Cars/vehicles in your work

All Mercedes: Unable to use indicators and/or the first or second lanes of a motorway.

 

Car wars have changed significantly in last of couple years. Now any turd can wobble at the black wheel of their white dream-wank Mercedez-Porch. Vehicle-finance wise, I mean.

To be honest, I have spent an entire day with a petrol head/'Silverstone on Saturday' wrench monkey geezer. I'm so confused. Those self-righteous prigs in lycra are worser still, I suppose.

I hate them all. The car book idea is lucrative, although to my mind is quite 'James Bond/Land Rover & limited,' so from the intellectual position blegh, and Konte won the tennis

 

I could get pretty much anything on finance I wanted, if I was willing to eat only potatoes and buy my shoes from ASDA for twenty years. I choose to drive a 20 year old Jag instead, a thing that cost me about two repayments for a Mercedes-Benz AMG C562CDi BLUETOSS Business+ Anthracite edition ...and look way cooler*. Just sayin'...

One doesn't have to use one's intellect to be intellectual It may do well and have a loyal fanbase, but possibly a small one?

*Don't ask about repair bills. Or servicing. Or tyres. Or petrol consumption. Or bits that fizzle out. Or the brakes that failed on me once.

 

It's fine. They're safe cars. If you crash them it won't matter.

 

I don't know why I said 'intellectual.' A passion for engineering & mechanics is entirely honourable...

 

Car brands have their uses in literature. If you're writing a period piece, it helps to put the reader in the period if you feature cars of that period ... Packards, La Salles, Studebakers, and so on for a piece set fifty years in the past, and Franklins, Hupmobiles, and Stanley Steamers for an era thirty years earlier than that. (For European period pieces, the US manufactures can be replaced by local manufacturers, which I'm not really familiar with, although a little research would tell you which models were popular in which places at which times.)

And whether you drop your heroine in a Porsche 911 or a 914 will only make a difference to those readers who know that the latter was a sort of "economy" model. For the rest of us, the reference will go over our heads.

Of course, car manufactures have spent a lot of money trying to convey an image ... think Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Hummer, or whatever ... and you might find it useful for describing a character. But there's a danger here. Some cars carry different cachets depending on the period; a character driving a '62 Volkswagen Bus might be a poor college student if the novel were set in the seventies. If set in 2017, he or she would probably be a VW aficionado with a lot of cash to burn.

But don't listen to me, a guy who wrote an entire book on a particular kind of car.

 

I'm sad that my story doesnt have cars in it. The horse and buggy will have to do. The second chapter I do talk a lot about the characters car, but thats it. After all, cars are friends, not hunks of metal.

 

One of these times I'll post sample pictures of the vehicles involved in my WIP. For the moment, it's been useful looking them up. I find I've said something inaccurate about one of them, and I'll change that before I hit Publish.

 

I had to pick out a new car for one of my daily stories this week and landed on this one:



Remembered this thread and wanted to share

 

It's self-indulgence, but who doesn't do that in their writing, at least to some degree?

The thing is with this kind of detail, don't make the mistake of thinking the car you use in your book is going to mean anything to your readers. Maybe a handful of enthusiasts may instantly picture the referenced car when it crops up in the narrative, but the vast majority will simply see a generic 'car' - in other words the model won't be of any interest to them.

 

My WIP takes place in 1980 New York City, so most of the vehicles consist of cabs, the subway, and the train, with one exception:

"Riding around in Kimberly’s little red Triumph convertible listening to The Knack, Kathryn felt like a teenager for the first time in ages..."

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Triumph_TR4.jpg

Kathryn is a teen who had to grow up really fast, and Kimberly is a teen who on the surface, seems only to be interested in superficial fun (hence, listening to The Knack). They're driving around in Montauk.

The car fits the character of Kimberly. A 60's model Triumph convertible is a period correct used car for a well-off teenager in 1980 in towns where the teen didn't have to drive on a freeway or major highway. I was vague about the exact model but had theTR-4 in mind because my older sister's best friend had one, and they used to let me tag along. I couldn't tell you where we went, but I still remember riding in that car because it was so much fun.

ETA: The pic is huge, so I just posted a link to it to save time. Hope that's OK.

 

The first story I wrote (never finished), the MC drove one of these.

