?Mudflap Girl? Was This Guy?s Mom

If you?ve driven anywhere in the past 30-odd years, chances are you?ve seen the chromed silhouette of a reclining woman affixed to the mudflaps of a big rig. She?s known far and wide as Mudflap Girl, but Ed Allen has another name for her: Mom.

Allen, a fashion designer in Washington, D.C., claims the image was designed by his father Stewart, a long-haul trucker who always decorated his rig with an image of his wife, Rachel Ann. Now, Ed Allen is paying homage to Mudflap Girl, er, mom, with a line of shirts bearing her voluptuous profile, for which he now owns the trademark.

?She?s one of the few really hot women that your wife will still let you wear, because we all remember her,? Allen said.

Before we could page Dr. Freud, Allen let us know the original image was quite innocent, a simple vacation photo of mom in a bathing suit. It was nothing the whole family hadn?t seen countless times before.

Dad kept the photo in the cab of his truck, which always bore his wife?s name on the hood. When a new corporate owner forbade Stewart from decorating a company-owned vehicle, Stewart put his wife?s silhouette on his trailer?s mudflaps so his boss couldn?t see her when the truck was backed up to a loading dock.

In 1967, Ed Allen said that a local truck-accessories manufacturer named Bill Zinda saw the design. He liked it and, with dad?s permission, started selling it. No one ever trademarked the image, and Mudflap Girl got around a lot during the freewheeling ?70s.

The back story is, of course, just that ? a story. But it?s a compelling one.

?Regardless of the precise truth of the narrative, the important issue here is: Why is this image so ubiquitous?? asked Heather Joseph-Witham. She?s a folklorist who teaches at Otis College of Art and Design and who has also debunked urban legends for Mythbusters. To her, the Mudflap Girl is quintessentially American. ?Why do so many people feel the need to display it? What does it say about us??

Allen assures us the story is true, but you?d expect him to do that. His father died in 2006, his mother now suffers from Alzheimer?s and we couldn?t find any trace of Bill Zinda. The first trademark of Mudflap Girl?s likeness is held by Ed Allen.

According to Joseph-Witham, the story has the hallmarks of an urban legend: anonymous origins, told in the first person as a true story dealing with contemporary culture, backed up with circumstantial evidence. Add that plenty of online accounts claim the real Mudflap Girl is said to have been everything from a naughty nurse to a sexy stripper. Still, Allen?s story is enjoyable enough that, even if it isn?t true, it oughtta be.

?The image is of a man who doesn?t want to stay in one place, who wants to see the country but bring money home for his family,? said Joseph-Witham. ?He?s free, but responsible.?

That image sure fits with how Allen described his father and the trucker lifestyle of the late ?60s and early ?70s. ?It was one of those times that was all about individuality,? he said. ?It was all about not being part of the establishment. Especially back in the ?70s, truckers were seen like modern cowboys.? That?s why she caught on. ?As a blank image, as a projection, originally, everybody liked that rebelliousness.?

As for the girl herself, though some may see her as purely a sexual image, Joseph-Witham likes to think she symbolizes a driver?s relationship with the open road and all it entails. ?Trucker and truck are united as a symbiotic and inseparable duo, with the trucker in charge and on top,? she said. OK, so it?s a little sexual.

While the trucker-as-cowboy ethos still appeals to many, since the ?70s Mudflap Girl has also been reappropriated with an ironic twist. She?s flipping the bird as the symbol of the blog Feministing and holding a book in decals and T-shirts extolling the virtues of reading. Allen says his mother would?ve loved the new interpretations of her image.

?Rachel is a pretty strong woman,? he said. ?Everyone thinks about the girl and, you want to go right into the truck stops. Actually, it?s really a much more sophisticated audience.?

Photo: Brandon Doran/Flickr

Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/mudflap-girl-was-this-guys-mom/

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The New Auto: Tech Is My Co-Pilot

Some of the most exciting innovations in consumer electronics aren?t happening in your living room or office. They?re happening in your car, and these advances go far beyond electric drivetrains. They include navigation, infotainment, driver assistance and other technologies with the potential to change how we drive and improve safety in every driving situation.

