So I’m a bit late on getting Cold Start up this morning because I was exhausted last night and didn’t do it then, like I usually like to, and this morning I had to take my kid to farm camp, because all he really wants to do in the summer is hang out with animals. Fine by me, really. In fact, he made a good joke yesterday about catching a bunch of ducks smoking quack, so I figure based on that, this is a decent use of his free summer time. Anyway, as I was heading back home, I found myself behind this truck, and it got me thinking about our vehicles, and how we choose to express ourselves using them as a, um, vehicle.
Like, in the case of this lifted Ford truck here, there’s a very specific persona being conveyed here. Most obvious is that skull emerging from the inky blackness of the black paint on the tailgate there, eyes aglow with, I’m guessing, malice? I mean, it’s possible the eyes are glowing red from goodwill or jolliness, but I feel that’s unlikely. Also, the eyes have vertical slit-type feline pupils?
Then there’s what appears to be a refrence to the Confederate battle flag on that metal rear-window protector thing, and that, of course, is absolutely laden with associations, very few of them good. Probably none good. The truck is lifted and has aftermarket beefy bumpers with lights and tow hooks and multiple light bars, too, well-equipped for all sorts of things, but it’s also incredibly clean and unmarred, and doesn’t seem to bear a lot of the visual documentation of hard off-road use.
So, what’s the message here? Is that Death on the tailgate? There’s some hints of a hood at the corners, so maybe. But it’s not chasing you if you see it, you’re chasing Death?
There’s no question the goal, at some level, was to intimidate with this truck’s choices. It’s just kind of strange to have such a clear, potent expression of one very specific feeling, and then that’s your vehicle for everything. Going to pick up your mom at the airport? She’s riding in the lifted DixieDeathtruck. Taking your kid to a birthday party? DixieDeathtruck. Volunteering at the animal shelter? Helping a friend move? Going to the retirement party of the professor that convinced you that art history could be your calling? DixieDeathtruck, DixieDeathtruck, DixieDeathtruck.
Also, this truck sort of demands a certain look; if a person dressed like an Orthodox Jew or a woman in a slinky Versace dress or a mom in very mom-clothes dropped out of this, it’d make you do a double-take, right?
I’m all for people putting as much personality and feeling into their cars, absolutely. I love it. But it’s also interesting to think about. And, really, I’m no different: my cars have their own distinctive look, too, and there’s plenty of ways to be incongruous when seen unfolding yourself out of one of my little shitboxen, too. None of this is a judgement!
It’s all just proof that cars are more like fashion than most of us would like to admit.
100% tiny D.
As hideous and of poor taste that this truck is, it would qualify as a happy-go-lucky fun-guy truck in my neck of the woods. I mean, there aren’t even any decals telling me to go fuck myself, spelt out in assault weapon font.
On another note, what’s with the skulls lately? I thought skulls were only cool to the 7-12 year old boy demographic. Like, what adult who’s trying to look cool (I mean, that’s what this is about… right? I think?) is putting skulls all over everything?
Edit: This brings to mind the classic Mitchell and Webb sketch “Are We the Baddies”.
No “Punisher” logo either.
Skulls as a motif freaking rule and it bums me out that they’ve taken on a connotation of a very specific kind of attitude. Just let me drive a skeleton Challenger with no judgment!
Sometimes on the 427 I’ll see trucks with writing in Arabic or Indian letters and AK47 silhouettes (Brampton I suppose…) so I guess this kind of thing is really a cross-cultural phenomenon.
Skulls as a motif rule? Why stop at just one part of a corpse? Why not severed limbs, or, heck, a whole dead person? I think I’ve figured out the recurring motif I’m gonna use on my next custom car project.
I like this idea. Like corpse paint, but for your car instead of your face!
I was behind a MINI driving around in central Pennsylvania with a UKIP bumper sticker, a homemade looking “Proud to be British” sticker — and an AR-15 decal across the back glass. I’m assuming the driver was either a British expat or here for work, but one of those things doesn’t really fit with the others
UKIP is a left-leaning(economically speaking) White Nationalist party. It kind of makes sense.
My very first thought was that I’d bet they were a fan of that comic
Looks like at least 10% of the cars on the road once you are 25+ miles away from a major metro area.
“None of this is a judgement!”
Yet it screams, “Have a certain opinion about me!!!” The trouble is most of the opinions it elicits are not the opinions he seeks.
The lack of mud flaps screams
‘F*** your windshield.’
The rest seems like unnecessary crud that just adds weight, worsens aero, worsens performance in general, etc.
Just shorten that to “Fuck you”. It doesn’t just describe the lack of mudflaps. It describes the entire vehicle.
Remember when Jeeps had smiley face tire covers? Now we have angry grilles. The only emotion most people are willing to display as a public face is rage. Rage at you, at politics, anything.