 

Most of my characters ride around in Gremlins and Corollas with the occasional late model Pickup. Unless my POV character is a car nut I generally just stick to general descriptions and pretty much only use well known brand or model names to borrow some of the brand connotations for the character.

 

Or it could be...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Spitfire

Or even...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Stag

The Spitfire fits better with the "little" tag (although I know that all UK cars are "little" to you guys!), but both were convertibles and era-accurate.

 

To the reader, it absolutely could be one of those, so I left it open to interpretation. The real car was a silver TR4. ETA: I now shudder at how hard that thing must have been for other drivers to see in the glare of the sun. We easily could have died like James Dean.

Little and "cute" (I know a lot of Brits hate that word) are why I love vintage UK sports cars. I'd love to have an MG Midget, but...not practical (you absolutely need automatic for sitting in rush hour traffic going over Laurel Canyon unless you enjoy major clutch foot cramps). Plus I'm thinking the insurance would cost more than my rent because it would be so unsafe for freeway driving (lots of huge trucks on the freeways I use most) and too easy to steal.

 

I'm guessing you're thinking of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_T-type



rather than...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_Midget


You might like to consider the car that my son had as a wedding car...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_%2B4

 

Actually I was indeed thinking of the second. A friend of my parents had a Midget, and I remember it was another one that was fun to ride around in. But that green MGT is gorgeous, and I certainly wouldn't turn it down.

And yes, a Morgan would be my ultimate, but they're so rare here that if you say "I want a Morgan" people look at you blankly and you have to pull out your phone and show them a pic and the Wikipedia entry. Most people here have never heard of them.

 

My ultimate would be an Auburn.

 

Wow. Just...wow. That is indeed "dapper."

ETA: Only problem is, that's the kind of car you have to dress to the Nines to drive. Jeans and an old T-shirt or Jay Leno's chambray isn't going to cut it.

 

A friend of my brother had a T-Type - already around 20 years old.

My personal favourite was the MGA



The later Midget was, I felt, somewhat bland and characterless; gotta love those rear wheel arches!

 

See, now that's the epitome of a "cute little car." They just look happy, don't they?
I do like the later Midgets IF they have the luggage rack and wire wheels. Gives 'em more character and the bubble butt rear end is kind of cute. But without the luggage rack, I agree.

 

I remember seeing this thread a while back, and so I went back and found it.
I actually do like to give my characters cars that are based on some aspect of them, though I'm not really technical about it. It's sort of like, if they're rich I show how rich they are from their car choice, if they're flashy I show that by their car, etc... Also, some cars are sort of included because I think they look cool, but they still have some connection to the character. It can be a mix of both, as well.
(Not my photo, by the way).

My MC's car. 1989 Pontiac Firebird. He's loved this car since he was a little boy, and he took the opportunity to buy it when he was given the chance. (Showing that if he really loves something, he'll try his best to get/keep it) Also, since he was formerly rich, I thought it would be a good car for him. Flashy, but older. Probably would still turn heads, since this book takes place from 2014-2016. If he was still rich he probably would've ended up succumbing to peer pressure and got a newer, more expensive car like his ex friends, though.
I also have a thing for cars with that more "edginess," (Basically 80s or early 90s) probably stemming back to me playing Need for Speed and using the Lamborghini Countach. And those headlights that come up, I think they're pretty cool.

 

I've deliberately given my early 1980s architect-hero a clapped-out old Ford Galaxie to drive, complete with rear bumper that has to be wired on.

Something like this, but four-door, 1968-model year, and definitely not shiny.




Maybe I'm being too subtle, but the impression I want to leave is that he's not in the profession for the money and he's so busy working he doesn't have time to worry about his wheels, as long as the thing runs.

And the loose bumper will push the plot along later.

 

I've been thinking on this, my guy will probably drive an old VW Bug. He's poor as, but he's a new-age healer/ghost whisperer type, so his wheels will reflect on him. Clapped-out old car only works if it's got some sort of cachet (yes, I had to look up the spelling, thank you) of its own. I've been thinking a lot about wardrobe now too, but that's for another thread.

 

I suppose, speaking accurately, my MMC's car isn't clapped out. It still runs well enough--- but you wouldn't know it from the messed-up body work.