You Are What You Drive??!?

When we go shopping for clothes, we look for the kind of things that we are likely to feel comfortable being seen in public with. While I like a nice Polo shirt and clean shoes – my colleague James on the other hand – is more partial to baggy jeans, redneck baseball caps and a bottle of beer! But then if James was to turn up to an event wearing tweed and brogues, I would be flabbergasted to the point of speechlessness. Everyone has their own style, you can recognise a person without seeing their face by glancing over what clothing they have on! But does the same apply to what car people buy for themselves?

Cars are known to have given stereotypes based on the kind of common driver that tends to push their pedals with most frequency. The BMW Driver with a lack of indication or cognitive skills. The Audi Driver who always attempts the overtaking manoeuvre that just wasn’t as well thought out as it should have been. The Honda driver (usually a Jazz) driving at 25-30 miles an hour no matter what kind of road they are on and cornering at speeds familiar to most Glaciers.

But where to do these stereotypes come from? Is the kind of person buying the BMW putting their consideration into the car due to their lack of social consideration of others? Or do they just like the look of their high-end saloon that they have worked hard to have the salary in order to buy and run one? New car drivers more commonly have the choice of the smaller cars such as the Vauxhall Corsa, Ford Fiesta, Fiat 500 among others. But do the Corsa buyers have this natural instinct to rev at traffic lights and try to beat any and all other cars off the line, or was its economy and reasonable price the deciding factor?

There is no getting away from these social typecasts in modern society. Drivers are likely to always mistrust a White Van sitting behind them or the VW Golf with the wild exhaust making as much noise as possible from their – in the greater scheme of things – lack of horsepower.

I cannot provide a definitive answer for this, nor can anyone really claim to have one as everyone will have their own opinion based on what their automotive preferences are. The Corsa driver will try to get his/her answer out first, Audi driver will try to get in front when it's not likely appropriate and the White Van Man will follow closely behind with as much veiled aggression as they can muster.

The 3 Man Pit Crew will investigate, speak to the drivers, find out what they think and inevitably we will likely still not have an answer by the end of it.

Article by Iain Spowart