The Kabbalists, the mystical sect of Judiasm best known for a bit of red thread Madonna used to wear on her wrist, places a lot of power in the concept of naming things. Naming is part of the act of creation, and I’m sure there’s a lot more depth to this concept, but since my experience with Kabbalist teachings mostly revolves around a number of messy and failed attempts to build a Golem, I don’t really have much valuable insight. What I do know is that names are important, and that’s why I think it’s time we find a good name for this automotive styling phenomenon I suspect we’ve all noticed at one time or another: the double-faced car look.
Yes, you know what I’m talking about! The way that some cars, when you look at them, appear to have a front end that looks like it has another, smaller car emerging from it, like the car has somehow absorbed another car, leaving only the smaller car’s face peering out, possibly in terror.
Perhaps the most famous of these cars is the 1969 Ford Mustang:
…and perhaps the most infamous is the 1962 Dodge Dart:
You see what I’m talking about, right? These cars have two faces, a face inset into a larger face. There’s a surprising number of cars that I think fit into this category, and there’s also some edge cases I think we need to use to define parameters. I think the key component here – pointed out by our resident Real Car Designer Adrian Clarke – is that the inner face must be clearly delineated by some manner of border or trim or the boundaries of the grille.
That’s why quad-headlamp cars like the ’70s and ’80s Jaguar XJ, which can sort of be seen as having a separate inner face:
…don’t really count, because even if you can separate out a plausible-looking inset smaller car face, the lack of a delineating visual boundary around the inner lights and grille means that the XJ itself doesn’t actually have the jarring, face-in-a-face look of these other cars. So I think some kind of inner-face border is required.
Just for fun, let’s quickly extrapolate out what the inner-face cars on some examples could look like; we’ll start with the Dart:
That could have been a fun, smaller Dart-like coupé! What’s smaller than a dart? A needle? That could have been the Dodge Needle. Here’s another good one, a ’70s-era Mazda Rotary pick-up:
I feel like the Mazda’s inner face would have made a great front end for some sort of Mazda Kei van. Like Mazda’s answer to a Honda Life Step Van. How about the Mustang: 
That inner grille still feels muscle-car-ish, almost like a Camaro, but the smaller scale makes me wonder what if Ford made an MGB roadster competitor? I could see that inner grille serving as the face for the Ford Palamino, or something like that.
Let’s get a little weirder, and look at the Argentinian Renault Torino:
Honestly, that face reminds me a lot of a Renault 12. Or maybe a Renault 6:
It’s definitely some kind of small Renault stuck in there.
So, we’re back to the question of what should we call these cars? Face-in-face cars feels too clunky, as does double-face cars or twin-face or anything like that. I want something punchier. Oooh, I have an idea! Let’s name them after this guy:
Janus! That’s the Roman god Janus, doorkeeper of the heavens, god of beginnings and endings, and a famous haver of two faces. We could call these Janus Cars. Sure, there’s a Zündapp Janus already, a car with a door at each end, but I don’t think in context it’ll get confusing.
I mean how often are you seeing Zündapp Januses around?
So, I propose Janus Cars for these; it incorporates the idea of two faces, it’s easy to say, and, best of all, it rhymes with “anus cars.” I’m open to hear your naming suggestions, though, and eager to see more Janus Car examples you may have.
Man, it feels good to accomplish something.
There are… FOUR. LIGHTS!!!
Vestigial twin – a form of parasitic twinning, where the parasitic “twin” is so malformed and incomplete that it typically consists entirely of extra limbs or organs. It also can be a complete living being trapped inside the host person,/b>, however the parasitic twin is anencephalic and lacks consciousness.
Now that opens the mind to some very disturbing ideas.
Great fodder for a SciFi story.
Stream of consciousness while reading this article:
Top of article: This is cool, they should do an article designing cars using the smaller grills!
Sees Mustang: How cool would it have been if Ford turned that into a smaller, MGB roadster type car?
Scrolls down: Oh, cool…..Torch IS designing cars using the smaller grills!
Scrolls further: “What if Ford made an MGB roadster competitor?” GET OUT OF MY HEAD, TORCH!!!!
