Taylor Swift Is Dancing On A Strange Car On Her New Tour, What The Hell Is It?

Our behind-the-scenes partner Jeff took his wife and daughter to see Taylor Swift last night, like a good dad/husband, and like a good gearhead he noticed something interesting, car-related, and sent it on to Autopian HQ for analysis. What he sent was that image you see up there, from Ms. Swift’s performance, where there is an image of a car projected onto or displayed on the surface of that big rectangular something. The question is, of course, what the hell kind of car is that? Let’s figure it out.

It seems the car-image is designed to take abuse from Taylor and her backup dancers as they whack it with glowing golf clubs, which must be in reference to this scene in the video for the song “Blank Space,” where Taylor Swift beats the crap out of a Shelby Cobra, or, far more likely, a Shelby Cobra replica:

Here’s a still of the Cobra in question:

Okay, so perhaps they wanted to represent the same sort of car for Taylor Swift and company to beat the crap out of; but, as you can see here, as the illusory car takes damage from those clubs, the dents nicely synthesized via the magic of, let’s say, computers:

Even with the damage, we can see the car is not a Cobra, at least not exactly. In fact, I don’t think it’s any car that actually exists at all. What I do think is that it is a composite of three different cars:

Based on analyses from the new Autopian Mainframe (a Commodore Pet 4016 with one smoking capacitor) the Swift-abuse-target-simulated car seems to be pulled from three primary sources: the front clip seems to be a modified Dino 206 GT (you know the sorta-Ferrari Dino), the middle seems to be adapted from a Cobra, with modifications to the heat extraction vents and doorline and smaller side pipes, and I think the rear is from an Austin-Healey 3000. But It almost could be a Jaguar XK120, too? I’m really not sure.

What do you think, that’s what I want to really know! I think the best way to spend the last bit of your work week is puzzling over what cars Taylor Swift’s graphics team pulled from to make this strange, abused hybrid.

If I knew jack about Taylor Swift, I’d end this with some funny reference. But I don’t. I’m an old man! Get off my ass!

[Ed note: I have a daughter, ears and a beating heart and therefore can make roughly a million Taylor Swift jokes and references (the best Speak Now track is “Mean” and the best Midnights track is “Vigilante Shit” if you’re curious). I think what you’re looking for is: Grab a list of car names with Cobra in red, underlined. You check it once, and you check it twice, and then you comment. – MH]