Nice Whip: How Cars Got One of Their Nicknames
Cars come with all kinds of nicknames. No one knows for sure where “whip” came from, but the theories are lots of fun.
Written by Alex Reale
Reviewed by Lisa Steuer McArdle
We have lots of ways to talk about our
universe of cars
. People get rides, you can check out someone’s wheels, and we all feel sympathy for the guy driving the junker. Sure, you can call a car a car, but where’s the fun in that? One slang term for a car has a distinctly youthful flavor to it. Like many internet-derived coinages, its origins are disputed.
Jerry
, the trustworthy insurance comparison app
, looks at some of the best theories for the reason you’ll hear cars called “whips.”Carriage ride, anyone?
Two of the most commonly cited explanations for the emergence of the term rest in the very literal.
Many armchair experts feel strongly about the expression coming from the use of leather whips by drivers of carriages, those precursors of our modern cars. To get a carriage to change direction or go faster, the theory goes, you’d (regrettably) use your whip on your horses. Carriages became cars, whips became steering wheels, and voilà—the analogy extended far enough to capture the whole car.
The verb version of the word is another nice possibility. Anyone who has ever whipped a car around a curve—hopefully on a closed course—knows the joyous feeling of power and control. Perhaps the visceral feel of a good “whip” leant itself to nicknamification.
None of this is conclusive, but one thing is certain: the story of cars-as-whips would not be complete without a brief detour into the world of rap.
Enter Kanye, and some Bay Area rappers
According to
The Drive
, Kanye West was among the first to popularize the term. Songs like “Last Call” and “Slow Jamz,” both from his iconic 2004 album “The College Dropout,” refer to whips. The relevant line from “Last Call” is an especially potent example of West’s lyrical dynamism: “Mayonnaise-colored Benz, I push Miracle Whips.” Mercedes-Benz was all too happy to maintain this connection, tweeting the lyrics in 2015 along with a picture of a cream-colored C-Class.
And this use of “whip” quickly saturated the culture of rap and hip hop beyond one album. In 2008, a documentary called “Ghostride the Whip” came out, which celebrated the hip hop culture of the Bay Area, 2,000 miles from West’s native Chicago.
The film’s title is a reference to the practice of putting a car in neutral, cranking the music up as high as possible, and exiting to the car to dance alongside as it rolls down the street. Note: this is not technically legal, nor is it necessarily advisable, but it does look incredibly fun.
Who knows how long this term will last, in this era of fleeting
TikTok fame
? But while it still clings to relevance, we can enjoy inventive rap lyrics and videos of joyful ghostriders. The whip is still king.Insuring your whip
Need better
car insurance
for your beloved whip? Jerry
is the easiest and most effective way to find a car insurance policy that is customized for you.After providing you with a comprehensive cross-analysis of the best policies across providers, Jerry will handle the phone calls, paperwork, and renewals for your top pick so that you don’t have to. They can even help cancel your old policy! So why do all that extra work when Jerry can do it better?
Are you overpaying for car insurance?
Compare quotes and find out in 45 seconds.
4.7You might also be interested
