If I squint, and force my imagination into overdrive, I can visualize faces on the fronts of cars. The headlights are the eyes, the grille is the mouth, etc. They generally look goofy, happy and smiling all the time.
Unless I make a conscious decision to do so, though, I don’t see a face. Just a bumper, a grille, and headlights.
However, a friend of mine recently commented that she sees all cars as having faces, all the time. I imagine this must be creepy as hell.
I’ve seen them that way since I was a kid. In fact, I really disliked some cars on the basis of their “faces” (so I’m shallow ).
I kind of thought everyone saw them. Now what I know is weird is that I have the same reaction to numbers (don’t like 5 or 8 based on their “personalities” but I like 4 and 6 a lot.)
In answer to the OP, I don’t see car’s faces when just generally looking at them, but I can mentally choose to see them. I don’t have to squint, I just sort of decide to look for the face aspect and then I’ll see it. This is pretty much all that occupies me during red lights. That and checking if there any indicator lights blinking in sync with each other.
Hey, me too–the face thing is very very bad for me on the first few days at a new job, particularly in offices where everybody dresses very similarly. (Those darned blue shirts and khaki pants!)
I really loved my '57 Chevy because I thought she had a sweet face, and she was definitely a she. My '60 Corvair, however, looked like a mean bitch. Although in general Chevys tended to have nicer faces than, say, Fords.
I actually don’t see this so much anymore. Every once in awhile, though, I see some car sneering. Those, I avoid.
And the numbers thing, too. I had whole ages I didn’t even want to be because I didn’t like those numbers. Twelve, for instance–I didn’t even want to admit to that age because it was such an ugly number.
Hmmm, those Harvard types might be onto something because I’m terrible with faces too. Despite the fact that I draw them really well. That must be one hell of a factor analysis they’re doing.
Absolutely, cars have faces. Eyes, mouths, usually teeth, and noses. The high end models have eyes that move too – around the curve of a road, for instance.
[Larry The Cable Guy]Lord I apologize for that there joke[/Larry]
I’ve always seen faces in cars. In fact a few years ago my family was up at someones lake house and my sister said “Look at that boat, it looks like…Grandpa” And everyone (everyone that could see it) compleatly agreed.
Sometimes. It’s mostly tail lights that I see as eyes. The fronts of cars are whizzing by way to fast for me to think on them. Commuting to and from work can get you stuck behind a vehicle which allows plenty of time to ruminate on its personality. Some cars are happy. Some are sad. Some are stoned. The one that always get’s me is the Impala. That’s the OH-MY-GOD car. When the driver bumps the break pedal, the Impala’s all “OH-MY-GOD I’m stopping!” or “OH-MY-GOD that car just pulled out in front of me!” or “OH-MY-GOD there’s a cat by the side of the road”----they’re way too exciteable.
I thought you were supposed to see faces in car front ends, it being all part and parcel of the appeal and marketing.
For example, the Camaro face is aggressive, almost scowling, while the early Dodge Neons were far more friendly looking, even to the point of having a wide-eyed smile.
They do, don’t they? Kind of like how, at any moment, they might transform into a 50-ft tall Mecha-Godzilla and inexplicably trash Tokyo for no apparent reason.
I can’t see faces in the front of cars for the most part, though. Glad I’m not only only one whose noticed the faces in tail-lights though; I was starting to think I was more than slightly mad there!
Some cars have faces, many do not. I can’t help but think the newer VW Passats and Jettas, with the chrome grille thingy are wearing bras, though. That makes me a little uncomfortable!
I don’t see faces, but sometimes I watch them negotiate traffic and think of the cars themselves as being sentient and the ones really making all the decisions.
Everyone always said my Dodge Neon looked like it had Downs’ syndrome. That big, wide eyed, goofy semi-smile plastered across it’s bright yellow face made me want to pat it gently when I got out of it.