kits” (the ones that came with the drawbar, the ball, and the pin) came with a little tube of grease. It was metallic-y looking stuff, so I assume it was meant to leave some friction-reduction properties behind after some of the grease itself washed away.
My fav shift knob I have is a chunk of a B16 camshaft. The shape of the lobes lend themselves well to the hand, and it adds a nice a mount of weight over a stock unit.
My current fave is a $15 Dragon Ball Z Seven Star Dragon Ball that my boys helped me pickout. It’s clear Orange acrylic, and fairly large for a shift knob. Everyone who’s used it raves about it, and unlike the solid aluminum TRD Knob I had in mt Scion it stats temperature agnostic.
Very curious about this one.
I bought it off a machinist for $50 on the Gencoupe forums, like 14 years ago.
You mean installing an entire trailer hitch on a vehicle? Or leaving the ball mount permanently in the hitch receiver while not actually towing? I feel the former is rare but the latter is common. I remove my ball mount as soon as I’m done towing.
The receiver is fine. It’s unobtrusive and could also be used to mount a bike rack or something (which should also be removed when not in use). It’s the drop hitch and the towball that are ridiculous accessories on a lot of vehicles. The move seems to be to get the pickup lifted enough that you would need a drop hitch to tow, get the drop hitch, leave it mounted (with the shiny clean ball mount or even triple ball over the sidewalk, at least around here), and not use it.
The offenders probably don’t even know the difference in the two designations 😉
Those hitches on back of full size trucks are the bane of my existence driving through urban parking garages w/ 2 way traffic…not careful, will ‘can opener’ the passenger side of your car.
And there’s always one that’s on a quad-cab long bed taking up the whole driving lane because it couldn’t fit into the spot and the driver refuses to go park on the top deck.
In the “compact car only” space at the end of a row that is that so there’s turning room.
Hey!
I had a Nissan Frontier with the long-ass manual shifter, and I added a Miller High Life beer tap onto that.
If you mean accessories that anyone adds, it’s probably the 12V cigarette lighter charger.It’s had many forms, but we’ve been charging/powering devices by the lighter socket since probably a week after they added the socket to a car.
Professionally installed accessory though? Window tint.
I often wonder is kids these days know why the 12v car plug is the shape that it is. It’s a poorly designed plug, for that matter. When I use one, I usually have to hold it in place with one hand while my phone is charging. I’m sure new cars come with USB power plugs, but nothing I drive is new enough to have one.
83 280zx has a wrong diameter for the new stuff. Apparently cig lighters are a different size than a Power port
Our 2015 has a USB-A port but it always wants to auto-pair with the phone, so I just end up using an adaptor plugged into the 12V.
The good thing about the 12V is that it keeps up with the changes in tech a lot better than fixed outlets. Just buy a new adaptor for whatever you need this year.
Easy solution for the USB port, get a power-only USB cable. The data lines are left out so only the power signal reaches your phone/device. Also useful when traveling and would like to use public USB ports to charge but don’t want malware loaded onto your phone.
In the car just stick with the cigarette lighter adapter, because a usb port on a 2015 almost certainly is the standard half an amp that only makes your phone die slightly slower.
Actual cigarette lighter sockets are a little different (shallower) than a generic “12v outlet”. It’s on purpose so you couldn’t stick a lighter in a socket not intended for it, i.e, that isn’t designed to get quite hot. If you tried, even “pushing in” the lighter it wouldn’t make contact with the button at the end so wouldn’t complete the circuit.
But vice versa, you can shove any 12v male plug into a cig lighter socket and it’ll work fine, although the plug might not seat in all the way and be kinda wobbly.
I think the last vehicle I owned that actually had a “lighter” outlet was a 2001 (last of the 2nd gens) Ram 1500. It had both, one was clearly labeled as “power outlet”, the other was the for the lighter. Even on the fuse panel, they had different circuits, with one labeled as “Cigar Lighter” vs “12v Outlet”, and the lighter only worked in it’s designated socket. Of course it had an little cubby with the ashtray right next to it.
Now the 12v outlet is often used for charging vapes, so in a sense it’s still serving the same purpose.
