Gatsby's car, outsized and ostentatious, represents Gatsby's flamboyant gestures, love of the material world, and huge capacity to dream.
We learn that the car is very large and both green on the inside, like a "conservatory," and painted a creamy color that people describe as yellow. For instance, George Wilson calls it a "nice yellow" car, and a person who witnesses the accident at the end of the novel describes it as
" a yellow car," he said, "big yellow car. New."
Green and yellow are both colors associated with Gatsby. Green, such as the green light at the end of Daisy's pier, represents Gatsby's dreams and desires, while yellow or cream represents his money.
Buying a huge car—"rich cream color, bright with nickel"—is typical of and represents Gatsby's tendency to make large gestures. He doesn't just throw parties, he throws the biggest and best parties possible, just as he lives in a huge mansion and owns expensive shirts in every color in the rainbow. He never does things by halves.
The car being "bright with nickel" and "new" represents Gatsby's nouveau riche status. If Tom is associated with polo, horses, and old money, Gatsby is symbolized by the car, still new in the 1920s, and the brash new 1920s wealth it symbolizes.
Finally, it is significant that the mirrors on the car "mirrored a dozen suns." The sun is a symbol of hope in this novel, and the "dozen" suns that the car reflects represent the outsized capacity of Gatsby to hope and dream. Nick comes to admire Gatsby's boundless capacity to dream amid the "foul dust" that surrounds him.
Gatsby's car is a very flashy, ostentatious set of wheels. As such, it represents the nouveau riche, the new-money crowd of West Egg to which he belongs.
As Gatsby wants to impress people with his phenomenal wealth, he figures that if you've got it, you need to flaunt it. And so it's not enough for Jay to own a regular automobile; he has to have an oversized car of “monstrous length,” “swollen here and there,” with all kinds of boxes designed for storage space.
By owning such a monstrosity of a car, Gatsby is showing off his wealth. Just like the lavish parties he throws at his mansion on a regular basis, he wants to impress people. At the same time, one can easily imagine a member of the old-money East Egg elite looking down their noses at Gatsby's car, dismissing it as frightfully vulgar, a surefire sign of someone with lots of money but with no class or taste.
But this is probably the only way that Gatsby can make an impression. He doesn't have an impressive pedigree or a good family name. All he has is money and lots of it. That being the case, he's left with no choice but to flash the cash if he's going to get other people to notice him. And what better way to do that than to invest in...
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a flashy car?
Further Reading
Gatsby's car is very much a symbol of the man himself. Nick, indeed, first describes it as "gorgeous," just like Gatsby appears to others: well-dressed, well-spoken, well-educated. He appears to be perfect, just like his car.
However, Nick goes on to describe it as
[...] swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town.
Words like "swollen" and "monstrous" have quite negative connotations, especially to describe such a "gorgeous" vehicle, alerting us to the fact that something more is going on here. "Swollen" is often used in connection to some kind of infection or illness, and "monstrous" connotes something grotesque, deformed. This might lead us to imagine someone who is puffed up, someone who has made something of themselves that is completely different from who they really are. Gatsby himself has become larger and stranger by his acquisition of all the material goods that seem to swell his car and draw attention to his giant size.
However, the labyrinthine, multi-layered glass seems like so many beautiful ways to distract from something or hide it altogether. Instead of clearly revealing the person within, they mirror "a dozen suns," protecting the identity within the labyrinth. Just as the car's windshields hide its driver, so does Gatsby's elaborate persona hide the person he really is.
The best way to answer the question is to give the description of it. Here is what the text says:
Gatsby's car was a ''rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns'
Again, the text says:
''labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns.''
Based on these descriptions, it is clear that the Rolls Royce is over the top, excessive, and meant to impress. The second quote show the glitz and glamor. All of this fits Gastby's personality and persona - all for show. The irony is that this type of wealth is tacky and so will never be accepted by the old money. It tries too hard. From this perspective, the car symbolizes that Gatsby will always be an outsider.
More importantly, the car symbolizes Gatsby's downfall, as the car will crash and kill Myrtle. In the end, Gatsby, for all this wealth, will come to ruin as well.
Gatsby's Rolls-Royce figures prominently in the novel. Nick first describes it as "gorgeous" with a horn that plays a three-note melody. His description then becomes more detailed:
It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length . . . and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns.
The extravagance of Gatsby's car represents his enormous wealth. However, it suggests not the muted elegance of "old money," but instead the lavish, gaudy excess of "new money." Gatsby's car symbolizes his place in society; he has money, but he will never be accepted in Daisy's world of old family names and inherited wealth. Tom alludes to this distinction when he refers to Gatsby's car as a "circus wagon."
What does Gatsby symbolize?
Jay Gatsby is a living embodiment of the American Dream. A man from a humble Midwestern background, he's become phenomenally rich and successful, enjoying all the trappings of his enormous wealth. However, Gatsby also represents the dark side of this headlong pursuit of riches. In order to acquire his fortune, he involved himself in all manner of shady, criminal activities. This highlights the corrosive effect that the American Dream can have upon an individual's soul; it makes people do things they really ought not to do.
In any case, for all Gatsby's wealth, he cannot have the one thing he wants more than anything else in the world: Daisy Buchanan. Daisy may be impressed by Gatsby's opulent mansion and his impressive collection of designer shirts, but when push comes to shove, she's not going to leave her husband for him. In part, this is because Gatsby is still nouveau riche, a parvenu still looked down upon by authentic blue-bloods like Daisy's husband, Tom. No matter how much wealth Gatsby accrues, he will never be accepted by the old money elite and his dream of being with Daisy can thus never be fulfilled.
In the end, Gatsby's futile pursuit of the American Dream leads him to his death. Like so many American people, he has been crushed by an understandable, if somewhat misguided, desire for wealth. Too late, he discovers that riches alone cannot bring him the happiness and satisfaction he desires.
Further Reading
What does the car symbolize in The Great Gatsby? Is it related to death?
Among other things, Gatsby's flashy, yellow car symbolizes the shallow, materialistic lifestyle that he leads. Like the car, everything about Gatsby is for show, designed to impress. As Nick tells us, certain features of the car are "monstrous" and "swollen" implying that, like its owner, it's more than a tad vulgar.
The further implication is that Gatsby is trying to be someone he isn't, making himself out to be better than he really is. And that's perfectly true. Gatsby, a former criminal from a humble, Midwestern background, desperately wants to be accepted by the authentic blue-bloods of East Egg and sees ostentation—flashy cars, a big mansion, lots of nice designer shirts—as a way of doing that. But the bulkiness and sheer excess of his car reveal him to be a parvenu, a member of the new rich, someone without a snowball in hell's chance of being accepted on equal terms by the old money elite.
Despite his strenuous efforts to ingratiate himself with the East Eggers, Gatsby remains a mystery to them and to everyone around him, and the car's windows symbolize this. The multi-layered glass hides Gatsby from the world outside as he drives along, just as his elaborate persona hides the real Jay from the people he's trying to impress.
Gatsby is eventually undone by his doomed attempts to live the American Dream, which is partly symbolized in the story by his car. It is Gatsby's car, driven recklessly at high speed by Daisy Buchanan, that inadvertently leads to Jay's death. After Daisy mows down Myrtle Wilson, Myrtle's distraught husband, George, is led to believe that Gatsby was driving the car. So he goes looking for Gatsby and shoots him dead.
On a symbolic level, the American Dream, symbolized by Gatsby's car, ends the life of both Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson, two people who desperately wanted to escape their humble backgrounds and become someone and something else.
Further Reading