We live in an era where, with few exceptions, there’s really no such thing as a truly bad car. Every car has some sort of selling point, be it design, an engine, or maybe an interior. It’s telling when the worst insult you could give a car is that it’s aggressively beige.
Thomas wrote about how someone bought a somewhat rusty, but very low-mile 2002 Toyota Camry for $22,000. It’s still not entirely clear why people spend so much money on Bring a Trailer on regular cars, but it could be because that Camry is a boring, yet as dependable as a good dog. That didn’t stop you from cracking jokes, like StillNotATony:
The beige Camry. The car for enthusiasts who think Miracle Whip is a bit too exciting.
Or Hangover Grenade:
That is, without a doubt in my mind, a car.
This reminds me of Subaru’s silly 2011 Mediocrity campaign, where the automaker dressed up an old Kia Optima to look even more boring.
Rivers has written about the silly conspiracy theories around the departure of Tim Kuniskis. One comment stands out from Icouldntfindaclevername:
“According to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (shown above)”
That’s not Carlos…I’ve never seen that dude before
Dodsworth also got in a fun one:
Tim got the Hell out of Dodge. He’ll be all right.
Finally, we land on Jason’s rant about those car underbody pans which always seem to end up broken and flapping around after years of abuse. I cannot unsee this comment by Man With A Reliable Jeep:
Having one of these hanging down on the ground is the automotive equivalent to toilet paper dragging from your shoe.
Have a great evening, everyone!
That second ad makes me want the Mediocrity. We all need at least one car we don’t need to think or worry about at all.
A bright spot in my day. Thank you!
Thanks for the mention! We have a rash of drivers here with aero panels, belly pans, and other miscellaneous things dragging from underneath cars in my area. This was the first thing that came to mind, because the drivers either didn’t care or were woefully oblivious, like any of us would be with 3 sheets of Charmin behind us.
Hold on.. I never gave you my address for where to send the COTD winnings. And I’ll take the 10% reduction for small, non-consecutive bills.
I have no strong feelings about this, one way or the other.
Neutral Vice President: Your Neutralness, it’s a beige alert.
Neutral President: If I don’t survive, tell my wife “Hello.”
Hot take: I’d actually like to see more beige cars on the road than gray or silver. At least that is an actual color with hue and chroma. Gray and silver are just gradations between black and white.
I’m actually thinking of petitioning the NHTSA to prohibit sales of new gray/silver cars. Not only are they boring but they are actually 10% more likely to be involved in a crash because your eye doesn’t pick them up as well as brighter car colors (it’s true, look it up). Who’s with me?
It’s so soul sucking to consider that beige is a better choice than what we have now.
My mind inhabits a dark, conspiratorial sphere when I notice just how many new-to-newish white cars are around these days. White. Used to be the cheap paint that tasteful drivers avoided because it was the color of rental cars and stripper fleet vehicles, like AT&T’s Chevy Astro vans. But now it’s everywhere, on everything from Teslas to Benzes to Audis to Acuras to BMWs to loaded F150s with no company logos on the doors. People just like their new white vehicles now, and I tellya, it creeps me out! I feel like Kevin McCarthy running through the streets of Santa Mira, hollering about how the pod-peoplemovers are coming to get us! They’re already here!! And you’re next!!!
I chose an appliance white for my Silverado work truck for exactly that reason. It’s an appliance. Plus it stays looking cleaner than other colors. The white, to me, says, hey, I’m here to get it done, all business, no frills. Which is my intention. For a regular daily driver, maybe not so much. But then, my buddy back in the day had a 1995 Honda Prelude Si in white and it looked so clean.
A white work truck is the symbol of hard work, and I mean that unironically. Especially if it has factory wheel fitments. There’s an honesty to it all.
I’m convinced this phenomenon is due to the massive swaths of black trim pasted all over cars these days. It gives a two-tone effect even if those two tones aren’t tones at all.
I still hate the amount of white cars out there though.
I know there was an article about this recently but… lately I am shocked at how many clay gray cars I’m seeing. They are absolutely everywhere from every manufacturer, on late models. It’s got to be the color of ’23-24′. Now that I’ve noticed them, I can’t unsee them. I’d be interested to see some industry data on the percent of new cars being sold in these hues.
Wet concrete color. It’s everywhere. My neighbor just bought a new Chevy pickup in that.
I am currently shopping for a car. The ratio of gray and silver cars available versus other colors is easily 3:1, if not 4:1.
Really? Damn, that sucks. I like my grey car (at least, compared to white or black) for not showing dirt as readily as white or black.
That 2011 Mediocrity has aged pretty well, especially when you compare it to the 2019 Menacing.
LOL at Subaru calling other cars mediocrity when they had head gasket problems
On a Food Network competition show, a guest was jokingly described as someone who “thinks apples are spicy”. That’s a rather descriptive phrase.
I swear I thought you were building up to this
https://youtu.be/8yC0isqkoHU?si=6nUe-tG0kX7NTYio
Most car ad campaign ever.
Meh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ecbarULKGU
Oh that’s awesome!
That was a previous COTD feature! 🙂