Category: Automotive

Yet another visual insult for Ford’s industrial designer who came up with the ubiquitous Country Squire. Long before the SUV, Ford was promoting the Family Utility vehicle, even as early as 1947. It was known as the FU for good reason:

“Dad, the FU door didn’t latch, and the heat from the FU vinyl is fusing my Red Ball Jets to the FU plastic floor mat.”
“Well, first, shut the FU, son…”

But back to the grander aspects of this recyclable FU Babe Magnet. It’s obvious that the owner of this prize was awarded the FU when his dad got tired of providing taxi service for Bud Junior’s part time job lobbing Grit Magazine to all the subscribers on Rural Route 4 between Cozadale and Mainesville Ferry at 5AM.

On Bud Junior’s 17th birthday, Dad handed over the keys and title, forgetting that Bud’s Christmas present was a carton of Camels and a belt sander. Bud went to work immediately to un-woosify his ride. He buffed the windows to a fine shine with cornstarch, sold the hubcaps for gas money and ground the cream finish paint down to primer… in stripes. Pure efficient genius.

These days people point and stare at Bud’s Sled ‘O Love. “What the heck are you drivin’, Bud?”
Bud only glares back. “FU.”

[Image from here.]

Amazing. What attention to detail. Not only does he have the Jetstream airbrushed via spraypaint, masked it to overlap the brakelight assembly, he has at least two “starbursts” that serve to make this humperwagon shine! Since the shocks are broken, when dweebness drives over speed bumps at 30mph, the Jetstream paint job appears to be straight. Way cool.

Now you might think that the sloppy masking job on the door trim was an accident, but it’s just another subliminal signal to the high school hotties that “Yeah, I gotta hot sled here, but I’m a down-to-earth-kinda guy.”

And just to push that subtle point, there’s the Christmas Tree air freshener with mooneyes hanging on the rearview mirror, visible just to the right of the bone-marrow red front post that accents the antenna. (“Oooh! A four-door! My dad says I can go if my brothers can come along, K?”)

But here’s the BEST PART: The Governor of Dorkland advertises his responsible side to the future recipient of a romantic afternoon date at Arby’s by upending his spray can to clear the nozzle, thus creating three little octopi on the rear post. Pure efficient genius.

Mr. Aerosol, thank you for photographing it so nicely, and for posting it on the internest for our dropped-jaw amazement. And your cassette of RamJam’s greatest hit? It’s in the glove compartment under the used handiwipes with a raisin stuck to it.

[Image from here. More Babe Magnetism here.]

I can almost hear it now:

“Josh! Bryan! You won’t believe it– I just scored a 6-pack of carrot extract and, get this, a whole bag of sun-dried figs! ROADTRIP!!”

“Dude! Gotcha covered! Got some ‘Traditional Medicinals Organic Raspberry Leaf!’ We gonna boil some water tonight!”

(The only thing worse than that photo is the embarrassing notion that the industrial designer of the lame-o 1965 Ford Country Squire is still alive to see this.)

[Image buried in DRB. More Babe Magnetism here.]

UPDATE: We’ve gotten such excellent responses from the Babe Magnet posts that we’ve added a new category just to make it easier for you Babe Magnet hounds to find related posts. I guarantee you that there will be more on the way. –Bunk