Written by Xiaomo
Among the car manufacturers, Tesla is probably the favorite to bury Easter eggs. Musk always hides his various whimsical ideas in The large central control screen of electric vehicles is waiting for car owners to discover.
Among the countless Tesla Easter eggs, some of the most interesting ones I personally think include Rainbow Road, Submarine Mode, and Mars Mode.
For example, Rainbow Road can be triggered by continuously moving the cruise lever four times after the vehicle enters the autonomous driving mode. At this time, you will find that the autonomous cruise road in the LCD instrument turns into a dynamic rainbow.
The submarine mode is a tribute to "007: The Undersea City". As long as you press and hold the "T" button on the screen for 5 seconds, a login password will pop up. After entering "007", the The car will become the Lotus Esprit? S1 submersible car in "007: The Sparrow", allowing the car owner to experience the excitement of playing James Bond.
If you feel that going deep into the ocean floor is still not interesting enough, you can also "fly to Mars" for some adventure. Also press and hold the "T" button on the screen and enter the "Mars" password. At this time, the on-board map will turn into the surface of Mars, and to suit the occasion, the electric vehicle will also transform into a Mars exploration rover on the map.
Obviously, Tesla has provided many interesting hidden Easter eggs through intelligent technology, but don’t think that car Easter eggs are Tesla’s patents.
In fact, in addition to smart technology, other brands of cars also use different means to provide many very interesting and even practical hidden Easter egg designs. Let’s talk about them below.
Practical Easter Eggs
Although most car Easter eggs are only used to entertain drivers and passengers and have no other practical purpose, some car Easter eggs are not only impressive, but even have certain effects. practical functions.
Think about ten years from now, the streets will be filled with all kinds of silent electric cars, but you are driving a large-displacement V8 American muscle car - the 2020 Dodge Challenger roaring past .
At this time, are you looking for a place to enjoy that wonderful V8 engine while having a drink?
So the question comes, when you open the hood and admire the engine, where should you put the drinks? At this time, Dodge engineers have already given the answer, which is placed in the cup holder of the plastic panel above the grille. This is really a thoughtful Easter egg design that is both romantic and practical.
In addition to admiring the cup holders used in the engine, if you have a sudden idea while driving one day and need to use mathematical formulas to solve some problems, then the mathematical easter eggs prepared by Dodge engineers will come in handy.
Check out the huge armrest box under the center console of the Ram? 1500 pickup truck. The armrest box cover is engraved with various mathematical formulas, from the Pythagorean theorem to fractions, decimal charts and trigonometric formulas. wait.
Although it is unlikely that you will need to use these formulas under normal circumstances, the standard-metric wrench conversion table included with the panel is still very useful.
Compared with Dodge’s coasters and mathematical Easter eggs, the practicality of Skoda’s Easter eggs is even more outstanding. One of them is a hidden umbrella inside the car door. That's right, it's the Rolls-Royce design with built-in umbrellas in the doors.
Obviously there is no written rule that you have to be a millionaire to enjoy this little luxury, so Skoda thoughtfully placed one in the front door of the Superb, Kodiaq and Scala models. Umbrellas can be regarded as a practical easter egg that allows ordinary consumers to enjoy the configuration of top-notch luxury cars.
Another Skoda practical easter egg is the small ice shovel set inside the fuel tank cover. In fact, this small ice shovel can not only be used to remove frost from the glass, it can also double as a magnifying glass to help car owners read the tire pressure label posted inside the fuel tank cap.
If it is an ice shovel for the latest models such as Kamiq, it also has the thoughtful function of a tire tread depth measuring instrument.
Commemorative Easter Eggs
Compared with the designers of practical Easter eggs, there are actually more designers with nostalgic ideas. They will set up various commemorative Easter eggs in the car, some of which are simple and easy to use. Look for them, some are hidden deeper and require careful digging.
For example, Toyota’s GT86 sports car. If you are a fan of this car, you should know that its name is a tribute to the Corolla Levin coupe produced by Toyota from 1983 to 1987. The coupe's internal code is AE86.
