American Cars in The British Commonwealth
The term "Yank tank" is also used in Australian and Canadian slang to describe these cars, but more generally to describe any American car considered to be large and unwieldy - including both classics (such as Cadillacs) and modern SUVs. The term entered the general vocabulary in Britain during the Second World War and especially the decade afterwards, when some American servicemen stationed in Britain imported cars from the USA. This happened at a time when American cars reached their largest sizes and most extravagant styling, leading to the term 'Yank Tank' in relation to these cars' bulk and unwieldy size on typically narrow and winding British roads. This difference was especially great because British cars of the 'Austerity Years' in the late 1940s and early 1950s were generally small, low-powered, with low equipment levels and constrained styling in comparison. The use of the term however no longer occurs in the UK.
Read more about this topic: Yank Tank
Famous quotes containing the words american, cars, british and/or commonwealth:
“First in booze, first in shoes, and last in the American League.”
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“For I could not read or speak and on the long nights I could not turn the moon off or count the lights of cars across the ceiling.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“I know an Englishman,
Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.”
—George Chapman c. 1559–1634, British dramatist, poet, translator. repr. In Plays and Poems of George Chapman: The Tragedies, ed. Thomas Marc Parrott (1910)
“Was I not born in this Realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country?... Is not my Kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made to this Commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard of the same?”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)