Lots of what tends to drive people to buy certain cars is the image that they project. Let’s face it, car companies don’t make ads about pickup trucks that feature cowboys, country scenes, mud bogging, and other activities because they think it would be a fun commercial to make. They do it because that type of image and activity appeals to the buyers, who will never, ever do any of the things pictured (OK, 98% never will). The funny CL ad for the Chevy truck we ran the other day was a kind of reinforcement of this idea because even though that ad was way over the top, it parodied all of the things that a modern truck ad panders to. The vast majority of pickups are used to drive someone to an office on a paved road, not repair the barbed wire fence around the outside of a cattle ranch (with apologies to actually cattle ranchers using trucks). Nothing cracks us up more than a guy talking about how “huge” his stock truck is. Unless they really being dinks we don’t mention the fact that it isn’t huge until it is wearing a tire at least 46″ tall.
On the complete other side of the spectrum are the hybrid cars that pander to the exact opposite things as the pickup. They have happy flowers in their commercials and seem to insinuate that their cars don’t use any natural resources and emit eel farts instead of exhaust when running on their gasoline engines. Of course the owners of these cars want to project an image that they are smart, environmentally with it, unaware that the electricity that powers their car was no produced out of thin air, and they are normally all to happy to talk climate change.
Other groups are Corvette guys, Miata owners, and in a negative sense, mini-van owners. They usually won’t admit to liking their car in public but will praise it behind closed doors for its room and utility. Finally there are the Pacifica owners like us who enjoys projecting the image of poor decision making, a distinct lack of style, and an absolute hatred of acceleration.
BangShift Question Of The Day: What Is The Most Image Driven Vehicle Type?
BMW, driven by people who are way more important than you are
I agree 100% with johnnyg.
The “SUV”. People want big powerful SUV’s even if they are no bigger than a Vega wagon with a taller roof lin. I don’t get the way the term/classification SUV is now pretty much tall station wagons but it derived from Scouts, early Bronco’s, early full removable top K5 Blazers & CJ Jeeps.
Errr … try 6’4″ aging back and needing the higher seating for one thing .. not to mention needing the room to store my gear for gigs . For another SUV’s are derived from the 1946 Jeep Wagon .. with everything after being a copy . And btw … my SUV has a smaller footprint than a Mercedes C-Class … more interior room than any wagon currently on the market … and will out run and out handle 80 % of the so called ‘ sports ‘ sedans and coupes being sold . Not to mention with my living in a snow zone ( potentially from Sept – May ) that AWD and ground clearance has been more than useful on more than a few occasions
e.g. Some of us buy them because they WORK .. and not for the image 😉
They are derived from Conestoga wagons? Mine gets filled with crap all the time. Sometimes I think a smaller car would be nice just so I didn’t have to pack mule all the shit that normally accompanies us on a trip. 🙂
If every F350 / HD Chevy / 1 ton dually Ram was ever used as hard as the commercials imply they will be, there would be a LOT more really ugly trucks around here. As it is, there are a LOT of scratch free 37″ tired 6″ exhaust badly tuned smoke machines running around here.
I give the truck the most pandered to award.
The most image driven market, in my opinion, is motorcycles. Followed closely by pickups.
It would seem that most of the cars’ images today come from the dinks that own and drive them and less from whatever image the car companies would like to portray them to have.
Range Rovers . They’re expensive as all get out . Break down more often and in a big way than any car/SUV on the road . Spend more time in the shop than on the road . The dealerships treat the customers like garbage ( albeit wealthy garbage ) Are out gunned and out performed by cars half their price . Are expensive as hell to insure . Fall apart ( literally ) before your very eyes . And lose their resale value faster than you can park one in your garage . Oh .. and did I mention the Range Rover Evoque is nothing more than a Ford Focus in very very expensive drag ?
So other than image … what reason is there to buy one ?
Tesla owners, I have seen first hand the owners of these cars and there arrogant smugness they have when they gather at Gateway Motorsports Park, these people think in they are better than anyone else and there arrogance shows.
Prius
The VW Microbus.
Where is my Prius based pickup?
I want a badder asser tank
In our country…4×4’s…Land Rover
the most image driven is an SUV appealing to someone six foot four who does not know a 1969 Datsun wagon has the same interior room as an 84 full size blazer.. Seriously. An SUV in a place with really bad roads is a dead SUV on its roof or side, or front bashed in because brakes do not work on 12 feet tall and 64 inch wide center center wheels like every midget ricer known to man. Anyway, The oddest modern image I have ever seen is trying to make subarus effeminate…their “subaru love” commercials are the strangest ever.
F’ing Escalades. Can’t stand ’em.
HYBRIDS-the moving road blocks of today(think VW bus of the 60s-70s)