I’ve been in southeast Asia for the past 10 days or so, celebrating my brother’s wedding, and spending time with my entire immediate family for the first time in seven years. As such, I’ve been neglecting some car things, but not completely. That would be impossible. I told you what you needed to know about how Japan and Toyota worked together to create the world’s greatest taxi cab, and now I’m here to alert you of a new trend that I’d never seen before: Transparent fuel doors. Have you ever seen these?
The truth is that part of the reason for this blog is that I needed a reason to show you this amazing Suzuki Hustler, a 658cc Kei Car also badged as a Mazda Flair:
By itself, the tiny boxy machine is cool, but this Hustler adds lots of fun aftermarket touches. The red three-spoke wheels are amazing, those white flairs rule, the dual center exhaust pipes look mean, and the graphics are incredible. But even cooler than those is the fleet of Hustlers on the dashboard:
Oh, and check out this “neon” sign on the rear right window:
Unrelated to the mods: Is the antenna foldable?
Anyway, back to the main topic at hand: Look at this fuel cap:
There’s a window in it! Normally I wouldn’t let a car that has had every Auto Zone aftermarket part thrown at it define what is and isn’t trendy, but I’d actually seen this mod on multiple other cars in Hong Kong, and when I did a bit of research, I found that these transparent fuel doors are legitimately “a thing.” Here’s one for sale for a Kia Optima (via Korean Auto Imports):
Here’s a Suzuki Jimny transparent fuel door being advertised through a southeast Asian eCommerce site called Lazada as: “Transparent Fuel Tank Cover Replacement Fuel Filler Tank Gas Cap Jimny Decoration Accessory”:
Here’s a transparent fuel door for a Toyota Estima via Singaporean marketplace Carousell:
Looks like this trend isn’t limited to southeast Asia, as an apparently Florida-based Instagrammer named autoboxb has shown off his transparent fuel door build:
View this post on Instagram
Maybe I’m late to this trend, but it’s … interesting! Install a nice anodized gas cap, and show it off via a plexiglass window in your filler door — pointless? Sure. But the best things in life are pointless.
I see your transparent fuel door and raise my* exposed gas cap.
*not my car, but it was the best picture I could find.
In case, break the glass…
I’m bothered by the model name since to me a Suzuki Hustler is a 250cc two stroke motorcycle from the 60s and 70s. It looks more like a Wagon R which raises the question of whether Dream Factory Blow makes a 69 Suburban kit like they did for the Wagon R
And the Honda Odyssey is an ATV and the Honda Passport is an Americanized Super Cub.
“Pepperidge Farm remembers”
I’m sorry it’s just a
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wagnermeters.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F12%2Fknot-2.jpg&tbnid=Rv5eX_rRfCOfUM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wagnermeters.com%2Fmoisture-meters%2Fwood-info%2Fpros-cons-knots-in-wood%2F&docid=xQ7SpNSDXL2elM&w=539&h=539&hl=en-us&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F3
on a car to me.
I made my family’s dining room table out of wood scraps, epoxy and ingenuity. It’s not my fault if my mother in law doesn’t quite understand it and drops her drink directly through a hole in the table top.
Just a a knot in the wood you gotta work around.
Where are you at exactly DT?
I reckon Hong Kong. DT’s brother lives(s|d) there.
https://jalopnik.com/hong-kongs-car-culture-is-a-fascinating-mix-of-heroes-a-1823251884
David’s brother got married according to his Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/carsofhongkong/
I think the car is somewhere near a yacht club at Causeway Bay.
7 years? Jesus, man. Enjoy the time together.
Better than truck balls.
I feel like this is the automotive equivalent of ripped jeans or something.
I would want a goldfish sticker on the inside of my transparent fuel door…
They look like little “In Case Of Emergency” windows for fuel thieves..
I’m doing this to my Tesla tomorrow
You know how long I spent on the fuel filler cap on the L663 Defender? And all I had to do was slap a cheap piece of clear plastic on.
Fuck these yahoos.
Tata does not have capless fuel filler technology?
Googled it. Someone makes one. Think it’s better than the stick on plastic defender-badged one.
