Education level, tech smarts and wealth are just a few traits your ride can
convey.
2010 Mini Cooper
Porsches smack of success. Hondas preach practicality. And, according to a recent report, Chevys proudly proclaim of their owners, "I don't use the Internet."
Your car implies
more about your life than you might think. While 13% of Chevy owners don't use the Web, by contrast, less than 3% of Honda
owners remain in the technological Stone Age. The antithesis of flashy, Honda owners are usually pragmatic and well educated;
70% boast a college degree or higher, compared with 35% of Chevy owners and 45% of
Ford owners.
The data was released in the spring as part of this year's New Vehicle Experience Study by San Diego-based market research
outfit Strategic Vision.
"Honda buyers buy primarily for the trust and dependability they find in our vehicles," says Honda spokesman Chris Naughton.
"Typically, highly functional vehicles deliver less image because customers didn't purchase for image."
Education level and computer savvy are just a couple of the things your car says about you. We collected demographic data
on 10 prominent auto brands from the manufacturers themselves, as well as from neutral sources like Strategic Vision. It turns
out, your wheels also give clues to your age, gender, income level and marital status--even your political leanings.
Mini Mindset
If you'd like to cultivate an image of sophistication, try buying a Mini Cooper. The line of Lilliputian hatchbacks appeals to urbane buyers with median incomes of around $125,000. But aside from wealth,
Mini owners are a tough bunch to pin down, demographically speaking, since the car has broad appeal.
"It's a certain mindset," says Nathalie Bauers, spokeswoman for Mini USA. "People who relate to the brand, there's no age
to that."
Bauers says Mini owners fall into four categories: brand enthusiasts, who relish the car's British racing roots; design
aficionados, who like the car's simple elegance; social butterflies, who want to be part of the Mini community; and gas misers,
who crave the Mini's fuel efficiency.
Some of the latter group trade down from trucks and SUVs not because they feel financially crunched by high gas prices,
but because they want to be conscientious and reduce their impact on the environment. These "right-sizers" like the Mini's
eco-friendly image; all Mini models get at least 34 miles per gallon on the highway. Says Bauers: "Many of our customers are
people who get a smaller car because it's the right thing to do."
Gray Area
While Minis appeal to several different types of people, owners of the classic English luxury vehicle Rolls-Royce can't be pigeonholed beyond the fact that they're rich.
"As you can imagine, our customers do not really take surveys," says Rolls-Royce spokeswoman Karen Vonder Meulen. "The
one common thread that all our customers share is a passion for life and most truly love cars."
Indeed, well-known Rolls owners range from royal families to rappers. Recording artist T-Pain, who ranks No. 9 on Forbes'
Hip-Hop Cash Kings list, owns North America's first Rolls-Royce Drophead.The fire-engine-red coupe boasts a 12-cylinder, 453-horsepower engine and a top speed of 150 miles per hour. Base price:
$435,000.
Similarly, the Bentley trademark screams wealth--typically at least $5 million in investable assets, to be precise--but in a softer voice than some
of its competitors.
"Our cars aren't as brash as some other performance-car manufacturers," says Stuart McCullough, a Bentley board member.
"We tend to be understated, quintessentially English. That reflects the mood and style of our customers."
Such restraint can be considered especially important in the current climate. With unemployment rates skyrocketing around
the world, many auto enthusiasts would rather drive an understated gray Bentley than a flashy red Ferrari.
"The most opulent part of a Bentley is on the inside," says McCullough. "Rich people are very aware of how others see them
at the moment, the choices they make. Now is not the right time to be seen to be spending money when you're laying people
off at your factory."
A note to those wealthy employers: Think twice about splurging on even an understated new car. If you see scads of Hondas
in your company parking lot, their savvy owners may be wise to your ways. If you only see Chevys, you might be able to get
away with it.
THE FOLLOWING IS REPLY FROM DUNCAN WOOD
Why do journalists go into media? Why do politicians run?
Easy. It beats working.
Once you get there you have to find something to say, and that's where they begin to detract
from the world, by coming out with a constant stream of garbage in order to look busy.
The Forbes article which suggests Mini owners might be either misers or exclusivity
wannabees is a fun example. And wrong. And the old Mini's real racing heritage was only against other Minis. Single type racing.
