So, I was taking a look at my neighbor’s truck, which prominently displays the “King Ranch Edition” nameplate on the back. And I was thinking : you know, a real ranch vehicle wouldn’t have leather seats and all those useless features. It would be beaten up, smell like cigarettes inside, have the heaviest fabric seats that had been patched many times, a permanent layer of mud on the undercarriage…
So I’ve got a new business idea. Certain clothing stores now sell “pre-worn” clothing, where they beat up a pair of jeans in a washer with rocks in it then tear em and add paint stains. So let’s do the same thing with cars for people with too much money. We’ll start with a brand new truck, then in the factory, we make the outer body look like it’s actually been used hard on a ranch. We’ll leave the engine and drivetrain alone - just the outer body and the interior.
What do you think? Another billion of revenue for Ford or GM?
Google “fake patina.” Shops have been airbrushing on rust ever since the rat rod craze took off. Mostly they’re doing it on old cars, but here’s an all too common example of a new VW Beetle with fake rust painted everywhere (eagle-eyed observers will note that plastic bumpers don’t rust.)
You are a bit out of touch on jeans. The hip new thing is ‘raw’ denim that has never been washed and is solidly dark blue. Also, washing jeans with rocks (known as stonewashing) has been going on for decades and is how almost all jeans get their color. It isn’t exactly cutting edge.
Seriously distressed jeans (I mean jeans that I would have tossed in the trash a long time ago) are huge in fashion right now.
I think the problem with the pre-distressed cars is twofold – first, psychologically, a pre-distressed car is going to make buyers suspect that the machinery might be as distressed as the exterior. And second, even truck drivers seem to like a brand new shiny machine that they can distress themselves – at least that’s the sense I get from watching way too many T.V. shows about people who get themselves into debt.
Wat. I was kind of trolling, I was trying to think of ever more ridiculous ways for yuppies to blow cash. I didn’t realize they actually already did this already, driving cars with fake rust damage…
I believe there was once an American company called “Rent a Wreck” which hired out battered old vehicles with the USP that they didn’t care if you dinged it a little more .
that was the Vega. The irony was the Vega was the first car to get a full-body anti-corrosion dip prior to painting. The problem was that there were pockets where the front fenders met the body/wheelhouse where the dip couldn’t reach, but water/salt/muck could get flung up there by the tires. So it would, and the (thin) sheetmetal would rust pretty quickly from the inside out.
Rent-a-Wreck is still around, although their motto these days is “don’t let the name fool you!” so they’re clearly backpedaling a bit on the cutesy name. Their model has always been that they franchise out to used car dealers, so what exactly you get varies quite a lot. In general it’s usually just 5-ish year old cars instead of a 0-3 year old cars with the major agencies, so it’s not like they’re renting total jalopies. (They also at least used to be the only company that would rent to 18 year olds.)
