The specific tone and inflection that car guys use when calling a car a “piece of shit,” the pleasure and ownership of a casually dismissive and entirely correct authority — now, with the Cybertruck, we can all share in this once niche pleasure
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Now my brain is playing a mashup of Sir Mix-a-lot’s “My Hooptie” and Adam Sandler’s “Piece of Shit Car”, which is loads cooler than anything made by Tesla has ever deserved.
I'm not a car person but I rapturously devour every new story about how much the Cybertruck sucks. it's the purest form of schadenfreude you can feel in 2024
Maybe that’s the true purpose and reason for the Cybertruck. It’s not about revolutionizing the auto or tech industry. It’s not about pushing design to bold, new heights. It’s about uniting disparate groups of people and cultures in joyful hatred over what an immense piece of shit it is.
The borrowd Dodge Dart I drove in DC in the summer of '78 was a piece of shit in the former sense. The '76 Datsun B210 that was the first car I owned outright was unequivocally an example of the second one.
Ahhh, yes. My sister had a B210 and it couldn’t even climb a hill until it was completely warmed up. I had the Plymouth Duster and loved that piece of shit!
I sold mine faster than I've ever unloaded a car since (I'm a ride-til-it-dies guy) after it tried to kill me on the old ramp from the Central Artery on to Storrow Drive in Boston. Driving (slowly!) in the rain it lost all traction. It did a 360 and came (thankfully) to a halt against the rail.
Except when we call a car a piece of shit, it's knowing it's been running for over a decade and is just trying it's best.
Found a guy on tiktok who has a Cybertruck, his front screen stopped working and, after trying to reset it, a process that should take a minute, was told it takes 5 hours.
The Cybertruck being a piece of shit is also unprecedented in that we know ahead of time it will never become ironically cool in the future. It lacks the depth of YUGO or Bricklin stories, or the sheer catastrophy of GM's diesel V8, or Edsel. Or the PT Cruiser.
Chrysler made the safest road vehicle in years, but the dipshits in marketing thought it wouldn't sell, so they were manufactured at a loss for their entire run
The PT Cruiser suffered from a similar affliction as the Cybertruck though: the unlikeable cult of their fans. The only difference for the PT Cruiser is that it wasn't an irrevocable piece of shit before it even debuted, so its reputation has recovered in recent years.
Bad ideas executed badly are still viewed with some affection (see: Trabant). The problem with the CT is the unearned, self-conscious arrogance of it. The Cringeline.
It won’t get the bump the DeLorean got from Back to the Future either, because even though I think a Cybertruck is the obvious choice for the time machine in a BTTF reboot, we can confidently predict a BTTF reboot would also be a piece of shit
“Well that just happened!” says the guy from Young Sheldon as he crashes his Cybertruck into a barn in 1994. Later he performs “Hey Ya” to a group of flannel-wearing 90s teenagers while Doc Brown (played by Adam Scott) tries to fix the software on the truck, which bricked itself trying to update
I’m not a car guy/person but did own a POS for a while. It was an ‘85 Ford Escort. One night I came out to find the window on the driver’s side punched out-apparently somebody thought about stealing it but then came to their senses.
At the same time, the specific tone and inflection of calling a car you *own* "a piece of shit" is entirely different since it implies it's affordable, mostly reliable, if not always drivable. Something that Teslas lack (the former) but also have in spades (the latter).
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"It's a a piece of *shit*." — Tesla Cybertruck, because it's an irredeemable piece of shit.
But it's the kind of piece of shit one seeks out on purpose.
What an absolutely wretched machine.
And, yes, I too keep cars well into their senior years. I’m driving a 2000 Lexus RX300 with well over 200k right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evlb8E0ZoNk
Found a guy on tiktok who has a Cybertruck, his front screen stopped working and, after trying to reset it, a process that should take a minute, was told it takes 5 hours.
Chrysler made the safest road vehicle in years, but the dipshits in marketing thought it wouldn't sell, so they were manufactured at a loss for their entire run
Bad ideas executed badly, however...
You are the 🐶 good boy commie POS car!
shit has a useful role in the ecosystem and spontaneously combusts WAY less often