Dating apps are far from new, but I started dating my now ex-wife before Tinder really took off. This meant that once I was single again, I wasn’t just trying to figure out how to date in my 30s. I also had to learn an entirely new kind of dating. And you know what? So far, it’s not that bad. Tinder, Bumble and Hinge really are all different, and depending on who you are, one will probably work better than the others. But a dating app for car enthusiasts? That just sounds awful.
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A company called Leasing Options created this app and decided to very creatively call it Speed Dating. Personally, I think they should have just gone with Leasing Options because that would at least be funny. I mean, it’s destined to crash and burn right out of the gate, so why not go for something more creative than Speed Dating?
What’s especially funny is that the press release says they developed the app specifically because a ton of people don’t like seeing cars in dating profiles. Which makes sense. Owning a car isn’t a personality trait, and you’re supposed to be advertising yourself on the apps, not advertising the things you own. It’s weird and off-putting no matter how cool your car or truck is. What doesn’t make sense is building an entire app focused on doing the thing most people don’t like.
Amazingly, the press release includes a list of reasons this app is probably a bad idea (and a few minor exceptions). Apparently, people think:
- It is ‘weird’ to include pictures of your car by itself
- It is a turn-off as they want to know about the person, not their car
- You can be proud of your car, similar to how you would be proud of your job or children, but you don’t need to include it on your dating profile
- Showing off your car is cringeworthy
- People use their cars to ‘flex’ which puts people off
- Seems superficial and attracts ‘gold diggers’, others indicated they would match with them to use them for their money
- Normal cars are acceptable, but American trucks are put offs
- Acceptable if they are including it to demonstrate hard work and dedication to automotives
- Only acceptable if you indicate your interests are motorsports
- It isn’t a put off as it is just like showing off any other hobby
But also, while there are plenty of women who are also car enthusiasts, they’re probably doing just fine on other apps. If they’re not, I highly doubt that switching to an app full of car dudes is going to magically change their fortunes. It’s going to be like that conservative-only dating site that failed almost immediately because it was almost entirely dudes. If Speed Dating succeeds, it’ll be because it somehow accidentally became Car Grindr.
Maybe I’m being unnecessarily critical, and Speed Dating is going to be a huge success. But come on. How am I supposed to take this seriously when the press release’s list of features includes:
- Not only do you have the standard dating app options to show that you are interested in a user, or not, but Speed Dating also gives you the option to ‘accelerate ’, putting you in pole position (ahead of other users).
- You can tailor your profile to show off your car, including your car history, current car, favorite manufacturers and dream car.
- See what users look like and a picture of their car without having to click into their profile, shaving precious seconds off of your time.
- Share your car turn ons and offs with the algorithm to steer clear of users that aren’t right for you.
- Manually filter users by the usual factors such as age and location, as well as car type (e.g. sports car) and manufacturers.
Don’t make a pole position joke, Collin. Don’t make a pole position joke, Collin. Don’t make a pole position joke, Collin.
If you actually are interested in getting into pole position, though, you can sign up here to be notified when the app goes live. I won’t, but maybe we should make someone else do it just to see how bad it really is. Steve? Steve sounds like a good choice for this experiment.