The Googly Eyes Just Improve Things: Cold Start

Cs Renault6 Googlyeyemonster
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I think it’s safe to say that there’s many contexts where the addition of googly eyes to something improves it. Like a compressor, or an anvil, or perhaps some plants. I saw this old brochure for a 1977 Renault 6 – a sort of upmarketified Renault 4 – and realized that, in an ideal world, large oversized googly eyes would have been applied to that woman’s fur coat there, transforming it into some sort of possibly friendly gumdrop-shaped hirsute monster riding in the back there. I think it makes for a much more evocative image.

Also, is the word hirsute somehow derived from “hair suit?” Let’s check. Hm. Not exactly, it’s from the Latin word hirsutusmeaning “rough, shaggy, or bristly.” Well, crap.

Anyway, here’s what the brochure looks like sans eyes, and I think you’ll agree the eyes are a huge improvement:

Cs Renault6 Int

Also, Renault is really going all out showing the features of this car: armrests! Door pulls and crank windows and an ashtray? Is that woman an Empress? A dome light, too? Who is she, a god?

Cs Renault6 Dash

I kinda like the simple dashboard here, even though Renault is guilty of a bit of false advertising, because once that car reaches a speed of any miles per hour, those glasses are going to slide off that dash like an Olympic ski jumper and will lodge themselves under a seat. It’ll happen pretty much immediately.

Cs Renault6 Front

The Renault 6 also had kind of a stern little face there. I think it’s something about those rectangular headlamps, and their strange aspect ratio; they seem more vertical than horizontal, which is unusual for car headlights. They’re like a 3:4 ratio.

Anyway, it looks a bit miffed at you. What did you say to it?

39 thoughts on “The Googly Eyes Just Improve Things: Cold Start

  1. > there’s many contexts where the addition of googly eyes to something improves it.

    There are no contexts where adding googly eyes to something doesn’t improve it.

  2. Ok I’ll just say it. The furry thing with the eyes is a spy from FIAT. Looking to understand how Renault builds such great cars. And pondering how to get Miss Panties in a bunch to hand back his cool sunglasses from the dash.

    I could say more about the huge hair ball in the back, and how it relates to French self grooming and care, but am trying to be polite until the meds kick in. As the Corsican Brothers said, “it looks like some kind of hairy sea monster.”

  3. Look at a picture of Charles de Gaulle and then look at that straight-ahead, stern-faced picture of the Renault 6.

    I’d like to think it was Renault’s tribute to le Général. It’s probably not true, but I’d like to think it anyway.

  4. ” I think it’s something about those rectangular headlamps, and their strange aspect ratio; they seem more vertical than horizontal, which is unusual for car headlights. They’re like a 3:4 ratio.”
    Jason is obviously under googly eye induced hypnosis to give the headlamps this scrutiny and not mention the bipolar doppelganger aspect.

    1. I traveled in Spain in the mid and late 90s and those headlights were popular on various European vehicles at the time. They were sort of the Euro version of the US large single and smaller dual rectangular sealed-beam headlights — they must have used dual-filament bulbs and different lenses for the single ones (less common) and single-filament bulbs for the dual setups (Which showed up on buses and trucks more often.) They must have been the solution for more modern-looking front end styling when the designers and manufacturers didn’t want to spend the money on model-specific aero headlights.

  5. How kind of Renault to include color-matched helmets. Obviously, in the pre-airbag era, there was a broad range of attempts to improve occupant safety and this is quite creative.

    What’s that?

    That’s her… hair?!

    Oh, dear.

  6. I bought a pack of 100 googly eyes on Amazon.

    My Wife “Why would you buy 100 googly eyes?”

    Me “Why wouldn’t I buy 100 googly eyes?”

    1. The question is whether you have children… But even if not, experiment with placing them on fruits and vegetables. A halved bell pepper can look fantastic.

  7. Based on the blur outside the window, I can see why she’s clinging to the assist handle. Klaus is driving the car beyond its limits, or perhaps the brakes have failed on an Alpine road.

  8. Speaking of shit on the dashboard. Lately every other Wrangler I see has little rubber duckies lined up along the dash. What happens when they make a turn? Is the interior of the car just a chaotic stew of flying rubber duckies? Or are they gluing them down?

    1. The ducks are because it’s become a trend over the past 3 years or so for Wrangler owners to put a rubber ducky on other Wranglers they see parked, so people collect the ducks they receive and keep extras in their Jeep so they can give them out themselves

  9. “I think it’s safe to say that there’s many contexts where the addition of googly eyes to something improves it.”
    Indubitably! Cf. Everything Everywhere All At Once!

  10. Well, I can also suggest another place to put the googly eyes. And I am not going to apologize for my gutterbrain. But just imagine going over speedbumps……

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