Question of the Week, Turkey Day Edition: What Vehicle Should Have Worn a Turkey as a Badge?—WINNER’S UPDATE — Explained
WINNER’S UPDATE:
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our champion will rest on their laurels and take delivery of a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store.
Our question was: What vehicle should have worn a turkey as a badge?
Thanks to everyone who participated. We mentioned that the turkey means so many things to so many people, and this week, many of you saw it as an automotive flop. After tallying up your responses, the Yugo GV emerged as the most-mentioned nomination. BaT member @caymanandwent was the first to mention it, but he—along with runner-up @SteveIOMTT—are both fresh off a QotW win. So we’re awarding the prize to BaT user @Bejarab!
The term automotive turkey came to mean a bit of a dud, though its origin remains anyone’s guess. But like the Yugo itself, the jokes write themselves. Congratulations, Bejarab. Be sure to check your email to claim the prize.
Now let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread:
“Cybertruck – driven by Turkeys….”
“1st gen subaru tribeca, the car already looks like a turkey so why not…”
The Tribeca’s styling was so polarizing at first that it kicked off an emergency facelift two years after its launch.
“Wow, so many to choose from…
Pontiac Aztek (too obvious), a Bricklin could be a worthy candidate, but I’m going to nominate a Tucker. A Tucker Turkey has a nice ring to it.”
BaT member @IsAlwaystheAnswer had a more positive outlook this week:
Citroën 2CV to celebrate farmers and Beaujolais Nouveau, a French wine released on the third Thursday of November to celebrate the end of the harvest season, and enjoyed at Thanksgiving dinner. Originally designed for farmers, developed in the 1930s, and like a turkey, it is basic, affordable, rugged, rustic, and has a “tasty” round look. It features a suspension with long travel that allows it to handle very rough terrain and even cross fields without breaking eggs on the back seat. And nobody said that they weren’t turkey eggs.
“Plymouth Volare is the answer:
1 – Plymouth, for Thanksgiving cred
2 – Comes in several autumn colors like burgundy, brown, tan, more brown, and rust
3 – Ultimately bland and unsatisfying
4 – Rots quickly once its initial use is finished”
“The Chevy Vega. It should get extra points as Motor Trend’s “Car of the Year”……. I had a ’71 that I drove from ’76 to ’78 – in SoCal. Location made it not rusty, but that aluminum block straight 4 drank oil so fast I really didn’t have to change it. I knew I was 2 quarts low when I made a left turn and the “Check Engine” light came on. Which happened about every 300 miles.”
We’ll wrap it up with a suggestion from @KB20A, who also penned a rather in-depth analysis (and plot twist) on the turkey in an earlier comment.
It’s amazing how inspiring procrastination can be. Somehow, I have found even more time to dedicate to this important question. And this time I have a real suggestion, not just some kumbaya garbage about how we all belong here or whatever.
According to the experts, the name turkey actually derives from guinea fowl, which, once exported to Europe from Turkey, became known as turkey cocks. When settlers arrived in North America and discovered a similar-looking bird, they simply shortened it to ‘turkey’.
As it happens, there is exactly one vehicle that neatly reflects this naming origin. And that is the original Ford Transit Connect. In the 70s and 80s, Ford had been acquiring a larger and larger share of Turkey’s domestic auto industry, ultimately taking over the production facility of Turkey’s finest domestic automaker, Anadol, in the late 80s. Instead of rebadging the Anadol A8-16 as a Ford Otosan, they decided to just make something else. We’ll never know why:
🦃
They eventually used that factory to build the original Transit Connect van, and soon began shipping them all across the Euro Zone (and the Isles) (I have no idea if they were part of the Euro Zone pre-Brexit, as I live in the United States, and refuse to Google such things). Initially, the ‘connect was to be the turkey cock of transit vans, staying firmly east of the Atlantic, where the loading zones are not pickup-shaped, and the people have had fewer Thanksgiving dinners. Soon, there were mildly damaged, and cigarette-soaked transit connects everywhere, often in domestic turkey white, with spots of rust, diesel soot, and roadway grime giving them an unmistakable coop-esque patina. But as we well know, due to shifting demand and the 2008 financial crisis, it was also made available to US buyers in 2009, becoming the first Turkish-built vehicle to be sold as a regular production car in North America (if I’m not mistaken).
Either way, it fits the description of turkey-like in numerous ways. It’s huge for a small car, slow, strong-willed, American** (wears a Ford badge), and is likely to be owned by small farmers, catering and event companies, or weird people! Further, like a turkey, you could possibly describe it as bland, and you can fit a surprising amount of things (usually foodstuffs) inside! And even more fun was the fact that most US buyers referred to it as a ‘transit’, dropping the ‘connect’ part entirely, due to the fact that there was no ‘non-connect’ transit! A true turkey to the fowl’s turkey cock!
Now I just need to Photoshop Kramer’s head onto the end of a Transit Connect! Happy Black Friday!
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week. Congratulations again to Bejarab! We’ll be back with another question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
Last Thanksgiving, we asked: “What’s your favorite vehicle named after a bird?” We’re carving it up differently this year, and flipping the script with this week’s question:
What vehicle should have worn a turkey as a badge?
As far as we can tell, the turkey has never been used to represent any make or model of automobile (we found one Art Deco radiator mascot, but that’s aftermarket). Still, the bird possesses the type of loaded symbolism that automakers often incorporate into their iconography.
Perhaps the problem is that the turkey represents so many things to so many different people. For some, it’s a symbol of togetherness and tradition, or comfort and excess (making a car like the ’68 Imperial LeBaron above a good choice). For others, it’s an insult, and represents stupidity or failure. Some (like Benjamin Franklin) regarded the turkey as a noble creature, while to others it connotes a woodsy self-reliance.
Heck, maybe you think of the Thanksgiving turkey as a catalyst for fiery accidents. Hopefully we’ve made our point by now. It’s time to pass the platter and give you an opportunity to make your case.
What vehicle should have worn a turkey as a badge?
Tell us all what car and why, and give a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
“A Yugo. Crap salad.”
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Bejarab commented on Question of the Week, Turkey Day Edition: What Vehicle Should Have Worn a Turkey as a Badge?—WINNER'S UPDATE