One of the best things about my job is that I’m now in the position that, when some alert gearhead at some random place in the world encounters something like, say, an ad for a car shaped like a human penis, I’m the person they reach out to. That’s exactly what happened today, when a reader named for a well-executed dick-shaped car. Now, the ad is fake, but the car is—or was—very real, and I think deserves some attention.

I could tell by the particularly analog quality of that photograph that this wasn’t a modern photo that would likely be used for a Craigslist ad, and the by looking at the wheels I could tell this wasn’t something built on any common, late-model car chassis, which makes this all a bit stranger.

Those wheels and the overall size make me think it’s based on something like an MG TD or perhaps even an Austin 7—not common or cheap now by any stretch. This looked like an older build.

Plus, it looked oddly familiar. I mean, besides generally resembling genitals that I myself own and operate (sans wheels and windshield and some other parts), I’m pretty sure I’d seen this car somewhere before.

After just a tiny bit of searching, I think I found this car’s most notable bit of exposure:

It was on Steppenwolf’s album For Ladies Only, released in 1972. The picture of the Dickmobile shows it on Hollywood Boulevard in LA, along the famous Walk of Fame, just a big-wheeled phallus parked on the side of the road, a welcome change from the phalli that are normally in the cars parked on the side of an average Los Angeles street.

A bit more digging found that the Dickmobile was built in 1969 by an artist named Steve Paige, and he actually used to drive it around LA, and it was legally registered and everything.

Paige seems like a fascinating guy, spending childhood in the company of Albert Einstein and at one point owning a 1950 Plymouth with a goat barn built into the trunk. For goats, I suppose.

A few years back it looks like Paige was trying to sell a limited run of Dickmobile Story posters, and he made this video which gives a lot of history of the car, though, annoyingly, no information about exactly what the car was based on:

I think I’m still leaning toward Austin 7. Here’s a screenshot of the Dickmobile under construction and the goat barn car:

Paige did quite a good job on the Dickmobile; I’m not exactly sure if it’s metal or fiberglass or some combination of both; from what I can see in the pictures, at least the scrotal area was made from a metal grid covered in a mesh.

The bulbous scrotum includes some complicated upholstery work and also shows a comfort with fabricating large compound curves, something also seen up front at the glans, which, in this seemingly circumcised penis-car, is exposed, with the meatus allowing airflow to the radiator and engine.

Engine access seems to be available via two panels on the shaft of the penis, which also sport a pair of matching veins.

The paintwork I think is especially impressive, giving a nice gradient of caucasian fleshtones and more blood-engorged areas as well.

If you’re gonna make a giant dick into a car, you may as well do it right, and I think, in context, Paige did.

Based on Paige’s 2016 video, the Dickmobile only lasted until 1974, and it seems all that’s left is the glans, along with the license plate, which now rests disturbingly on an old chair in Paige’s garage:

So, there you go. That Craigslist ad is just a joke, but the Dickmobile certainly was so much more, and if there’s any purpose at all to fake Craigslist ads, it’s this: They have the potential to lead us down paths we ordinarily may have missed, and they can reveal to the world some things worthy of attention.

Like cars shaped like big cocks.