All the Colors in the Paint Booth: A Girls’ Guide to Cars Celebrates Pride 2022
Cameron Aubernon
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Progress Flag in autos. Photo: Out Motorsports
You can see a full display of Pride on Instagram, and here are some of our favorite posts.
We have enjoyed the cars on display during Pride Month, the month where the LGBTQIA+ community is in the spotlight through many parades and celebrations across the United States. With one more day left in June (though our pride lives on all year), we wanted to put our own spotlight on the community, especially those who also happen to be a part of the greater car community. Thus, we combed through Instagram for a few examples of interesting rides celebrating Pride.
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Jake Thiewes Showcases the Progress Flag
First up, Jake Thiewes of Out Motorsports, who recently acquired a new BMW E36 3 Series to race in NASA’s Spec 3 class. Instead of the previous BMW’s purple paint scheme, the new BMW wears not only pink, but the colors of the Progress Flag by Daniel Quasar, a flag that not only includes the black and brown stripes from the Philadelphia Pride Flag (representing black, brown and people of color), but also the colors of the Transgender Pride Flag designed by Monica Helms in 1999.
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GM’s Design Studio Embraces Pride Month with the Bolt
Though this was shot last year, I spotted this Chevrolet Bolt EUV in the lobby of the General Motors Design Studio down in Warren, Michigan earlier this month while spending some time learning more about GM’s and Lockheed Martin’s Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle program. GM’s employee resource group, GMPlus, came up with the design for this little EUV.
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Celebrating Pride Across the Pond
Over in Germany, Mercedes-Benz used a little Photoshop magic to dress up their all-new EQS 580 4MATIC in all the colors to celebrate Pride. Through Microsoft Edge’s translator, MB says “We believe that it shouldn’t matter where you come from, how you identify or who you love – love comes in all colors.”
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Here’s a car you can wear! Whipped up by Chaladz Design, the Pride colors drape themselves upon Iran’s national ride, the IKCO Samand (named after the village in Iran, and based upon the Peugeot 405). The shirt is made of organic cotton, and is eco- (and LGBTQIA+-) friendly.
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Mass transit is an important part of motoring, so when I saw this tram, it had to be on this list. Azienda Trasporti Milanesi in Milan, Italy dressed up their Carrelli tram to give its 10th line a little more color while picking up and dropping off passengers up and down the route.
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Other Cars and Trucks Celebrating Pride
The Volkswagen New Beetle’s always been a cutie, but this one owned by Kim Chi of Kim Chi Chic Beauty takes the cake in pastel pink, surrounded by all the colors of the rainbow during this year’s L.A. Pride.
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Hyundai USA didn’t paint one of their rides for Pride this time around, but they did place a white 2022 Tuscon Plug-in Hybrid against a smoke-bomb rainbow to show their support of the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as related organizations like GLAAD and Outfest.
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Even Caterpillar shows off its Allyship
A year ago, one of Caterpillar’s customers, Newmont Corporation, took one of Cat’s 793F autonomous mining trucks to the paint shop. The result? A monster with a Pride dump bed big enough to host its own parade, all in support of the company’s LGBTQIA+ employees.
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BMW Group has participated in Pride events over the years, usually with a colorful car or two. This year, the roof of this Mini SE gets the rainbow flag treatment, as do a handful of BMW products seen in a recent Instagram video.
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It’s no Surprise Subaru is out here Showing its Love
Subaru’s been a big part of the LGBTQIA+ community ever since gays and lesbians took the Japanese automaker under their wing decades ago (not to mention Subaru’s ad campaigns designed to attract more such buyers once the automaker found out who was buying their cars). Thus, this ride makes perfect sense.
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Truckers are on-board
There are more than a few members of the LGBTQIA+ community who drive big rigs across the world’s highways to deliver important goods to where they are needed. Instagram account lgbttruckers posted a few shots of the RainbowRider, a Freightliner Cascadia dressed in Pride colors with lots of cool touches to really make this rig stand out!
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Finally, we come to my blog’s account. I’m transfeminine and non-binary. My pronouns are she and they. And all of my siblings are under the gun all over the United States. Thus, when the 24 Hours of Lemons iRacing League held one of its trash sprints at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas – a state whose government is pursuing my youngest siblings and their families simply for existing – I decided to dress my Dallara iR-01 in the colors of our flag (while also remaking the Texas Lone Star Flag in our image).
I could have boycotted this event, and I could boycott attending events in states hostile to my siblings and me, but why should I let them silence our voices?
