21 car design Easter eggs you never knew about

The Story

Not the delicious, chocolatey kind, but 21 details you wouldn’t know were there unless you went looking for them.

Not the delicious, chocolatey kind, but 21 details you wouldn’t know were there unless you went looking for them. Published: 09 Sep 2026 External link to Top Gear Magazine Subscription – 3 months for £6The Ford GT’s birthday-celebrating headlightsAs well as being a nod to the ultra-successful GT40 racer, the original Ford GT was also conceived to mark Ford’s 2003 centenary (even if it went into production a couple of years too late), and the design team included a neat nod to this: look at the left headlight, and you’ll notice the individual lighting elements spell out ‘100’. Of course, look at the right headlight, and it says ‘OOI’, but just ignore that bit.

Ever wondered why the original BMW Z4 has that weird diagonal slash running down the front wings through the indicator lights?. It’s not entirely gratuitous: in combination with the character line that runs along the top of the wing, and the one that goes along the sills, it makes a ‘Z’ shape in a nod to the car’s name. Again, this only works if viewed from the left, otherwise it’s a backwards Z, which makes less sense.

1212 interesting used classic cars for less than a new Dacia Spring45Fail of the Century: 45 of the worst cars from 2000 to now21Weird doors, drones, and. Rocket boosters?. Here are 21 bits of wild Chinese car tech10Ten of the best city cars you can buy in the UK right nowThe 992 Porsche 911’s rear grilleThe twin central brakelights on the current Porsche 911 are another detail that might look like design for design’s sake until you consider what’s either side of them: the 911’s rear grille, consisting of two lots of nine vertical slats. In other words, two nines and, in Roman numerals, a two. In other other words: 992, the car’s chassis code. Or, if you cover up one half of the grille, a nine and an 11. Yep, it’s an extremely nerdy two-for-one Easter egg.

Root around the interior of pretty much any Vauxhall (or Opel) built in the last 20 years, and you’ll likely eventually stumble across a cartoon shark moulded into the plastic somewhere. Some of them are in obvious places, like the wireless charging pad; others, you have to go looking for in places like the glovebox hinge or the underside of the removable cupholders.

Jeep may well be the world champion of automotive Easter eggs, and they’re nowhere more prevalent than in the Wrangler, which is constantly reminding you that it’s descended from the World War II Willys Jeep. Depending on the version, you’ll find silhouettes of it in the windscreen frits, the automatic gear selector and on the wheels. Then there’s the one that flashes up on the instrument cluster on startup before it morphs into a modern Wrangler. We get it, guys.

The door speakers of the reborn electric Hummer feature what, at first glance, appear to be a standard run-of-the-mill contour map. Surely a nod to the mammoth EV’s off-road chops, right?. Not quite: what they actually depict is the Sea of Tranquility, the site of the 1969 moon landing. Despite that, we’re 99.9 per cent sure you can’t go to the moon in a Hummer EV. Although you could go to a soundstage in Nevada. Hmmm.

The long, slender bars that make up the rear lights of the new third-gen Nissan Leaf are separated out into two separate groups, one with two bars and one with three. Interpret them as Roman numerals, and it literally spells out a two and a three, at least on the right. And what’s the Japanese for ‘two-three’?. ‘Ni-san’. And yes, this is also why factory Nissan race cars have often carried the race number 23. The more you know, etc.

A simple idea yet one of the single biggest safety advancements in the history of the car. In 1959 Volvo became the first company to start installing three-point seatbelts in its cars, a fact the Swedish company is rightly proud of. So proud, in fact, that its belt buckles now carry the inscription ‘Since 1959’. Nice.

It’s late in the design process of the new BMW-developed Mini, and the styling team, led by Frank Stephenson, has just worked late to get a clay model ready for presentation to the board the next day. To celebrate their hard work, they crack open a few cold ones in the studio, until somebody realises they’ve forgotten something crucial: an exhaust tip. Thinking quickly, Stephenson strips the labels off an empty beer can, punches a hole in one end and jams it into the rear bumper of the styling model. Et voila, an exhaust tip that looked as if it was meant to be there from day one, and one the board liked so much it made it to production.

Why It Matters

Here are 21 bits of wild Chinese car tech10Ten of the best city cars you can buy in the UK right nowThe 992 Porsche 911’s rear grilleThe twin central brakelights on the current Porsche 911 are another detail that might look like design for design’s sake until you consider what’s either side of them: the 911’s rear grille, consisting of two lots of nine vertical slats.

CarMotion Daily’s Take

It’s late in the design process of the new BMW-developed Mini, and the styling team, led by Frank Stephenson, has just worked late to get a clay model ready for presentation to the board the next day. Watch this space over the coming weeks. Electric momentum is uneven across the industry, and moves like this reshape how buyers compare EV lineups. Range, charging speed, and price still dominate EV shopping — every new entry forces competitors to either match or reposition. Watch for EPA range certifications and DC fast-charge benchmarks once independent tests land. Pricing tiers, software updates, and any regional trim adjustments will tell us how serious the launch intent is.