I’ve never been much of a reader, having read my last fiction book over five years ago. However, I read the news daily, and I tend to gravitate toward non-fiction. Does that count? In that case, I am a voracious reader, constantly going down Internet rabbit holes for things that pique my curiosity. (Will I remember everything I read? To discuss at a later date…)
The lack of fiction under my belt slightly bothers me, as most people who consider themselves voracious readers always choose fiction. However, I don’t get hung up on it because I know cars are the reason I know the things I know.
You may point out that there is little value in knowing the grille differences between a 1961 Dodge Polara and a 1962 Custom 880, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Look beyond the style of cars and you’ll find the style of people—how they dress, how they wear their hair, and the sensibilities that fall in line with them. Am I familiar with a particular type of mid-century item? Likely not by name (sorry, I don’t read GQ), but I can look at an image and identify the approximate year based on the style of the people in the image.
Car colors are a major gold mine (excuse the pun) for knowledge, especially about animals, locales, and the natural world.
- I would not know what an atoll is if it wasn’t for the 1970 Pontiac GTO and the Atoll Blue hue. Ditto Oldsmobile’s Aegean Aqua.
- The same could be said of a certain kind of horse that was the inspiration for Palomino Copper.
- Palisade Green presumably refers to the tree-lined cliffs in a part of northern New Jersey.
- Chevrolet had a color named Ermine White. That’s an animal related to the weasel.
- While Dodge’s Polara is nonsense (inspired by the Space Race), Monaco is a wealthy city-state in the French Riviera (my, another car reference!).
- My dad test-drove a Cadillac that was painted Sonora Saddle, which I realized (after moving to Arizona) may be a tip of the hat to the Sonoran Desert, though it could be the name of the Sonora state in Mexico.
Other musings:
- My mom is an architect, but I didn’t know what a flying buttress was until I read something from the designer of the 1968 Dodge Charger.
- I am not a chemical engineer, but I know lead raises octane.
- Brougham may invoke images of velour interiors, but it’s the name of a carriage design.
- Plaza may sound like a dumb name for a car model, but it was a fancy hotel (among several) that Plymouth used to name its lineup in the 1950s.
- Speaking of hotels, I know what the Bellevue-Stratford was because it was pictured in a Cadillac ad in 1958. I know about Legionnaires’ disease because of this hotel as well.
- I know nothing about airplanes, but apparently Messerschmitt built them before gravitating to cars.
- I learned about the star cluster “Pleiades” (and how to pronounce it) when I learned what “Subaru” meant in English (though admittedly it first came on my radar due to the classic video game by Centuri—did you know it’s named after the seven daughters of Atlas? I didn’t!).
As you can see, it runs the gamut. Aside from cursing, what things that surround our lives have you learned from cars?