The amount of people willing to give a direct and clear statement of “Fuck you” in writing on their vehicle is shocking.
The amount of Angry Grills for Jeeps is pretty substantial and that’s sad. A while ago I was looking at replacement grills for the JL Jeeps looking for one where the grill slats were all symmetrical and there wasn’t a single one, but there were like 10 Angry Grills.
I wouldn’t say the Angry Grills are expressing rage, rather they’re like Harleys, every dentist, insurance broker, etc. feels like a Hells Angel when they get on their overpriced hog, basically cosplaying a bad man. Same goes for the people with the angry grills.
Personally I’d sooner have no grill than have an angry grill. Cute and or happy vehicles are highly underrated.
Confuse everyone with an angry grille jeep wearing a smiley face spare tire cover. Bipolar Jeep.
Presumably a place which sells and installs Angry Jeep paraphernalia would have piles of original grilles that they would like to get rid of.
The stock JL grill slats are not all symmetrical. The ones on the very edges are intruded on by the headlights.
One non-angry Jeep Grill example from a neighbor, they have a “behind the Jeep grill” rainbow flag accessory, very snazzy. And for Pride month, they have a little bucket of various kinds of LGBTQ+ flags for folks passing by to have. Mind you, I live in the metro San Francisco Bay Area.
A Jeep I see semi-regularly has the rainbow on the slats: each color in a long oval in the inner area (if that makes sense. I always give them an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Partly because it’s a happy Jeep —and partly so they see an old, bearded, blue-collar guy not hating on them. None of my damn business who they date!
Hell yeah, bring back happy Jeeps. They’re fun cars! So many ways to customize them beyond AMGERY BOI. Theme them up to be fun, too.
Like the way the bars completely block the passthru window.
I’m willing to bet good money that truck is riding on nearly bald Chinese tires.
There are no such thing as cheap low quality 35″ all terrains. Which is quite sad actually for people who want to do wheeling.
– Gary, shouldn’t we black out the Ford logo? Otherwise it is… the nose.
– You are missing the point, Chuck. You are missing the point.
Someone might be tempted to approach and attempt to *boop* it on the nose.
I think the best part is that those taillights look like the late 90s-early 2000s generation. Which did not have a ford logo on the center of the tailgate, right? So this dude death wraps the tailgate, then deliberately adds a ford logo? Or swapped to a later generation tailgate? Either way, there was a deliberate effort for death to have a ford nose. Also, death looks a bit cross eyed.
What I don’t get is that a lot of those parts look new. This guy bought a truck that’s at least 21 years old and spent what, minimum $5k for lift, tires, massive wheel spacers, and a boutique bed bar?
Have you seen Instagram ever? Anyways, old pickups are cooler.
I saw a lifted truck a few weeks ago with both “ACAB” and “F— Trudeau” (Canada’s Lets Go Brandon for you ‘Muricans) decals and I was deeply confused. It would be like if this fine creation had a rainbow flag sticker on the back.
Personally I think I’d be more into the classic black and white skeleton look, possibly two hands throwing a double whammy on the rear window. But as a non-truck-owner, that’s a dream for another day.
I thought about buying a box of MAGA and COEXIST bumper stickers. Then I’d slap MAGA stickers on Prius and COEXIST stickers on bro-dozers.
Good one. Might get you into a fight or shot though(and understandably so), so do be careful.
My aunt used to troll my uncle by moving the “I love my Bichon” magnet from her car to his on occasion.
Don’t put stickers on people’s cars.
That’s a major bummer move.
FIFY
Here in Idaho, there are a fair number of MAGA Priuses. Some people really do like saving gas but aren’t libs.
Not so confusing when you look at it from the perspective of an anti-authoritarian. Most people don’t realize just how controlled they are at the individual level, their lives micromanaged by both government AND corporation. They rationalize these control measures away as being “necessary”, even if in truth they are anything but and exist mostly to profit some special interest group and/or politicians and/or business somewhere.
Yep, the old ‘They who shall not be named website’ had an article the other day on how Auto insurance companies are refusing to insure a lot of people in California, and we’ve seen many other instances of insurance companies refusing to insure for a variety of unjustified reasons.
Insurance companies are a scam. If the payout they need to make exceeds the cost of fighting your justified claim in court they’ll almost certainly fight you in court over it.
NH got it right.
I feel like there is a chance that ACAB Trumpies can actually be conversed with. Sometimes, though, the ACAB stance is just the result of they themselves having been arrested at some point.
I think most MAGAs are only capable of understanding something and having sympathy for anyone else after they have also been personally affected by a particular thing.
There is actually a surprising amount of overlap in legitimate grievances between the MAGA and Proud Boys crowd and the Antifa and BLM crowd. At the same time, all of these groups are heavily infiltrated by Feds looking to sow discord and further divide everyone.
We have a house with a Trump flag and a pride flag in our neighborhood.
