You know what’s fun but we haven’t done in a long, long time? Played Automotive Would You Rather! I used to do this every now and then um, somewhere else, but there’s no reason we can’t do it here, right? It’s summer and I’m feeling frivolous, anyway. If you want something rich and meaty, you can read David’s Bronco Raptor review/suspension primer or Tycho’s Chinese hydrogen deep dive. But if you just want a snack, a handful of only slightly palm-sweaty M&Ms, then I got you covered, because we’re about to indulge in one of those glorious thought-experiments that is a good Automotive Would You Rather, so lube up that brain and get ready.
Okay, here’s the premise: you accidentally summon a Magic Horse when you had an erotic thought while eating a Starburst Fruit Chew and holding a lithium battery (maybe the one in your phone?) which is the most common way magic horses tend to be summoned from the Great Galloping Fields that exist in a dimension parallel and to the left of ours.
The horse appears, and, as thanks for granting him access to our dimension (they like to go to Trader Joe’s while they’re here, as those don’t exist in Magic Horse Dimension) he offers you the chance to have, for free, and in absolutely perfect running condition, the car of your choice. It can be literally any car that’s ever been built, and the horse will materialize it right now, in your driveway, and drop the keys in your hand from his big horse-mouth.
Want a Tatra T87? I sure do! You can have it. A perfect Ford GT40? No problem! A McLaren 720s? Jaguar E-Type? Lotus Esprit? Spyker C8? Stout Scarab? Whatever you want! It’s yours!
Oh, there is one catch, though. Well, two, because you can pick, and they’re both tape-related. You see, as part of the deal, due to complex negotiations with the 3M corporation and the Interscope record label, your car of choice must either be extensively covered with DOT-approved 3M reflective red-and-white high visibility tape or, if you can’t stomach doing that to your Lamborghini Miura, then you can agree to have a tape deck installed with a cassingle of the Black Eyed Peas song My Humps playing in it, and that tape can never be removed or turned off. You can adjust the volume a bit, but it’ll never be silent; figure the lowest volume you can turn it down to is right about where you’re comfortably able to talk over it, but you can definitely still hear it with no trouble.
Of course, you can crank it as loud as you’d like, if you want.
So, here’s your choice: you can have any car you want, and it’ll run beautifully and be in pristine condition as long as you have it– the oil changes and other scheduled maintenance will even occur via magic horse teams coming to do it every 1500 miles via the power of astral projection – but it’ll either have to be absolutely slathered in that reflective red-and-white tape, or it’ll be playing My Humps nonstop, forever.
So which tape-tradeoff do you choose?
Morgan 3-Wheeler with the cassingle. I can still remove speakers, right? Or noise-cancelling headphones.
Reflective tape all the way. A great driving car that looks goofy is FAR better than hearing any song on infinite repeat.
I can’t choose a car, but I can choose a tape. Reflective tape is my tape of choice. Who cares what it looks like.
1. Function
2. Fit
3. Form (always last)
Reflective tape has very little effect on my enjoyment of the car. That said, the choice of car is pretty difficult. Knowing it will always be maintained and in pristine condition really makes me want to intentionally pick something that would be very difficult to repair/maintain just because I don’t have to worry about it.
Secondary choice: Of the seven cars Torch lists which would you have? I think I would go for the Tatra or Scarab just because they are unusual.
I’ll take the E-type, cause E-type! With my humps.
Sure the Tatra and Stout are unique and eye-catching
But OMG That Jaguar! I don’t have to maintain it, it would never leave me stranded, Lucas be damned electrics never to be spoken of! I don’t think I’d ever let off the accelerator long enough to hear the radio!
Thanks Grendl! I need to go shower now 🙁
1. You didn’t say I can’t remove the reflective tape.
2. The cassingle will wear out and break in a week of constant play. I know, I had it happen back in the day. If I get to choose the brand of tape deck, it’ll be a Pyle in order to hasten that day.
I think I’d still choose #1. My car choice is a 58 Corvette Stingray. I’ll invest in a truckload of WD-40 and peel that stuff right off.
Is it cheating if I just disconnect all the speakers because who needs speakers? It’s probably cheating. If I’ve found the loophole then Black Eyed Peas with no speakers. Otherwise I’d just pick something that looks good with reflective tape, like A Volvo C202 or Gurgel X15. Win-win.
This is what happens when the rules are not presented or well thought out. Screw you Torch you sadist. I’m just gonna pull the damn fuse and install my own tunes.
Or find a louder vehicle.
Silly human, you thought the sound came from speakers. If you could even comprehend one millionth of the Astral plane you would understand that the sound would vibrate directly from there into your car.
If what you say is true, why does the horse require the installation of a tape deck? If the sound was created by direct vibrations in the structure of the car, the tape deck would be superfluous.
Again, I’m assuming the horse just didn’t think this through. I think the magical horse is ready for the glue factory.
I had a similar thought about the speakers, but I figure disconnecting speakers that are present would violate some kind of magical contract (which I presume would be bad). However, didn’t Porsche release a version of the Boxster a few years ago that had no sound system or air conditioning? The horse said I had to install a tape deck, but said nothing about installing speakers. I figure if my car didn’t come with speakers from the factory, I am not violating any agreement by not adding them.
For a magical horse, he seems a bit dim. The speaker loophole is obvious.
Gimme the shiny tape. Maybe it can go TikTok-viral and become a new fad.
