Donk, Box & Bubble

[Wilson Gray]

That is, it's a clip  from "badonkadonk." IMO, not likely, but who knows?

-Wilson

On 6/17/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Donk, Box & Bubble
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From the NYT Magazine's "Consumed" column...
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17wwln-consumed-t.html
> [...]
> Picture, for instance, a 1976 Impala improbably perched on 26-inch
> wheels and painted in colors inspired by a variety of Hawaiian Punch.
> This is what's called a donk.
> The donk is a car-customization mash-up, forcing a reconciliation
> between seemingly contradictory trends. First: the well-established
> low-rider idea of modifying the suspension on, say, a carefully
> restored Impala, so that it rides as close to the ground as possible.
> The second trend is rim inflation, the more recent but evidently
> unflagging popularity of increasingly large wheels, especially on
> S.U.V.'s, associated with the blingiest manifestations of hip-hop
> style. It was apparently in Miami, about six years ago, that somebody
> decided to marry these notions and modify a classic low-rider car to
> accommodate oversize rims, according to Brian Scotto, who is the
> editor of a magazine called Donk, Box & Bubble.
> Technically, Scotto explains, donks are Caprices or Impalas from the
> years 1971 to 1976. (One theory about the provenance of the name

> _"donk"_ ... _derives from a slang term for a shapely posterior_.)

> A similarly customized Caprice or Impala from model years 1977 to 1990
> is a box, and '91s through '96s are bubbles, names that reference the
> cars' silhouettes. Scotto's magazine uses the term hi-risers to cover
> the entire category, but most any tricked-out boxy '70s sedan is now
> routinely called a donk. The key is "really big wheels, wheels that
> obviously do not fit in the wheel well," Scotto continues, adding that
> these days, you really need 24-inch wheels to qualify.
> [...]
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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