If you were responsible for designing the laughable gas cap holder of the L663, which doesn’t hold anything because the springy tether pulls it straight off the minuscule lip every time, that explains a lot.
This is even weirder than that trend in Russia of replacing shift knobs with crystal dildos
Combine the two. At least the fuel door will be easy to open, even if you’re wearing gloves. (Which you probably should be, especially if it was on the car when you bought it )
Hey, a knob is a knob.
Is that trend specificly from Russia? I’d noticed the dildo-as-shifter trend (not just crystal ones, pretty sure I’ve seen rubber dildos flopping around stuck to the top of the shifter), but never actually checked whether it was a regional thing.
Depends on what the previous fuel door was made of.
If it was plastic I have a simple rule of thumb for it:
When buying something plastic I want it to be 1 of 3 things: translucent, transparent, or glow in the dark.
However if the fuel door was metal as stock I wouldn’t buy a plastic one unless I literally could not get a replacement metal fuel door.
I had a couple of old Volvos with exposed gas caps.
Does that make me cool?
On the other hand –
A brightly-colored micro-SUVan named after a porn magazine covered with accessories named “Honest” –
I’m not sure that’s cool at all.
Exposed like an PV’s or an Amazon’s, or exposed because they were 700/900 series that had the stupid plastic hinge break off?
(You can probably guess which I’ve owned.)
I had that hinge thing happen on my 940 twice in 5 years, the replacement was very obviously lower quality than the first one, which lasted 10.
I had the reverse problem, oddly. After I finally understood that my car’s filler door locks when the car locks, once it first opened, I found there was no tank cap. Thankfully period-correct caps are thick on the ground, but why.
Exposed like the 140 series.
The handle actually aligned with the end of the bodyside trimline – Mostly.
People are really really odd. The half asleep purring cat on my knee would concur were it not for the simple fact of cats being not odd and therefore mainly sleeping and so not really bothered too much.
I’ll put up with the fuel door/cap situation if I get to drive that Hustler around for fun.
This is making me feel really insecure about all my cars having capless fuel fillers.
“But the best things in life are pointless.”
That means this article is pretty great, huh? Kidding, but lay off the rice wine.
“Transparent fuel doors. Have you ever seen these?”
Well, no, at least not the successful ones.
You’re writing about a Hustler, Bishop’s posting Playboys… we’re not turning into one of THOSE websites, are we? ‘Cause I didn’t sign up for that…
Yeah, b/c if so, I’m looking at this on a desktop screen and it’s not easy to turn sideways…
The Autopian, ribbed for her pleasure.
*Ribs are the raised section of the tire tread pattern, made up of tread blocks
Gives a whole new meaning to NVH issues.
Well, at least you’re not a landscaping site that could write about getting lawn service with a Hustler brand mower, trimming bushes, and blowing
The Autopeen
No more silly I guess than when the ’00s Bullitt Mustang kickstarted the OEM contrast metal fuel door vogue (that seems to have died back out).
Good thing too, I have always thought that looked awful on mustangs and challengers. I have never once wanted to draw more attention to my fuel filler door.
I’m kinda okay with them on the Challengers, since it’s a look ported from the old ones, but it always seemed discordant on the SN95 Mustang body. I don’t recall it being an oldschool Mustang thing, and certainly not on the car in the movie.
“[P]ointless? Sure. But the best things in life are pointless.”
Would that mean the transparent fuel door is the Bugatti Veyron of automotive accessories?
This is infinitely better than the Pep-Boys-class shiny chrome fuel door covers that became a thing for some unfathomable reason.
Fun fact: in 1965, Suzuki introduced a 250cc, twin-cylinder, air-cooled motorcycle called the X6 Hustler. It was a largely conventional bike except that it introduced a sixth gear; until that point, six-speed transmissions were race bike material.
Or that the B-58 Hustler, a terrific-looking but kinda impractical real-life mid-century strategic bomber, would appear (in model form) in various Gerry Anderson scifi shows of the era since it looked so futuristic.
Out of the box it was a non-exotic 250 that would exceed 100 mph, made a claimed 32 hp, it had about a 5 mph edge over the stock Yamaha 250 at that point. The were a whole lot of fun if you were a sub-150lb teen.