Would floor mats count? There is strong aftermarket availability, and some models have the rubber or carpet mats as a dealer add on, so they aren’t always included. They have been around for a very long time as well, so aren’t a short lived trend like those crown air fresheners, curb feelers, or hanging a cd from your rear view mirror.
If it doesn’t have to be regularly used or widely recognized, there is only really one correct answer. The Hot Dog Sizzler.
One true king: The bumper sticker
Some of which make you go faster and some of which don’t. “This Car Climbed Mt Washington” is a solid brag, and good on you. “STP” (and I’m reaching back, but once quite iconic) added 2 horsepowers.
When I see the climbed MT Washington, I think “What on the back of a flat bed?”
“And miss the chance to ride the cog railway?”
I once saw a window sticker advertising a sticker company. Added at least 2 meta-horsepower.
[Immediately begins googling]
Indeed it is the bumper sticker, everything else is just competing for a distant 2nd place. With all the trends in the automotive world that have come and gone, the bumper sticker has endured for 80+ years.
Indeed it is the bumper sticker, everything else is just competing for a distant 2nd place. With all the trends in the automotive world that have come and gone, the bumper sticker has endured for 80+ years.
Watch for Moose!
The antenna ball. A staple of 76 gas stations and Jack in the Box restaurants for years. Homer Simpson approved.
In fact, I actually installed a separate fake antenna on The Homer (my 24 Hours of Lemons racecar) purely to have an antenna ball. Sadly the ball flew off somewhere between San Diego and San Jose before our last race a few weeks ago.
I worked at Circuit City’s HQ when they rebranded to the red circle logo; I was stoked when they gave out antenna balls at a work event. I might still have one in the attic.
Past: air freshners.
Current: steering wheel covers. Almost every store in America carries a few.
Future: LED lights, either interior or exterior. Especially thanks to Amazon. (And not because I’m figuring out a way to add some to the GR-C’s wheel wells for a night autocross.
I’m trying very hard to avoid adding full RGB underglow to my w126. As the kits are not cheap. But BY GOD I wanna embrace my inner ricer with LED lights.
Truck nuts
Or the EV version, wire nuts.
If I had an EV, I would 100% 3D print a giant set of wire nuts for it.
The STL is out there, but I haven’t been willing to use that much filament on it.
The really funny thing is 90% of all the truck nuts I’ve ever seen were on donks, not trucks.
Phone holders, not iconic since they are different kinds and flavors but very neccesary for cars with no screens or apple carplay.
Fancy steering wheel covers. Anything from a tidy leather replacement wrap all the way to five inch long fuzz.
Fuzzy dice on the mirror has to be on the list.
Also, maybe not ‘iconic’, but would recommend this podcast on the history of Truck Nutz to anyone interested: https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2019/03/decoder-ring-explores-the-strange-and-wacky-world-of-novelty-testicle-products-truck-nutz-bulls-balls-neuticles-bike-balls-gunsticles-and-more
The Dollop did an episode on Truck Nutz, and it’s probably one of their best episodes.
But trying to pick the best episode of The Dollop is like trying to pick the best song on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album.
Spoiler: it’s “The Chain.”
To be fair, if you don’t love them now, then you will never love them again.
Icons, who were mostly just talking shit to each other for YEARS.
Meh, they’re Second Hand News.
Note: this pun was not intended to express my actual opinion of Fleetwood Mac, who are brilliant, or Rumours, which is one of the great albums of all time.
A memory just bubbled to the surface of my brain: my 18th birthday. My first birthday as a driver (in the UK you can’t take your test until you’re 17). After breakfast and presents I walked out to my car, intending to drive to my girlfriend’s house.
There is something wrong with my car. I mean, it was a 1979 2CV, even out of the factory there was much that was wrong with it, but this was something new and weird. It was a sky blue car, but now it’s covered in big pink spots. I stop and stare, and something else resolves through the outrage I’m feeling: there is a huge pair of pink fluffy dice hanging from the mirror.
My girlfriend had made them, and then broken in to my car to fit them. She did the pink spots with card too, but it was the dice that really floored me.
Happy birthday me. My terrible car was now even more humiliating.
Still, she could break into a car, which was pretty cool/a massive red flag.
There can be only one: the Continental kit. Where the sometimes fake spare tire is stuck into a holder on the rear bumper.