I'm not sure what human beings are, but we occasionally feel very strange about the visibility of small round objects. Take the nipple as an example. Headphone jack. Ringworm scars on your thighs. But I think the most inexplicable little round things we spent a lot of energy trying to hide are the screw heads and other fasteners on cars. Efforts to hide the fact that things are related to other things are absurd. No problem with the screws! It's time to stop hiding them.

If you don't mind, please take a moment to consider the picture above. In fact, if it helps, I’ll repeat it here, closing the plastic hinged cover, then flipping it open so that you can step back in horror on the beautiful shiny Phillips head screws that hold everything in place:

By the way, this accessory is located on the sun visor holder of the Genesis GV80, which means that when the sun visor is raised, the entire assembly is hidden.

Look at the damn thing. There is a complete miniature plastic injection-molded steamer suitcase with hinges and everything, just to hide a single screw. This is by no means uncommon-look at almost all cars manufactured since the 1970s and you will see similar ridiculous lengths in the form of small lids, pop-up panels, plugs, etc., all of which are designed to hide screw heads .

Just remind me to keep it simple, or decorate yours with RGB lights, touch screens or even digital thermostats.

Objectively speaking, this is absolutely crazy.

Why, to be precise, we collectively decided that the visible screws look so bad that we have to hide them?

The screw head is not an ugly thing. They are utilitarian things, of course, but this is different from ugliness, and we have no reason to think they need to be hidden. There is no shame in admitting that things need to be screwed together. The machine is not only tightly connected by the magic of elegant design, but also thousands of hard-working fasteners that make the huge combination of parts into a wonderful whole. We have no reason to deliberately ignore their contributions.

I know that the smooth surface may be due to aviation reasons. Certain smooth designs look better with clean, uninterrupted lines. Okay, of course. Maybe this proves that it is reasonable to cover some very obvious external fasteners, but the small internal fasteners can support the sun visor? Please.

It's not that you can't make high-quality screw heads or other fasteners look "premium" or luxurious. In fact, the bold display of a truly top-notch fastener does show true luxury, because nothing is hidden-this is not nonsense of a fancy jacket, its quality has been declining.

Spyker, the Dutch supercar manufacturer, has always understood this. Look at the inside-it's full of visible screw heads and at the same time very luxurious. The two need not be mutually exclusive.

I know some cars are not ashamed of fasteners, but usually they are rugged off-road vehicles like jeep. These vehicles are pursuing practical and unique qualities. Although it is built on real practical problems (doors and windshields, you want to be able to easily remove them), it can evolve into a kind of artificial fastener fascination. This is our ultimate It turns out something like this:

Remember the Jeep Cherokee steering wheel with eight hex head bolts in the center? Those bolts are fake. Fake fake fake fake. However, this car has many hidden fasteners, just like on these sun visor brackets:

So, here we have such a situation, some screws are embarrassing and must be hidden, and in other places, we really want to see the fasteners, we will put the fake part in front of the driver.

None of this makes any sense, it's time for us to stop.

According to my authority as the head of the Global Fastener Pride Initiative, I have issued a formal request from Jalopnik to the global automakers to no longer hide fasteners unnecessarily.

Let the screw head be clear at a glance! Show your bolts! We can accomplish this! We already like to show certain fastening methods, such as bold contrast stitching, so why not show cute, polished, high-quality screws?

From a service and maintenance point of view, it’s easier. There is no need to make a stupid little rubber plug or small plastic suitcase to hide half of the screws in the car. It will definitely save some cost and logistics advantages, right?

It's just that the designed mounting seat can already see the screws publicly and shamelessly.

To let you know that I walk with this, I want to show you how many visible fasteners are on my daily driver Pao:

I am ashamed of not having those hard-working screws.

Screws and fasteners connect the world together. It's time to stop being ashamed. It's time to stop hiding every screw.

Jason, there is no need to go crazy about this. I know that if our car does not have various types of fasteners, we will all be tightened, but this is hardly a riveting post. (Although, I would say that Spyker’s photos show that they really know how to determine the interior.) I realize that you may just want to meet your quota so that you can rush to work early on Friday, but try to keep something more anchored , Okay?