Cassingle. I can turn it down low and pop in some earbuds to cover it up with real sounds.
I feel like someone cleverer than me could come up with a reflective tape design that looked cool, or maybe better yet a candy stripe paint job that would accommodate the pattern of the tape. Either way, my humps might be the single dumbest song released this century, so I’ll gladly take visual dissonance over that particular torture
I went ahead and took the Black eyed peas tape option for my Pagani Zonda R, with the intention of having a second sound unit installed that will be synchronized with the cassingle andplay the exact opposite frequencies of “My Humps,” thereby canceling it out and making it inaudible. The single isn’t turned off, I haven’t broken any of the magical rules and I win. Science, magical horse bitch.
I call Horsey Sauce!
Excellent white noise.
Could be worse I guess, Sweet Lemonade (Horse Dance Song) by weebls-stuff.
Good idea, but enjoy your Black Eyed Peas induced insanity, Phil. The rules clearly state that My Humps can be turned down a bit, “but it’ll never be silent”. Magic Horses are clearly skilled at delivering Monkey Paw wishes.
This also goes for everyone thinks that the tape deck will break (the Astral Horse Mechanics will fix that before you even realize it’s broken, because pristine condition includes the installed tape deck) or that you’ll somehow mute or otherwise mask the sound. Even if you have the exhaust deleted, horse rules say “you can definitely still hear it with no trouble”.
Besides, you wouldn’t really want to risk getting the Magic Horse in trouble with a record label, would you? Even a Monkey Paw wish delivering Magic Horse doesn’t deserve that!
The only car douchey enough for the “My Humps” version of this challenge is a Fox-body Ford Mustang GT, from the 1987-1993 “Aero” restyle, with a T-Top that is always open.
The opposite question is “what would you curse your enemies with”, given the same conditions?
No the rules say that it can’t be turned off. It won’t be turned off, it’ll be canceled out.
I think reflective tape would look just fine on a green Bronco. The mud will cover it up eventually.
I’ll go with the My Humps option…
Reflective tape on a 1956 Mercedes 300SL.
Frankly, the way people drive these days, the reflective tape isn’t a terrible idea, even on an F40. Or Testarossa. It’d be a tough choice.
I spent many weekends in 2005-2008 in karaoke bars. I’ve heard “My Humps” done badly enough times to last several lifetimes. I hope to never hear it again.
The first time I heard it represented too many times that I was subjected to it. I have similar feelings about all of their music.
The only thing worse? Nickleback. Or maybe this garbage they call California Country.
*modern country. The old stuff was barely tolerable, the modern crap will have you looking for a cliff to jump off of.
The Devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin’ for a soul to steal
He was in a bind ’cause he was way behind
He was willing to make a deal
*Maybe he was just a magical horse offering cars instead of fiddles of gold…
Yeah that stripes crap can be done real well in a wrap or paint job. Are we forced to make this a shitty safety tape crap from the Walmart bling isle? Or is creative thinking allowed? We demand answers here…
As my my dream ?car? is a steam showman’s engine towing a van and a steam organ I will take the cassingle.
I don’t think I could stomach caution tape all over my Ferrari 550 Maranello. Plumber truck chic is not en vogue. I would then get a huge magnet and deguasse that tape into oblivion.
If the magic horse is picking up the maintenance tab, why not get a Ferrari?
I’m assuming we can’t just flip the car and take the profit to buy what we actually want, right? Because if so, I’ll take reflective tape on my Aventador Ultimae, please! Can I do cool custom designs with the tape too?
If we can just flip it, obviously I’m taking 55 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe (if I’m not mistaken, one just sold recently for like $150M,) flipping that for the bargain-basement price of only $100M and buying all of my dream cars and a track to test them on.
Whoops… I think I accidentally backspaced the slash on my strong end tag…. Oh well, half of this is just bold now 😛 While I’m here
Let’s test somestuff too.While I feel just selling the car is a bit of a cheat, I have to agree that if you had to sell the car complete with it’s “tape curse”, an Aventador wrapped in reflective tape would be an easy sale to some influencer. Nobody would even look twice at it, compared to some of the hideous wraps modern Lamborghinis are subjected to.
Easy. A Citroën DS23 with My Humps on the speakers.
Warning: I have a severe hearing loss, and horses (magic or not) cannot decipher whether I turned off my hearing aids.
Longest 3:55 of my life. The rooskies should’ve just launched their nukes in (*checks release date of My Humps) …2004.
I’d choose the R34 GTR Pace Car, so the tapes would be almost unnoticeable.
You knew it was going to be posted….
Why Not Both???
Oh man, this isn’t even hard.
TVR Sagaris, with the open fender slashes. I presume regular windshield maintenance will be part of the Magic Horse program.
Since the Sagaris already is a bit of a “loogit me!” car, what’s a little reflective tape on top of that? It’ll probably make the car a bit subdued from stock.
Magic horse, please bring me a Sagaris with as much reflective tape as you want.
To clarify, the cassingle option will only be playing *while the car is running,* right? It won’t drain the battery while parked and attract passersby?
It’d really depend on the car.
I think you need to get out of that basement for some fresh air, I swear I don’t know how you come up with this stuff..
That said, reflective tape on a ‘69 Boss Mustang.. I’ll argue in negotiations I should just be able to use the white pieces of the tape as that still technically meets the criteria.
I have to go with the tape because I can’t see it from the inside of the car, and also because I’m not deaf.
Reflective tape, that is.