With so many IPAs and other microbrews out there, it seems as if they’re going to be struggling to find new names soon. Besides, they all have to be different or it will be like going to my kid’s school concerts and there’s like half a dozen Aidens and Ryans.
I’m very aware that open containers of alcohol and motor vehicles don’t mix, but from an Autopian standpoint, you’d think there’d be more beers out there with motorcar-themed titles.
Sure, there are a few of them, like the Flat 12 from Bierwerks and one from Breckenridge named after a rather forgotten chunk of pre-collapse Chrysler called 72 Imperial.
Still, there could be many more. I was happy to see that Massachusetts brewery Trillium is now releasing what they claim to be the first of their “Dashboard Series” that pay tribute to the cars that we grew up in. Well, “we” seemingly meaning millennials and some GenXers based on their initial entry.
Here’s how I saw it described on Facebook:
“Inspired by the familiar cars of our childhood, Grand Caravan is the first entry in The Dashboard Series, our new lineup of West Coast IPAs. Each is a nod to the rides that took us everywhere.”
The first one is called “Grand Caravan”, with the dashboard of the first generation model of the extended-wheelbase Dodge minivan shown on the packaging.
It’s an easy choice, considering it’s the family car that many people of a certain age grew up in as rather new vehicles, and some of which still roam the earth as battle-scarred warriors like the one pictured on The Black Key’s seemingly incongruously titled album El Camino.
Exactly what the next vehicles in the supposed “series” will be are not shown on the brewery’s website as far as I could tell, which is just as well. Let’s face it: as Autopians this selection process is a task made just for us.
I can start, but my family’s cars were a bit too strange to really make sense for this nostalgia series. Our Volvo 240 wagon might work but that has too much modern-day hipster baggage, not to mention people today thinking it’s a lot cooler they probably should. However, I could think of one car that was very thick on the ground back in the day. If your childhood took place anywhere from the late sixties up through the nineties, at least a few of your friend’s parents almost certainly drove some form of Oldsmobile Cutlass.
I’d split the difference of that big year range and chose the Cutlass Ciera, a front wheel drive General Motors “A” body Oldsmobile version of what was also sold as the Chevy Celebrity, Buick Century and Pontiac 6000, or GOOOLE.
Available with the Iron Duke four or various V6s, only the last ones of the 1982-96 run had anything over 150 horsepower. Thankfully, they were able to get pronounced torque steer even with the base 92 horse gas engine (the rare diesel only pumped out 85 but had a stump-ripping 165 lb-ft of torque).
If we’re talking dashboards here, the Ciera really encapsulates that mid-eighties GM gestalt; straight lines, fake wood, and every one of the many rectangles framed in simulated chrome. One look at the dashboard will take you back in time to 800 degree-hot Pizza Hut personal pans and games of Galaga.
I never saw one with a tachometer and full instruments like above; I didn’t think you could get one with more than a gas gauge and 85MPH speedometer with a painfully highlighted “55” like the one below.
How about you? What car and dashboard do you think Trillium should chose for the next beer in their series? The duller and more unsung the better, I say. Let’s hear your choices!
Audi Dasher – a little dash’ll do ya
Honda Fit – fit this in your belly
Honda Prelude – you won’t believe what happens next
Yugo – you go home and drink by yourself
If it was a generic lager, the front-drive A-bodies fit the concept. Need a new label to boost sales? Use the same lager with a different label. What does it taste like? Could be Bud or Coors or Miller. Or Pontiac, Chevrolet, or Buick.
Rambler Classic. An IPA with hints of rust.
Make a shameless Coors ripoff and call it Bandit One.
Keystone Light- Buick Le Sabre edition. Just seems appropriate.
Hey, my LeSabre has 300k, more rust than steel, and a transmission that’s giving up the ghost. Yet it still starts and drives every day since it came off the truck at the dealership- without fail.
If any beer should be called “LeSabre”, it’s a STOUT.
I’m talking clientele though! when we were prepping my lesabre for the gambler 500, more than a few beers with “light” or “lite” in the name were knocked over
The Crown Vic, a Grand Cru
I admit it makes my eye twitch a bit that they used a Caravan from the pre-Grand years for the photo op. Yeah yeah, same dash and there’s not a die cast of a gen-1 Grand Caravan AFAIK, but still. I hope in another variation of the beer they use a 3rd gen Chrysler van dash (which Kendrick Lamar also granted an album cover). We had a Grand Voyager Expresso, could be a coffee stout maybe?
For FWD A-bodies A Celebrity or Century dash is probably most demonstrative of that sort of malaise, the Ciera at least offered full instrumentation as in the first pic.
