Go out and look at your car. Take inventory of the cultural flotsam you’ve draped across Old Betsy.
The suction-cup Garfield stuck to the rear window.
Your daughter’s SpongeBob SquarePants steering-wheel cover.
The Who’s Your Daddy license-plate holder.
Dale Earnhardt No. 3 window decals, Tasmanian Devil floor mats.
Got a genuine Clutter Catcher for the center console, too?
A bumper sticker crowing about your honor student at John Dillinger Middle School? Maybe a post-9/11 flag window sticker or two or three. “These Colors Don’t Run!”
American drivers love their aftermarket adornments, and spend millions on extra stuff to gussy up the old family chariot. According to the an organization representing aftermarket component producers, appearance accessories accounted for 57.6 percent of the total automotive specialty equipment market in 2002. That means $15.5 billion of the $26.84 billion aftermarket total is spent on stuff such as graphics, sunroofs and bedliners.
But when did this trend start? And why?
Michael Marsden, chief academic officer of St. Norbert College in DePere, Wis., has spent a career observing and lecturing on American popular culture, most notably with Eastern Kentucky University. Marsden sees nothing unusual in the way we accessorize automobiles.
“I think we use the dashboard as a mantelpiece to display our objects of affection,” he said. “We’re personalizing a mass-produced item in this way; humanizing a cold machine by adding our own touches. Think of how people give their cars names. It’s the same thing with accessories.
“A teddy bear in the rear window. A World War II veteran has a special license plate. The fisherman has a bumper sticker that says, `Women Love Me and Fish Fear Me.’ They’re statements. They’re about how we want to be perceived. The car is a skin we put on for the outside world. What we add to the package indicates what’s culturally important to us,” Marsden said.
“I’m intrigued by what we wrap around our rearview mirrors. Have you seen what high schoolers do? I don’t mean fuzzy dice. I’m talking about graduation tassels and garters from prom dates. It’s interesting to watch how those choices evolve over time, and eventually they’re hanging baby shoes where the garters once were.”
The licensing of popular cartoon characters as aftermarket themes is traced to 1974, by the way, when Gordon Bagne and Robert Klinger of Fullerton, Calif.-based Platicolor Inc. sold the first Yosemite Sam “Back Off!” mud flaps to long-haul truckers.
High school and college window decals date to the late 1950s and early 1960s. (Remember the line in “Be True to Your School,” where Beach Boy Mike Love sings, “When I drive around the other parts of the town, I got a decal in back”?)
But the adornment of automotive iron with cultural references can be traced back to 1940s teens driving hopped-up Model A hot rods with radiator cap raccoon tails.
All seem pretty tame today, considering the volume of aftermarket add-ons we consume.
“Have you seen the `Hero Wall’ of product window stickers on most customized sport compacts?” asked Rosemarie Kitchin, director of Consumer Affairs and Public Relations for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), an organization representing aftermarket component producers. “Has that hit the Midwest yet? We’re seeing that tuners [customizers] like to announce components you don’t normally see. The additions they’ve made inside the car or under the hood. You’ll see Hero Walls for Inchibahn [parts and accessories] and Brembo [brakes] and Mugen [brakes and shocks] and AEM [performance] and StreetGlow [neon] products.
“I think people might be surprised to learn 20 percent of tuners are girls, up from 10 percent a few years ago. Women customizing cars are a fast-growing segment of the aftermarket,” Kitchin said, adding that SEMA doesn’t track the types of things women customizers buy.
Bill Furtkevic, director of communications for the Pep Boys automotive retail chain, agrees with Kitchin, citing the popularity of films such as “The Fast and The Furious” as giving the sport compact market a serious boost.
“Our best sellers?” he asked. “I can’t say exactly, but I will tell you we sell a lot of in-car and under-car neon systems. Racing seats and seat covers and coordinates are also extremely popular. By coordinates I mean floor mats, seat covers, steering-wheel covers, dash covers and visors that match. And anything with NASCAR. The No. 3 Dale Earnhardt products. Coffee mugs, etc.”
Any fad on the horizon?
“I don’t know if you say `rims’ or `wheels’ in Chicago. Those are regional terms. But watch for spinning rims. They’re going to be big. You’ll start seeing them a lot on SUVs with 22-inch wheels. You stop the car and your rims continue spinning. It’s a visual that’s becoming quite popular.”
In case you’re wondering, yes, fuzzy dice and dashboard compasses are available from companies such as Bell Automotive of Scottsdale, Ariz., through automotive retailers. Bell declined to comment but Kitchin indicates the fuzzy dice phenomenon is alive and well.
“Generation X and Baby Boomers are restoring all the old muscle cars, and you know they have to have their fuzzy dice,” she said.
That leaves the venerable Dashboard Jesus and St. Christopher icons, which have been updated in the form of dash mat carpets that offer a choice of Cross or Fish imagery, as well as the Star of David and Mormon angel Moroni.
And don’t forget 8-ball gear shift knobs and Tweety and Sylvester and Baby on Board signs and Fear This decals and car tattoos in Japanese and . . . oh, never mind!
You’ve got the idea.