No-one can deny the prettiness of the car, though, but that was evolved within Rover, before
BMW rubber-stamped a proposal and claimed the whole shebang as their own. Aha...
Incidentally, the old Mini did win the Monte Carlo Rally once, but was only in the Italian Job
movie because it happened to fit in a sewer pipe. They couldn't use the Fiat 500 of the time because the engine was in the
back where the gold needed to be. And it was so underpowered it would not move with more than one Italian nun on board. And the
Mini didn't tend to fly in pieces over rough ground like a Fiat.
And anyway, was this article written by the same Zack O'Malley Greenburg who played the part
of the sick child in the tear-jerk movie Lorenzo's Oil? Or are there a whole bunch of Zack O'Malley Greenburgs swelling
the phone book? And is he still in a job that beats working?
I apologise. It's bad form to address a question to the reader. Couldn't resist.
Perhaps it's time for Professor D to look more closely at Zack O'Malley Greenburg Syndrome. That
is the irritating inclination to read implications into any old thing. Such as what a fur hat "says" about an eskimo.
What the sea "says" about fish. As a place to live, you know. It's not exactly a gated community.
And this is not a journalistic wilderness. There are potentially rich pickings here.
This is the spice of journalistic life:
- What the moon "says" about the Earth;
- What sand "says" about the desert;
- What spikes "say" about a cactus;
- What tarmac "says" about roads;
- What rubber "says" about tires;
- What salt "says" about cuisine.
- What Tipper Gore "says" about rhythm.
The quoted indicators are priceless jokes.
Porsches "smack of success," well, true... people don't buy the stupid things,
they just lease them and leave a car dealer holding the worthless baby. It's dog eat dog, after all...
Honda owners' and education... Amazing: People spend vast amounts putting themselves
through college only to wind up stuck in traffic driving a lawn mower... poor chaps
Chevy and Ford owners say, "Dunno much about history, Dunno
much Biology, Dunno much about a science book, Dunno much about the French I took, But I do
know that I love you, And I know that if you loved me too, What a wonderful world it would be, etc.
That's more like it.
Which is why Germans attend evening classes to learn about how to laugh, (I kid you not,) and
the Japanese suffer the world's highest suicide rates, including among schoolchildren and retirement-age females. Says
a lot about the Germans and Japanese.
Ford and Chevy shortage.
Conformity has a price-tag: the soul.
And in such cases the devil does not claim the soul. It just gets lobbed out of the window.
Ah, but the Mini has escaped.
Originating at Rover, it participated in the general, rebellious labour-union highway-to-hell
stampede.
Death becomes her. As does resurrection, humorless or otherwise.
All this has some meaning in the outside world.
But there's a fine thing that unites the Villages.
A classless element that does not seem to differentiate between the BMW and the Toyota Camry.
A few custom buggies aside, the golf cart is the great leveller.
I've driven the Villages in everything from a Malibu to a Toyota, and nobody seems to take any account of what the car might have been saying, if indeed it had
anything to say at all.
It's a glimpse of real freedom for anyone like me whose vehicle has always been taken
to "say" something about them.
That's how it goes in a class-obsessed society like the UK.
People can try to live without such thoughts, but the media keep the pressure on in the mistaken
belief that they are entertaining everyone. The class obsession has mostly shrunk down to the media, but the fun they have
with it keeps everyone else depressed.
Here in the UK, a country trying to recover from the false concepts of class and class mobility,
the jokes connected with brands exist in the millions, and the
stereotypes are incisively
expressed and the humor very cutting.
I have tried every approach I know how to explore this subject and eke some of the humour out
of it, but everything I have thought up just seems to be abusive or snobbish trash.
Might work for
a stand-up comedian in a bar, but not for someone attempting to amuse reasonable people.
Sorry Bud, this one has snuffed it on the keyboard.
Like the piano player in the wrong saloon.
I have attached two pictures that may be of interest, one of my Land Rover with a message to journalists on the front,
and one of the Land Rover the Queen of England drives on her own country estates. Not the actual one, but the same model in
the same color.
The fact of what she really drives - and there are television documentaries in existence showing her going about
in it - probably illustrates best what cars should be taken to say about their owners: nothing.