A 6000STE or any Pontiac with the steering wheel audio controls would be too “rad.” There’s a few G-body Cutlass beers – New Anthem Two Tone, Cutlass Supreme from Alvarado. A buddy picked up yellowmiata beer from Veil, seems like they have others like white, red, green, and…dirty.
I echo the Taurus nominations below but feel like there has to be a 3rd gen oval Taurus one too. Trademarks probably wouldn’t allow a “Hertz Hefeweizen” but maybe “Rental Rye.” Or a “Learner’s Permit Lager.”
Perhaps an English ale for the Sterling 800 series.
Is something for Mazda’s oscillating air vents and only that too specific?
“Yeah yeah, same dash and there’s not a die cast of a gen-1 Grand Caravan AFAIK, but still”
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but the interior doesn’t match either. Pre-refresh Caravans used a 2-spoke steering wheel with both spokes pointing in a 5 and 7 o’clock position.
Good point, though I think the dash matches for a Grand Caravan then since Grands were post-refresh.
I know for the die cast they just used what existed, I just felt nitpicky too, lol.
Bizzarrini Bière de Garde
Monte Carlo Malt Liquor
Chrysler Imperial IPA
Kaiser Kolsch
Cordoba… so smooth you won’t even notice that the spokesman is seducing your historian and plotting to take command of your starship.
One of several cars in which I learned to drive. I approve.
I learned to drive on dad’s ’80. Black with maroon crushed velour interior. Not the best-built car ever, but one of the most comfortable.
Drove to soccer practice in plenty of Cutlass Ciera wagons as a kid in the 80’s. A buddy of mine had a Cutlass Supreme in high school in the 90’s. We used to joke that it was a just a Cutlass Ciera with sour cream added because of that’s what “supreme” meant on the Taco Bell menu.
Geo Metro… once ubiquitous cheap transportation, now a beloved subject for LS swaps. Drove a 3-cyl ’96 hatchback myself back then. One I had was a manual, and despite its double digit horsepower numbers, if you knew what you were doing, you could still drift it.
Taurus wagon. And it should be a triple IPA since so many of us have memories sitting in the third row “way back” seats.
You could tie in TMNT and have “Bossa Nova? Chevy Nova!”
Buick Reatta Rye.
Chrysler imperial stout
The Breeze Kneeze
Lincoln Lager
Scout Stout
That it is an IPA influences my choice considerably. IPAs used to be unique and interesting, but now every neighborhood watering hole has its own IPA that is indistinguishable from all others. IPAs are basically a generic beer for older millennials. Boomers had Budweiser. We have “craft” IPAs.
So to me, the beer should be named after a vehicle that once seemed special but now is common. In the automotive world, the best example of that is Porsche. As a kid, Porsche products mainly consisted of 911s which I rarely saw. At the time, the sight of a Porsche was a rare treat. Today, I see eight Macans, three Boxsters, and a Cayenne every time I go to the grocery store. It is rare for me to even take a second glance when I see a Porsche, if I even notice them at all.
Like IPAs, I wouldn’t consider modern Porsches watered down. Both are still very good. They are no longer special, though. So I would call the beer the Innumerable Porsches Ale. For the pictures, I would use the Macan as that vehicle sums up Porsche’s transition from special to ordinary.
I want to see the 85 mph speedometer from a 1980 sports car that tried to flout the law
The Fiero IPA! Looks like a good idea, but leaves a bitter taste you your mouth after you try it. Just like an IPA.
Instead do a Square Body Stout. I could roll with both the truck and the beer (but not at the same time of course).
Ram Bock
They’ve effectively already got the Grand Caravan I grew up in covered, so this would also cover the Sundance that I spent just as much time in. A series of K-Car IPAs – just as breweries usually offer like 17 different takes on IPA because they’re relatively easy and popular enough, Chrysler built like 17 different K-Car variants because they were easy and popular enough.
I still want to try this though, if it ever manages to make its way to the LCBO.
Until my sister was born when I was about 4, my mother had a Capri 1600, but that’s not really representative of what most people had. That was followed by an Aspen wagon with simulated wood trim and an ’85 Voyager with the same, but those sucked and the latter was already used. Those Cieras were everywhere, but I’ll go with another, much better, ubiquitous car: Caprice Classic or if it’s got to be a Cutlass, go with a decent one: the G-body Cutlass. For something more iconic and emblematic of a dead class of vehicle that only flourished during that brief period of time, a Subaru BRAT. Plus, the interior had those cool little control pods behind the wheel.
Oldsmobile Diesel – thick like diesel fuel, to be leisurely consumed, like the cruiser that the diesel was, and your exhaust will be heavy and stink…