In addition to the car name, there are actually Easter eggs hiding the number 86 inside the GT86. For example, the bore × stroke dimensions of its four-cylinder engine are exactly 86 × 86mm.
There is also the diameter of the exhaust pipe at the rear of the car. If you measure it with a tape measure, you will find that they are also 86mm, which are digital easter eggs that pay tribute to the AE86.
Then there is Mazda's tribute to the rotary engine. Although it is simpler than the GT86's tribute, it requires everyone to properly use their association skills.
You will see a large number of triangular elements in the RX-8 sports car, such as the front hood of the vehicle, the metal joint of the gear lever, and the upper cutout of the front seat backrest. These triangular elements are actually rotors. A nod to the abstract shape of the engine.
Jeep is also good at setting up Easter eggs, and they especially like to make tribute and commemorative Easter eggs.
If you look carefully enough, you’ll spot small Willys icons under the Cherokee’s front windshield and on the Wrangler’s wheel rims, a nod to the classic Willys Jeep from World War II. .
In the bed of the Foot Fighter pickup truck, you will find a series of strange numbers "419" next to a heart-shaped symbol.
This string of numbers is actually one of two area codes assigned to northwest Ohio. As for 419, it is the area code of the Toledo factory where the Foot Fighter was born. To commemorate the factory where it was born, Jeep engraved this series of numbers on the truck body.
In order to commemorate the legendary sports car GT40 that forced Ferrari to withdraw from the Le Mans race, Ford launched the new Ford GT mass-produced sports car in 2003, which happened to be the 100th birthday of the GT40.
Therefore, designers hid the number 100 in the headlights of this new V8 sports car as a small commemorative easter egg. By the way, although the production version of the Ford GT was actually launched in 2004, its lighting design has remained unchanged for 100 years.
Funny Easter eggs
In addition to practical and commemorative Easter eggs, in fact, the function of most car Easter eggs is just to add more fun to life in the car, just like Tesla’s Screen Easter eggs are of the same nature.
For example, the little spider Easter egg hidden by Volvo in the second-generation XC90 is specifically prepared for child passengers who often sit in the third row.
In order to make the children less bored in the car, Dennis Nobelius, who was the vice president of the 90 series product project at the time, came up with the idea of ??hiding a cute little spider in the lid of the rear storage box. Make them happy.
The shark icon has almost become a traditional Easter egg for Vauxhall. It is said that Vauxhall had a habit of "hiding sharks" as early as 2006 when it launched the Corsa model.
They hid the shark pattern in the glovebox hinge because one of the designers’ sons thought it was a really cool idea.
After that, the shark became the mascot of the entire Vauxhall, appearing in Adam, Astra, Insignia and other models, and will appear in various places in the car, such as the center console. Storage boxes, door storage compartments, and finding these hidden sharks has become a unique pleasure for Vauxhall car owners.
Although the accelerator and brake pedals are our most commonly used car control mechanisms, because they are under the feet, they are also the easiest to be ignored. Some designers choose to hide Easter eggs here.
The Renault Twingo? RS has the iconic pause, stop and play icons (a pair of vertical lines, a square and a triangle) printed on the clutch, brake and accelerator pedal respectively, transforming the car into a A mobile "computer player".
In addition to Renault, Volkswagen also played the same player trick in the ID.3 electric car, except that the electric car did not have a clutch pedal, so Volkswagen simply transformed the accelerator and brake pedals directly into playback and Pause button.
Written at the end
In fact, most of the hidden easter eggs in cars are just small means to shorten the distance between brands and users, and are not necessarily practical. But we still particularly hope that independent brands can also develop ideas in this regard and make some interesting easter egg designs.
After all, a small hidden easter egg does not cost much, but it is a brand's understanding of car culture and a reflection of the car company's care for users. Moreover, having car easter eggs can stimulate our desire to explore cars, which is also a good thing. iDailycar
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.