your father's vehicle
- idiom
- Informal
- This isn't your father's vehicle—it's sleek, efficient, and eco-friendly.
Examples
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The new electric model is your father's vehicle in name only; it's packed with advanced features.
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Don't settle for your father's vehicle when you can have the latest model.
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Forget what you know: today's SUV is not your father's vehicle.
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This new smartphone is not your father's vehicle!
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Forget what you know: today's SUV is not your father's vehicle.
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This isn't your father's vehicle—it's sleek, efficient, and eco-friendly.
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The new electric model is your father's vehicle in name only; it's packed with advanced features.
Synonyms
Used to describe something very different from older versions and much more modern
How Modern
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal parts ('your', 'father's', 'vehicle') signal possession by an older generation, so a learner can infer a contrast with something belonging to one's parents. However, the idiomatic use in advertising meaning 'not old-fashioned / a modern, different version' relies on cultural pragmatics and a conventionalized negation pattern ('not your father's X'), so the full nuance is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Your father's vehicle comes from the picture of your father's vehicle, the older, familiar car a parent might drive. Advertisers use it to say a new model is very different or improved, so the phrase means 'not old-fashioned' or 'modern'.