The Origin of "Car Porn"?

I'm sure that most auto enthusiasts have heard the term car porn. I've seen it used on a number of Web sites usually in regards to 'artsy' type car photography. The first time I heard the term used, was way back in the age of steam-powered Internet: the email list. 

I hadn't had an email account and Internet access very long when I discovered the world of British car enthusiasts on the Web. One of the first electronic bars I slid into was the venerable team.net. At the time, it was one of the most active mailing lists for British car enthusiasts where one could share stories of woe, seek advice and generally hang out with those similarly afflicted.  

One post- from January, 1999 - had to do with British car enthusiast magazines wherein a college professor (and TR4 owner) in Oregon was going out to pick up his favorite enthusiast magazines that his wife referred to as his 'car porn'. He was struck with her apt observation and he summed it up with this post: 

I was on my way down to the local bookstore to buy my

copy of Classic & Sports Car, and as I kissed my wife good-bye

before hopping in my TR-4, she said "Have a nice trip to get

your car porn, love."  When I asked her to explain, she pointed

out how I was going to buy a magazine filled with glossy color

photos of good-looking things I couldn't have and could

only fantasize about because they were too expensive. 

Sounded like pornography to her, and when I gave it a moment's

thought, I realized she was right - I was going out to buy car porn.

Once convinced of the basic validity of the metaphor, I started

to think about how one could classify the various

classic car magazines on the market by comparing them to various

pornographic magazines.  It's easier than you might think. 

First off, Classic &  Sports Car and Thoroughbred &

Classic are clearly the Playboy and Penthouse of the classic car

world. They have pictures of all sorts of cars, as long as they are sporty

and fairly expensive.  They also pretty much only have pictures that one

might term "soft core" car porn - the cars have all their paint on, they

look nice and are polished, and you don't see them taken apart or, heaven

forbid, having big rust holes repaired.  They are also the largest

and the most mass market, going for a wide audience, and they have lots of

words in them, not just pictures.

Practical Classics, on the other hand, is clearly the Hustler of the

classic car porn world.  The cars are not as fancy and stylish as in

the previous two magazines, but they are more approachable - it's easier

to imagine you might actually date ..., oh, I mean buy one of them.

Practical Classics is also more hard core - you get to see what is under the hood

while the man with the spanner tightens a few things up - very

intimate. Lot of pictures, not as many words.

For American readers, British Car magazine is an oddity of car

porn - sort of like a combination of Big Hooters with the Journal of

Gynecology. Any kind of picture of a car will do, as long as it’s British, just

like Big Hooters will carry any sort of picture, as long as it involves,

well, big hooters.  But British Car has all that detailed advice stuff as

well, very clinical - I guess they want to appeal to every American no matter how 

weird their tastes in car porn are. 

As for the various single marque magazines, like Jaguar World or The

Triumph Register, they are just like the sort of very specialized

magazines found only behind the counter in plain wrappers, something

like Blonde Teens Who Like Riding Horses In

The Nude Covered With Chocolate

sauce.

For these car porn devotees, only one specific kind of porn will do, only

pictures of one specific kind of car will get them off ..... the

couch to polish something in the garage.

As for club newsletters, well that's just plain dirty, exactly

like the stuff collected by local groups of perverts who pass around the latest

child pornography.  Crudely printed, amateur layout, but for the

faithful the thing they must have so that they and their fellow perv ...

enthusiasts can get together and compare what it is they have in their driveways.

So what sort of car porn consumer am I?  Well, I must confess that

I am an addict - I read all kinds, and I just can't get enough.  Good

thing my wife is so understanding, not to mention my TR-4....

Mark "Is that an alternator in your pocket or are you just happy to

see me?" Clark

Dr. Mark Clark

Oregon Institute of Technology

Dr. Mark, if you're still out there enjoying your TR4 and your 'car porn', 

thank you for sharing this.