Well... the make is usually written on the car somewhere.

So yeah, I guess I can read.

Even worse, I can identify most cars at night using just the taillight/headlight shape

One of the things I absolutely cannot do. I just don't care about cars at all.

Cool people do something similar with birds and plants. I can do it with dogs

I'm one of these people that identifies vehicles by looking at them. It's a talent that impresses my kid so I'll take that as a positive! 😁

Not only am I one of those people, I'm also one who judges people for buying certain cars. Like "Ha, look at that loser who bought that early model Chrysler 300, enjoy your motor blowing up" or "is that a SUPRA that's actually just a BMW Z4?" Then usually whoever is in the car with me asks what the fuck I'm talking about and I just say "nevermind" and move on to judging the next car in silence.

Except for Tesla's, I will point at them and yell "ewwww" when I see them, but not because they're EVs, because of Elon.

I will remember the year, make, model and possibly trim level of a person's car before I remember their name.

I had a friend who grew up in a factory town who could not only recognize most car makes and models, but in some cases could name people who probably worked on that car. I still think our culture is too car-centered, but that have me a new perspective on it.

Sometimes you just need to be able to read the badge

You probably smugly talk about 'sportsball' as well.

Generally you can pretty accurately estimate the years (and make) of cars, due to the design preferences of the time

A 2003 Toyota Tacoma is very recognizable because of the simple and bubbly design a lot of late 90's and early 2000's cars had (coincidentally my least favorite time period of car design)

Of course there's also just a lot of stuff you pick up by seeing a car you don't recognize, researching it, and mentally noting the differences for the next time you see one!

Like, it's just Design. Different car makes and years have different design languages. Also, they usually have a big shiny logo that tells you the make, so you can go "huge Audi saloon" -> "A8".

Hey, the whole thing about shrimp is a misunderstanding. They have more receptors for different colors, yes. But it's because their brain is so rudimentary that they can't combine the input from 3 color receptors to perceive more colors; they need a separate color receptor for every single color.

It's like reading. I don't look at letters and think "that's an A and that's a B".

It's just "Miata, Civic, Explorer, etc"

Or recognizing people. I just know all these strangers names and faces.

Shrimp actually have less color range.

They've got more receptor types in their eyes than humans, but lack the ability to interpolate any mixed color data they're receiving, so they basically only see the 12 colors/shades while humans perceive an entire spectrum.

Some cars are more iconic than others, and some cars are pretty common.

What's a sedan?

The comments here really don’t realise what sub they are in Lol

I can do this and i hate it

It tends to be a good writing tip when storytelling to use specific details to build a detailed picture.

So, “I drove my car to the place where my friends and I drink beers” becomes “I drove the old Focus out to the abandoned track, where my friends and I would always set out lawn chairs to drink a few Coors.”

People have a natural taxonomic instinct, to identify animals, plants and other humans. Manufacturers of consumer goods manipulate that instinct through branding and design language, to cause you to remember and distinguish their otherwise functionally identical products. It's a form of spamming.

I'm the same. people ask about a car and I'm here saying i don't know, it had like four wheels probably.

I remember as a kid, I was mystified by this other girl on the block who could do this. I didn't understand why anyone would care. A car is a car?

Eventually I realized it's because she was super into external social status signs. She wasn't a gearhead, so she hadn't picked it up the way guys do bonding over technical stats of whatever, but she was hyper-sensitive to social status, so she picked it up along with anything else related to fashion. And cars can be considered fashion, right up there with makeup and having the right purse.