People are more complicated than we give them credit for sometimes.
Not in general – that’s why we all do a double take when we encounter someone like that.
Ha, fair point.
This says: “I’m somebody’s brother in law. That brother in law.”
Vehicles express your personality, but you can’t change them like you change a pair of shoes. Bright colors, mods & graphics are bold all of the time. Like, maybe I feel like a lime-green open-exhaust warrior today, but sometimes I just want to blend into the landscape. Vehicle fashion takes a high level of commitment.
I’m going to make my custom-built microcar/”bicycle” look like something out of a low-budget post apocalyptic film.
Fashion? It’s getting a rust-colored paintjob, a big fat bright-red anarchy sign on the left side, a hood ornament of a silver Baphomet sitting Indian style with the wings spread out and the torch on its head functioning as a 3rd LED headlight, pentagram wheel disc covers, red, orange, yellow, and blue LEDs inside the wheels so that at night I can make them look like they’re on fire(and increase visibility), a fallout shelter sign on a hinge for a rear derailleur access hatch, and the front is going to be painted to look like some Lovecraftian abomination. Lots of black metal will be played while riding it. People are going to FEAR all of my 13 horsepower when I do donuts in the middle of the intersections with the “Bike Life” crowd or hoon around with them at triple digit speeds.
A lifted bro-truck adorned with black plastic and truck nutz and a paintjob designed to intimidate are seemingly ubiquitous by comparison.
Learned a nifty metal antiquing trick once – heat up the metal to sizzling hot with a propane torch, then spray on copper sulfate solution (e.g. gun bluing) and let the water flash off. You get a nice thin copper plate that looks nasty.
Jason, you live in NC, you should be fairly familiar with this sight, giant truck, covered in questionable flair, it’s very much a culture.
Also less than 20 years ago it was still acceptable for a movie to feature a car with a confederate flag on the roof, and that came out of hollywood.
You can’t force people to wake up, if anything that will make some people(most) hunker down on their opinions and rights, for many they just have to figure it out for themselves, whether that’s through the differently oriented nurse they end up having while they’re in hospice, or a little sooner, it’s usually at the personal level, and after some more life experience.
Nobody is forcing anyone to “wake up.”
Recognizing what a symbol means is not waking up.
Deciding a single person is OK does not represent a change in overall views.
I was just saying in general, it’s very hard to change a persons prejudices, especially if they surround themselves with similar minded people. For lack of a better term is usually takes a ‘come to Jesus’ experience, or being transplanted to a different environment.
I get what you’re saying. A lot of folks down here were raised to think it’s just another symbol of southern heritage without realizing that it’s still used to intimidate certain groups. (Or sometimes folks just don’t have the self-awareness to understand that the Confederacy was Not Good, Folks, to say the least.) If you don’t run in a very diverse circle, it can be a bit baffling when someone says that this thing that’s never harmed you or anyone you know has some big ol’ baggage attached.
There’s a great anecdote about Dale Earnhardt taking the flag off his truck that his family liked to tell on the matter: https://nascar.nbcsports.com/2015/07/05/a-story-about-dale-earnhardt-and-the-confederate-flag/
Sometimes all it takes is someone chiming in with an honest, person-to-person account of the ways that particular symbol can be really harmful, or at the very least, project a VERY unfriendly image to folks you don’t know.
Well since I will assume you are referring to The Dukes of Hazzard movie, at least when they went to Atlanta they got hassled by people for their flag motif.
It’s the truck equivalent of those pop up Halloween stores. Only it’s there year round for some inexplicably reason.
I live in the south, was born and raised in the south, and love being here. I can and will engage in vigorous debates about cornbread, sweet tea, and how to properly make a biscuit. George Jones and George Strait are featured prominently in my playlist. However, I will tell you if someone has a confederate battle flag, it is very safe to assume they are racist. Some of the most racist people I have ever met, confidently declare they are not. A lifetime of experience has told me to judge people based on their actions not their words, and consciously displaying a flag that has deep negative racial connotations is an action that can and should be considered.
Here is what it says to me:
The owner is either outright racist, OK being associated with racists or tolerant of racist behaviors.
They are likely insecure in their masculinity and subscribe to a very narrow definition of what masculinity is. Likely a very toxic one.
That poor truck is a walking symbol of existing in a very small world inside aargee society and being very, very frightened.
I feel like the driver is hoping that Andrew Tate starts a GoFundMe so he can donate to his legal defense.
Skulls seem to be big among the ruined truck crowd these days. 9 out of 10 trucks I see on the road with poorly fitting wheels have some kind of skull on them. A significant portion of those have stickers shaped like silhouettes of assault rifles next to their death skulls as a demonstration of their enthusiasm for murder, I guess
The message being conveyed is “I’m a racist with a tiny penis”.