Let’s get Latin! Duo Facies.
Vanishing twin syndrome?
Those are definitely xenomorph cars.
Jason, I get where you’re coming from with the need for rules if we’re going to have an ontology for these things, and I agree with the inner border idea, but the jag definitely has that inner border–it’s the edge of the hood. So the jaguar is absolutely a jagnus.
If you’re referring to the jaw-within-a-jaw of the xenomorph from the Alien franchise – they are called a pharyngeal jaw, and they do exist in nature.
https://roaring.earth/moray-eels-jaws/
No sorry this is wrong, Janus cars are cars where you can’t easily distinguish if your looking at the front or rear (i can’t think of an example but they are definitely out there)
What you show are clearly xenomorphs cars (like the alien (from alien) with the extra mouth coming out. (now try getting that image out of your head))
No problem I’m just glad I could enlighten you.
Agree. The new plastic electric Citroën Ami is such a Janus car. Maybe also the 20 year old Citroën Picasso, but that’s mostly from seeing it from the side.
My 10 year old thought is was funny, that the BMW 2002 has a palindrome model name, as the car also looks the same boxy bathtub Corvair way in both ends.
Agree that Janus doesn’t work for this. And the Canoo is legitimately Janus-like, so we should reserve this nomenclature for vehicles like it.
“Janus cars” is a good idea, but the entire idea is that the guy has two faces on opposite ends. “Harvey Dent” could also work, but that one has halfsies for faces, not a “recursive” face.
I had a lot of ideas meditating upon this, most of them revolving around the idea of a small being inhabiting a bigger one – but none of them are particularly catchy:
* Conjoined Fetus Cars, in honour of Souh Park
* Parasitic cars, for the general Sci fi equivalent
* Brainslug cars, for Futurama specifically
* Arquilian cars, for the small aliens piloting a person “suit” in MIB
* Master-blaster, for Mad Max
* Kuato cars, for Total Recall, but those are more “belly” inclusions than “face” inclusions
* Krang cars, for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Same issue as the above, though.
* Earthworm Jim cars, if anyone still remembers
* Facehuggers? No, those are something else. Facesitters? Nah, too porny. We’ll, the adult aliens have a mouth inside their mouths, could also work if their teeth mouths had a name…
* On a similar vein, but real world: Cymothoa exigua, for the isopod that replaces fish tongues. I like the concept, but the name sucks, I know…
* On the same nature theme as above, there used to be an australian frog that carried their babies in the mouth. Gastric-brooding cars sound silly, however. Nature provides good analogies with lousy names!
* Zombie ant fungus. This is not a name suggestion, just wanted to point out that the small face could be a parasitic fungus controlling the bigger car 🙂
* Eremit cars, maybe? Looks like the small car is inhabiting the shell of the big one!
* Undercover cars. Those are clearly small cars dressed as bigger ones. No? What about “puppeteer cars”? Still no?
* Matroshka cars. That could work!
Those are definitely xenomorph cars.
Dang, I knew those guys had a name!
came here to post Kuato cars, but you have shamed me. Excellent breakdown of alternatives!
There is no shame in shared insanity, my friend!
Hugh Janus anyone?
Oh I remember him, from the early days at Jello Picnic
What’s emerging from 1962 Dart is not a smaller car, but angry alien car monster that’s going to burst the Dart open like an exploding can then devour any nearby metal objects!!!! Run Jason Run!!
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; latest edition: DSM-5-TR, published in March 2022) is the “Bible” of psychiatry using common language and standard criteria for classifying common mental disorders. Interestingly, DSM-5.1 is going to be published in January 2023. It has been addended to include a recently diagnosed mental illness called Dissociative Torchophrenia. It had been diagnosed by clinicians as an obsession with auto-anthropomorphism, that is to say an insistence by a person that they can see ‘faces’ or attribute ‘other human characteristics’ to amorphous collections of automotive parts, particularly headlights, taillights, and in some rare cases turn indicators. Unfortunately, at this time, clinicians indicate there is no known cure for this delusional, mildly-anti-social behavior other than keeping a safe distance from these afflicted individuals.
