The 11 Best Automotive April Fool's Jokes In 2016

On 1 April every year, we receive tonnes of press releases from companies hoping to trick us into sharing something silly. This year has been no different, with emoji number plates, dog umbrellas, and blinker fluid refill tips!

Darren Cassey

Updated: 10 Oct 2024

The 11 Best Automotive April Fool's Jokes In 2016

1. Honda's 'Emoji License Plates'

According to Honda, young people in the UK want to be able to put emojis in their license plates. While this part wouldn’t surprise us at all, there’s no way the plans would get past the licensing agencies. Well done, Honda, you had us 😂.

This is more of a prank on Chris Forsberg than us, but it’s still awesome fun!

3. Doggy brolly

We’ve all heard of the door umbrella in a Rolls-Royce Phantom, but Skoda today announced a door-mounted dog umbrella. Skoda was probably hoping to trick people, since its dog seat belt is actually a thing, but unfortunately this brolly won’t be added to the options list of the Superb.

Legendary YouTube car mechanic ChrisFix filmed an informative piece in his usual style, explaining how to replace blinker fluid. As you’ll see, the process is so effective and the before and after shots are so strikingly different, it could almost be a different headlight…

5. Mini's Hipster Hatch

Mini has always been the cool kid on the block, and it tried to use that reputation to trick us into thinking the Hipster Hatch was a thing. With Instagram filters on the windows, a cassette deck in the dash, and a single-gear drivetrain, it sounds like the sort of thing the residents of Shoreditch would love.

Lexus has improved bucket seats’ holding power by fitting them with Velcro strips that hold you in place. Not sure about the fashion statement on the back of the suit, though…

7. Porsche's motorsport fragrance

Porsche used Facebook to announce its ‘Eau d’Essence’, which features “motor oil and nano-particles of tire rubber” to make you smell like you just walked straight from the race track. Nice.

8. Toyota Aygo's Instagram filter reversing camera

Toyota also jumped on the Instagram filter thing by claiming its Aygo reversing camera would come with filters. Thankfully, it doesn’t.

9. Vauxhall's wind up Adam

On the day Tesla announced its latest zero emissions vehicle, Vauxhall got in on the act with its clockwork wind up Adam C. I think the Model 3 might sell a little better.

10. MG's invisible concept car

Fair play to MG for coming up with something that required only a basic knowledge of Photoshop to pull off, but at least it put in some effort with puns: “We were really honoured to have Professor C. Thrue and Chief Designer Avril F’ouil working with us on this new project.”

The Citroen C1 has a retractable sunroof, and the French manufacturer used some dodgy CGI to fit a retractable sunroof to Arsenal’s football stadium. A retractable stadium roof normally takes many minutes or even hours to remove, but this Airscape’ roof retracts in just 11 seconds. Now that would be impressive to see.

Comments

The best April’s fools joke would be if the Tesla model 3 was just a prank.

I couldn’t get the blinker fluid one, the video looks just normal or I’m just kind of blind.

So, is the Mercedes S-Class SUV an April fools joke or real?

I might just have weird smells, but I would love there to be a cologne that smells like either tires (brand new) or gas. Anyone else?

Gm announced an awd version of the camaro

They should actually make the porsche fragrance I would love it

Whats wrong with a classic? They just don’t do ‘em like they used to ;/

m9?

porsche needs to go ahead and make that eau d’essence. i’d buy a shitload of them seriously

A system like Skoda’s “Dog Seatbelt” is actually required in germany if you want to transport your dog inside your car, and don’t have a trunk to but a box/cage for the dog in, or kind of a “hammock” for the rear seats.