I’m no Dr. Crentist, but at least the skull seems to indicate some pretty good dental hygiene.
Perhaps the eyes are a symbol of the numerous red-eye flights this person takes to raise money for a non-profit which provides aid to refugees and their cats.
Careful, now. I understand people WANT to make a statement and be judged on appearances. However, if we presume to know nature of the character of this driver then we could be guilty of some of the same negative behaviors we might associate with the driver. I think there’s a word for that…you know, where you pre-judge someone? Not everyone has the same associations with imagery and symbols as you might think.
Careful, equating prejudice based on things like skin tone to assumptions based on the symbols someone uses to show their personality and beliefs is disingenuous.
And someone having a different association with the imagery and symbols of the Confederacy (or, really, a specific battle flag that was only used to represent the whole Confederacy later) speaks volumes.
There’s a guy near me who’s been trying to sell a ’66 Beetle, painted matte grey with large Naziesque (as in, you know what they’re supposed to be, but he stopped just short of painting the actual design) symbols all over it. Thing has been off and on the market for the last 3 years and he wants top dollar. At one point, I considered at least making him a rock bottom offer, since it’s in decent shape otherwise, but the thought of even having to drive it home in traffic like that was a major turnoff. Would have to put a paper bag over my head or something
I’ve not looked at anything quite that bad, but I’ve definitely seen some things I’d want to take a spray can to before I drove them. But I also balk at giving those people money, even if it’s a low price.
You make a valid point.
I just count myself in the camp of people who are always going to treat everyone with dignity and respect…even those that don’t deserve dignity and respect. A lot of people only want to treat people with dignity those that they think deserve to be treated with dignity. Say, because they see a Confederate battle flag, or an ANTIFA T-shirt.
…but that’s just me. I will (try to) treat a racist and bigoted and (insert awful thing here) person as well as I do anyone else. I just might not want to hang around with them. Me casting aspersions at these people does not help.
I think we can agree on that much, right?
I can agree with treating people with human dignity. I’m not one of the people who thinks everyone in [insert state] deserves awful things because of where they live and who is elected there. I’m not going to go up and yell at this guy for driving this. But I’m not going to shy away from a discussion about what this means, and I am certainly not going to pretend that it doesn’t mean exactly what it stands for.
Thank you. You get it. Everyone is deserving of basic human dignity, even those that are popularly thought of as monsters. The act of stripping them of their humanity makes oneself no different than those who have done the same people in the past.
This is exactly the point I was trying to make…seems a lot of people here in this thread don’t appreciate the irony of their own comments.
I’m reminded of this funny war game I used to play as a kid (Gammarauders) that had a playable faction that were belligerent pacifists: They believed everyone should believe in pacifism…and if you did not believe in pacifism?…then DEATH TO YOU!
Bro.
Listen man I get where you are trying to come from but do you HONESTLY believe that at this point in America the overwhelming cultural frame of the confederate flag is one of racial oppression and a symbol of hate?
If I wear an ACAB/antifa shirt I expect to have people make assumptions about my beliefs because of how it is seen cultural. This same expectations applies to the confederate flag.
Words and symbols meanings change over them. Change with them or you just end up a racist grandpa.
“I like to cosplay as a tough guy!”
I don’t get it. Skeletons are weak sauce bro. Easily dispatched with a boom stick or, well, anything really.
Groovy…
You just have to say “claatu berata nick cough cough” and it’ll take care of all those nasties.
Uh-oh, I don’t think that’s quite right…
{ ground rumbles ominously }
This truck’s got a bone to pick with you!
Also, “Dixie Deathtruck” sounds like a goth drag queen.
It’s more of a roller derby name.
Why not both?
Needs a pair of Truck Nutz to finish it off. Photoshop some in will ya?
Damn – beat me to it!
That’s just a printed vinyl wrap, by the way. About $30 on Amazon. Lots of different styles available. So you could put one on the Pao and REALLY confuse some people!
Imagine the Pao with a bald eagle wrap on the back
Dang it! I went down the rabbit hole
https://www.etsy.com/market/truck_tailgate_wraps?ref=pagination&page=1
Not a truck guy (I have no need for one), but I kinda like the Deadpool one. And the Pig Brook Trout—but I’m not going to google that one because it’s probably something awful I don’t want to know about. I just like it cause it’s silly. Everything seems so damn serious: silliness takes one out of that even if only for a moment.
Most sign-making shops will have a printer capable of printing onto vinyl, so you could print your own with any design, pretty cheaply. How about a massive “Autopian” wrap?
(I used to work for a company making giant sign-making printers)
Oh, I know. Operating a room full of such printers is my day job.
Print up a tailgate wrap of Torch’s face when you’re not busy. He can put it on the Marshall!
…how much to sneak a giant ’70s van-style wizard decal across the Pao?
(Bonus points if the dragon has five VWs.)