One of my favorite cars that I’ve ever owned was my old Reliant Scimitar GTE. I’ve only owned two cars that can charitably be considered sports cars of any type, a 1968 Volvo 1800S and a 1973 Reliant Scimitar GTE. Neither is particularly fast or anything like that, but the Scimitar felt fast, with a fiberglass shooting brake body and a beefy 3-liter V6 under the hood, behind the spare tire. I happened to see a brochure for the Scimitar GTE, and I was enjoying some pleasant reminiscing and nostalgia, until I sabotaged myself because one of the headlines in the brochure is all but impossible to read with modern eyes with laughing like a 14 year old boy.
I’d blame the internet, but the truth is I did this to myself.
Before we go into that, let’s take a moment to see me and my Scimitar in both of our faded glory:
Ah, good times! What a fantastic car! The brochure I think does a good job extolling the virtues of this stylish and flexible machine, and uses these two-word hyphenates as headlines for each section. The first one, shown up top, and, what the hell, again right here, reads “tradition-upholder”:
And here you can see the tradition of a man rebuking a horse, which Britons have been doing for centuries. This also fits with the Scimitar fact everyone likes to tell you, that Princess Anne had one because she was dating a horse or something like that. The point is, Scimitars are horse-compatible.
Also, that blacked-out B-pillar was really ahead of its time, I’m just realizing!
I guess the title page doesn’t really have one of those hyphenated headlines, but it’s such a nice picture of the car, I had to show it. Here’s one with one of those headlines:
Mile-eater! Sure, why not? And, they’re not wrong: the Scimitar was a great highway car, a great high-speed tourer, with overdrive on the rear axle (giving actually six gears, because overdrive worked on fourth and third) and very comfortable seats. Man, I miss this car!
The next page shows off one of the greatest features of the car, the fact that it was the first production car with split-folding rear seats, and an impressive amount of cargo-hauling capacity. The Scimitar GTE was a true shooting brake, a fast station wagon, practical and very useful. And, of course, the brochure has to show this, and does so well, including some handy diagrams showing seat configurations.
Okay, now we get to the headline that made me realize that, despite being alive on Earth for over five decades, I’m still a child:
I’m not even going to mention it, because I know you’re thinking it, too. So don’t act all superior, you! Let’s just all agree this is not a headline that would work today.
We never really grow up, do we?
Growing up is overrated.
Oh man, oh man… that’s a perfect reveal for scrolling on an iPad. I got to that and I just howled with laughter. I actually threw my head back on the couch and laughed and laughed…. Goddamn that’s fucking funny.
Something about Princess Anne and a horse?
Load swallower?
Oh, come now!
I read on waiting for the punchline. And I was not disappointed, thank you.
Nothing to be ashamed of, swallowing loads is just what a car does to keep its place in the garage. Some are better at it than others, but as long as they give it their best when necessary they’re not likely to be traded in on a newer model.
Game over – Article of the Year!! Lol…
Load swallower in a three-way. Yup.
But that “load”: My Matrix holds more than that with the seats down, which fold flat, and my trunk door doesn’t create a completely annoying lip. Slide stuff in, slide stuff out, including myself on a blow-up mattress for sleeping on before the 2017 solar eclipse.
I have not taken it to 120mph, though.
PHEV low-slung wagon for the win. I’m not asking much.
“The past is another country.”
I just laughed out loud in the office. So yeah, right there with ya bud.
I am forever jealous of these, one of my favorite cars of all time. And also, hahahahaha silly
The horse likely used the word “aluminum”. Ghastly!