Well… the make is usually written on the car somewhere.
So yeah, I guess I can read.
Even worse, I can identify most cars at night using just the taillight/headlight shape
I can look at any car’s headlights and tell you which way they’re going.
I can look at any car’s wheels and tell you if it’s run me over or not.
Thanks again, Mitch
yOu’Re LiTeRaLlY kIlLiNg ThE pLaNeT bY hAvInG bAsIc PaTtErN rEcOgNiSsIoN
Or by the curve from a part of the wheel arch.
Cool people do something similar with birds and plants. I can do it with dogs
I can do it with tallship designs from the age of sail, there’s more of them floating around than you might think.
It was fun the first time I successfully identified a species of maple from almost a mile away (it was a silver, not super hard lol)
I do birb al plant groups too (tho badly)!
But I cannot fucking remember dog breeds at all, or even distinguish between them properly.
I’m much better at identifying cats. Its just a cat, kitty, a chonker even sometimes.
I’ve slowly worked on my wife and now she properly identifies species of local birds unprompted. I’m so proud of her.
One of the things I absolutely cannot do. I just don’t care about cars at all.
I love cars, but even I’m getting to a point where it’s just “generic SUV”, “generic hybrid crossover”, “holy fuck BMWs are ugly now”.
Whenever I’m in Munich, I see a lot of BMW test vehicles, with the new parts partially camouflaged. I never really liked them, but they’re getting worse really rapidly now. Their new SUV looks like it’s a cyberpunk parody of an overly aggressive car.
I’m one of these people that identifies vehicles by looking at them. It’s a talent that impresses my kid so I’ll take that as a positive! 😁
I can do that too. Cars: four wheels, lorries: many wheels, motorcycles (or mopeds): few wheels and an engine (or it’s a bicycle).
It takes a fraction of a second to parse the list once you have it memorised. It’s not that hard.
You probably smugly talk about ‘sportsball’ as well.
Not only am I one of those people, I’m also one who judges people for buying certain cars. Like “Ha, look at that loser who bought that early model Chrysler 300, enjoy your motor blowing up” or “is that a SUPRA that’s actually just a BMW Z4?” Then usually whoever is in the car with me asks what the fuck I’m talking about and I just say “nevermind” and move on to judging the next car in silence.
Except for Tesla’s, I will point at them and yell “ewwww” when I see them, but not because they’re EVs, because of Elon.
Bro, you sound like a delight to be around. Judging people for what they drive is pretty shitty. Unfortunately, lots of people don’t have much of a choice. Like, sure, buying that
earlyany Chrysler 300 seems like a real bad idea. But maybe the person who bought it got it for the $15 that it’s worth, and maybe it was all they had to their name. And maybe they needed just any car that can get them to their job or transport their kids. Get off your high horse there.Yes I am aware some people don’t have a choice but to buy cheap cars, I have been there as well. After high school I paid $800 for a 96 Suburban that was horrible on gas but it was my only viable option. I mainly judge people who spend obscene money on an overpriced vehicle or a big stupid truck that you can tell they only drive on pavement.
Excuse me? It’s called an emotional support truck.
The BMW Supra is so strange to me, causes mixed feelings bigly. It’s cool that the Supra is back, but it doesn’t really seem like a Supra without the straight-6 cylinder and its massive torque. Anyway, I would never spend that much on a car so it’s not my problem.
Hello, are you me? I judge everybody in a lifted pickup truck the most tho
I will remember the year, make, model and possibly trim level of a person’s car before I remember their name.
I had a friend who grew up in a factory town who could not only recognize most car makes and models, but in some cases could name people who probably worked on that car. I still think our culture is too car-centered, but that have me a new perspective on it.
Generally you can pretty accurately estimate the years (and make) of cars, due to the design preferences of the time
A 2003 Toyota Tacoma is very recognizable because of the simple and bubbly design a lot of late 90’s and early 2000’s cars had (coincidentally my least favorite time period of car design)
Of course there’s also just a lot of stuff you pick up by seeing a car you don’t recognize, researching it, and mentally noting the differences for the next time you see one!
Like, it’s just Design. Different car makes and years have different design languages. Also, they usually have a big shiny logo that tells you the make, so you can go “huge Audi saloon” -> “A8”.
It’s like reading. I don’t look at letters and think “that’s an A and that’s a B”.
It’s just “Miata, Civic, Explorer, etc”
Or recognizing people. I just know all these strangers names and faces.
The comments here really don’t realise what sub they are in Lol
Some cars are more iconic than others, and some cars are pretty common.
I remember as a kid, I was mystified by this other girl on the block who could do this. I didn’t understand why anyone would care. A car is a car?
Eventually I realized it’s because she was super into external social status signs. She wasn’t a gearhead, so she hadn’t picked it up the way guys do bonding over technical stats of whatever, but she was hyper-sensitive to social status, so she picked it up along with anything else related to fashion. And cars can be considered fashion, right up there with makeup and having the right purse.
I don’t see it as a status symbol, although I’m certain that is a huge part of it for a lot of people, but fashion part is right. Cars have design styles, motifs, and trends. I don’t know the names for most of them, but I can normally place a car in a 3 year range on sight. Make and model are also often very obvious through those same features, even across a larger number of years, slowly transitioning from one "age’ of car design to another. I’m not a car person, but I am, in weird ways, a design nerd.
Oh, with me it’s shapes, I rely on general shapes slightly nontypically - humans included, I have fairy bad face memory & face recognition, but shapes are easy (and it’s more nuanced that just a general shape of the humanoid, gaining or losing weight doesn’t change it beyond recognition - like cars/boats/equipment/tools/etc, it’s “important” info to understand the underlying build).
