Unlike some supposed auto journalists, not all of us here at Jalopnik head off to the late evening Detroit soirées we hear so much but never get invited to to suckle at the sweet teat of automaker free booze. Oh no no no. We burn the midnight oil, and then some other things. And tonight we discovered a strange detail while looking at pictures of the new Ford GT. A very curious detail, indeed.
When automakers, especially American automakers, release new cars these days, they sometimes include Easter Eggs. Little, intricate details that the casual observer might not even realize existed. So it was in that vein that we conspiracizing freaks studious experts of the human condition pored over the photos of everything that debuted yesterday, including some interior shots of the Ford GT. Like this one:
Everything in that shot looks normal, for a mid-engined twin-turbo V6 American supercar. It's got a wheel, it's got buttons, it's even got a horizontal tachometer (an intricate design element clearly meant to harken us all back to the great tradition of the 1972 Ford LTD Brougham 2-door hardtop, which had a horizontal speedometer).
But it was when I zoomed all the way in to this absurdly high resolution photo, which I've left in high resolution here for your perusing pleasure, did I notice an even stranger intricate design element:
There, right under the transmission selection, was a line marked "RADIO." And below it, a notation for "The Midnight Express - Kid Ridiculous."
Now, I am not a hip and with-it man, being so far removed from the Youths These Days as I am. But I try to have a flair for the self-aware, as well as a panache for the self-indulgent. Living in Brooklyn these past few years, and having the awful conversations that I've had, I've come to realize that there are a number of worthy musical acts out there, that despite my best efforts, I've probably never heard of.
But seeing as I can keep either wave at the world as it passes me by, or try not to become one of those people who've never heard of fresh new acts like Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, I decided to look up "The Midnight Express - Kid Ridiculous."
Of course, since I haven't sat in a brand-spanking new Ford GT prototype, I wasn't sure the radio configuration. Was The Midnight Express the band, or the song? Was Kid Ridiculous just another member of Pro Era that I wasn't familiar with yet? And shouldn't you be giving me a little more credit for not knowing every single member of Pro Era, I mean, c'mon, I'm older than dirt here and there's literally 47 different members?
Obviously, it was time to take my queries to the Google. Or the Youtube. Or the iTunes. Really, just anywhere I could find music. But no matter where I searched, the same result kept coming up:
Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Bupkis.
Sure, there's a smattering of references to the 1978 movie The Midnight Express, and maybe "Kid Ridiculous" is a name of a song on the soundtrack album. But sadly, there isn't, despite its composition by Giorgio Moroder, he of Cizeta-Moroder V16T fame.
That leaves us with few clues, beyond the name. But since when should a complete dearth of evidence and just a few names stop us from wild, baseless, and almost certainly false speculation?
As this is the Internet, let's get to it then. The Midnight Express sounds more like it would be a song, than an artist, and lots of people are named "Kid" nowadays. Kid Cudi, Kid Chaos, Kit Carson, a lot of people have names that sound like that. So Kid Ridiculous is definitely the artist.
But what sort of artist is Kid Ridiculous? Again, we've only got the name to go on. Kid Ridiculous is almost definitely not of the same masterful tradition as Kid Cudi, because Kid Cudi is a native of Ohio, a sworn enemy state of the proud nation of Michigan. No, Ford Chairman and family scion Bill Ford would definitely choose a hometown boy, someone of the Detroit school of music.
We know of one other Michigan musical act that has a similar name. But only one other.
Kid Rock.
(He's the one on the left. I think. I'm not entirely sure. The one on the right is probably Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, but it's hard to tell. They look the same.)
But what's the only thing more ridiculous, the only thing more worthy of the name "Kid Ridiculous," than Kid Rock?
A clown-themed Kid Rock cover band.
It's clearly the only obvious answer, and one I think everyone would agree is definitely the most plausible.
As nothing – NOTHING – makes it onto a concept car as momentous as the Ford GT, without Bill Ford's own very personal inspiration, it can only be surmised that it is Bill Ford's own clown-themed Kid Rock cover band.
We rest our case.
Got more images of the clown-themed Kid Rock cover band, or samples of their music that you just made on your computer? Drop them into the comments below.