For the first time we?re making the internet mobile in an automobile: It no longer will be a problem to find and use vital information while traveling. The spectrum of mobility services will develop into intelligent and efficient solutions specifically designed for the expected growth in short-range travel in urban communities. Currently, electronics spearhead new development in cars. Ideas of electronics, lifestyle and automobiles are becoming ever more closely tied.

The Electronics Research Lab in Silicon Valley is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of mobility now and in the future. Designers, engineers and even psychologists work together within a worldwide network of research centers.

Good ideas and forward thinking is required if we are to conquer the many challenges of modern mobility, such as complex traffic patterns and increasing congestion, the growing need for safety, and increased efficiency. The solutions to these problems range from advanced instrumentation and intuitive user interfaces to artificial intelligence, energy-efficient vehicles and ?social? vehicles that communicate with each other and with the road.

There is no limit to the innovation.

Our cars are becoming our co-pilots as intelligent technologies make them safer, more comfortable and more autonomous. But rather than increase driver distractions, we want to minimize the input and attention required to obtain the information drivers need.

Sound futuristic? No. Audi developed a touchpad to make accessing our infotainment systems more intuitive. It makes many tasks easier and safer. When we combine a touchpad with voice recognition, we allow for still more choices with fewer distractions.

Supporting drivers when they need help is a major goal. We want to understand the best way to use this technology to provide additional support to drivers in critical situations.

To accomplish these goals, we worked with Stanford University to develop an autonomous Audi TTS that drove to the summit of Pikes Peak in September. This was no Sunday drive: We pushed the car close to its handling limit.

The goal of this exercise is not to take driving away from the driver. We want to learn how experiments like this will help us maximize safety and minimize collisions while remaining open to whatever the future demands.

Another concept car, Junior 3, parked itself at a parking garage on Fisherman?s Wharf in San Francisco. The system does exactly what you want it to: Get out, tell the car to park itself and go shopping. When you?re ready to leave, simply summon the car on your iPhone. The car does the rest.

There is still a long way to go before we?re all driving autonomous cars that park themselves. But step by step, we are bringing some of these features to cars today, and using them to increase safety.

Sound futuristic? No. These technologies have led to blind-spot detection and lane-keeping assistance systems, parking assist, adaptive cruise control and even heads-up display and night-vision systems.

One noticeable change in cars will be the ability for vehicles to communicate with each other, the road and the internet, creating a seamless network. The goal is to create intelligent vehicles that interact with each other, their occupants, the physical and virtual worlds surrounding them. We want to bridge the gap between consumer electronics and the vehicle.

These innovations free up time for the driver by taking care of the most tedious of driving chores, such as parking or bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is helpful because we can live a world where vehicles are personal assistants. Current technology is making this possible by integrating wireless hot-spot and internet connections in our vehicles, getting point-of-interest or real-time traffic data on brilliant graphic displays.

Sound futuristic? No. This is available now in many vehicles.

Imagine a future where your car recognizes you as you approach. Technology will enable the car to start itself, download your schedule and provide the optimal route to get you where you?re going as quickly as possible.

To make things really cool, the navigation might be in 3-D using augmented reality. The navi could provide a virtual tour of the best restaurants in town and make reservations with a single voice command.

Cars of the future won?t only be intuitive to our needs and wants, but they will be intuitive to what?s happening around them. By integrating incoming information from these sources, cars not only communicate with their drivers to avoid traffic, but also inform them of open parking spaces and dangerous road conditions ahead.

Sound futuristic? No. We?re already testing this technology.

Where? Here in Silicon Valley. It?s a place for generating ideas ? ideas that generate real results. By going to the heart of electronics and innovation we will find answers to tomorrow?s mobility challenges.

Photo: The autonomous TTS tests on a salt lake. (Courtesy Audi)

Video: Riding along in the autonomous TTS. (Wired.com)

Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/burkhard-huhnke-vw-erl/

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