Mmm, auto-anthropomorphism. Sounds hot.
I have the weirdest bo–
Uhh, never mind.
That rumination about the inner Mazda is actually pretty close to what the Mazda Bongo of the late 70s & 80s looked like:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Mazda_Bongo_Brawny_003.JPG
I want to call it an Ethan Hunt, but that really feels more appropriate to the Jeep Wagoneer that just slapped an entirely new fascia over the original front end.
Is it just me, or did you give your muse the day off. perhaps I’m embittered from the that first instance of someone noting the i8 excreting the 911, but anthropomorphicizing car bodies hasen’t been the same since. It was as horrific and sad as anything bmw’s done post, oh, say 2006. That to one side, I think the face within a face thing’s a stretch ‘cept for that very, very japan pickup. Anyway, I imagine you sitting before the ivory keys on that bunker-fueled difference engine of your composure, gazing down the stream of conciousness at the vanishing point where it disappears over the existential event horizon, or not.
The i8 giving birth to a 911 was like the first thing that Thomas and I noted. Jason responded by telling us that ass cars are for a later day. lol
I propose they are named after the Beast of Craggy Island.
https://youtu.be/W_xOfxY5n2U
I await this article eagerly.
I think the inner face of the Renault Torino looks quite like the American Rabbit from the early 80s.
More importantly, I believe we should be told about these attempts to create a Golem.
Hold on, the ’69 mustang had nothing on the ’70. Replacing the outer low beams with functional vents changes the whole front end.
Thank you. I may be a total contrarian, but I prefer the ’70’s setup – the outboard vents give the front end a pleasing symmetric asymmetry, if that makes sense, which creates visual interest.
(As I sit here, I’m looking at my framed old “Son of Trans Am” ad that features a competition orange orange one sitting at a rakish angle)
Slightly off-topic, but how about the car-being-enveloped-by-a-slightly-larger-car-fajita that is the face of the 1962 Olds Starfire? And while I’m on the subject of full-size Camelot-era Oldsmobiles, shorten the rear overhang of the ‘61, turn the taillights to headlights, and might it not look pretty good driving backwards (front-mounted skeg fins notwithstanding)?
How about we get rid of 2 face cars from future production? One set of headlights stock, a happy looking air intake, etc.
Or the opposite…when the rear is pooping out another car? Like the BMW i8 giving birth to a Porsche
https://c8.alamy.com/zooms/9/baf1877639574980852b66b3e0d071bc/ta6kny.jpg
Well, Spohnisms or Sponhnist designs, after the only car to dethrone the Dart you posted as ugliest car to roam the highways. For the Spohn coachbuilding company that inflicted this on us, once (?) owned by Wayne Carini. Posting the Dart is just visual abuse. The Spohn takes no prisoners and is visual devastation. I need to go look at a few Italian sports cars to recover. (Kind of liking “Harveys,” as Kakairo posted, though. I guess the Porsche I8 would be a Rearview Harvey?)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads22/spohn1370221150.jpg
https://a4.pbase.com/g9/21/783021/3/151180011.HN6TWsgE.jpg
Yeesh. That’s disturbing. Looks like something you’d find parked outside a Norwegian research base in Antarctica.
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Split_Face
Pareidolic cars? Like the phenomenon of pareidolia which is where we see faces in inanimate objects? Although I guess that’s ANY car you see a face in…
Geez Torch I don’t know. I’ve never had to look for answers to as many absurd questions as I do here. Sure is fun though!
Wait.. double-dolic cars! Or for the more immature amongst us, double Ds!
“…like the car has somehow absorbed another car, leaving only the smaller car’s face peering out, possibly in terror.”
It must have been a very small car indeed to have been absorbed by a Sonett III:
https://compote.slate.com/images/81dd6810-140e-4063-bc2c-cfa4278b164b.jpg
Bifocals?
I just want to say that I really appreciate articles like this JT — never change.
Harveys. It can be a cutesy nick-name, plus now any car that has a dent in that area has a “harvey dent”.
I get that reference!