Can't seem to catch the attention of that certain someone? You may be driving him or her away before you open your car door.
You might wonder how often it is that "that certain someone" is in a position to see you pulling up in your lame-o, turnoff car. You also might wonder why you would be smitten with a person who apparently comes to dumb conclusions about you based on your current mode of transportation. Hold on, though. Maybe your ride says more about you than you might imagine.
That's because your ride says more about you than you might imagine.
Bingo. At this point I was intrigued, and I instantly suspected that my past romantic failures were not due to my own ineptness, but rather because my car had been telling girls behind my back about all the helpless animals and schoolchildren I've willfully mowed down over the years. It all made sense, finally. I knew my Knock-Knock jokes weren't "horrifyingly terrible"! Take that, therapist!
A man pulling up to a ritzy restaurant in a two-seater Porsche 911 sends a signal that he is a determined, highly successful, middle-aged professional.Ohhhh, we're talking about signals here. So check it out: If you're like an 80-year-old dude trying to score some 30-something tail, the 911 is for you. You just pull up to Le Food, and the girls will pick up on your determinedness, and successitude, and, most importantly for your purposes, middle-agedness, and they'll be intrigued. Now comes the tricky part, because you need to find a way to seduce them without letting them see your wrinkly old-guy face. Because I'm pretty sure that your car won't help you project middle-agedness when you hobble out and take your walker out of the backseat. You are disgustingly old. But what do I know? I drive a Silver Saturn SL2 with 93,000 miles on it. Maybe an 11-year-old can step out of a 911, and the girls will be so captivated by his car's luxurious signals that they'll peg him as a 44-year-old stockbroker.
The guy behind the wheel of an Audi RS4 sedan is confident shopping on Rodeo Drive and making deals on Park Avenue.
Self-explanatory. Are you a little squeamish shopping in Beverly Hills or brokering megadeals in the Big Apple? Here's a step-by-step guide to help you alleviate your anxiety:
1. Buy the RS4
You're welcome. Even if you've never made it out of Idaho, you're now well-prepared for a confident coastal foray.
Let's skip forward a little bit. Now we're learning what a car can say about a woman:
"The (Jaguar) XF is extremely modern," says Anne Clinard, a Jaguar North America spokeswoman. "It says that I am an individual who has a strong sense of self and appreciates the finer things in life. People know you have discerning tastes and that you are not afraid to stand out and drive something different than what your neighbors may drive."
You've gotta hand it to Forbes. To figure out what specific cars say to the world-at-large, they go to impartial sources: spokespeople for the car manufacturers in question. Anne Clinard may awkwardly segue from the first- to the second-person, but she really seems to know what the XF has to say. She knows that it takes a brave "individual" to drive around the neighborhood in a new Jaguar. I can just imagine how unique and discerning Jaguar XF drivers must appear to their upper-crust neighbors. They might as well ride in on a jewel-encrusted, three-legged ostrich. A Jaguar in a rich neighborhood? Get outta towne! But XF drivers are well-equipped to handle the whispers. Their sense of self will carry them through.
Automakers like Jaguar know that a car is more than transportation for some; it is an extension of the driver's image.
That's just how it is. It's not like Jaguar spends untold millions of dollars to make sure people know that people of a certain standing drive Jaguars.
That's why we turned to them to see what the market's most popular cars for men and women, according to J.D. Power and Associates, say about their drivers. Our findings come from automaker-supplied buyer demographics.
Wait. Didn't this article start by saying that your car could be the reason that you're seen as such a terrible prospective mate? But all of the article's conclusions about drivers are drawn from automakers' demographic info? So the girl of my dreams would only know what my car says about me if she pores over the market research of various car companies? Maybe it is the Knock-Knock jokes. Damn you, Dr. Fitz! See you next week!
"This new generation of consumers looks at a vehicle as a piece of clothing," says Wesley Brown, partner in Iceology, a Los Angeles-based consumer research and trend consulting firm. "We have clients who say 'My BMW or Jeep is the last thing I put on before I go out.' They are concerned with the color of their iPod and spend $200 to $300 for cool-looking sunglasses."
Wow. Wesley's clients are fucking douchebags. I'd like to hear the audio of Wesley's interview, because it seems impossible to give that quote without a disdainful inflection. I would also like to see video, because I have a hunch that he would enclose "cool-looking sunglasses" in sarcastic air-quotes. How come no one at Jaguar included "fucker" along with "discerning", "appreciates the finer things" and "strong sense of self"?High on the luxury list for women are safety, reliability and value. Men prefer the exact opposite; performance, power and style are among their top choices.
You heard it here first: The exact opposite of safety is performance. Kids, remember that come SAT season, and you can go to a state school like Uncle Shawn.
Take the Porsche 911. Its buyers are 86.8% male with the average age of 51 and median income of $390,000. They are driven to succeed and like to reward themselves for achieving their goals.
Recurring theme: Buyers of expensive cars are "driven to succeed", which as far as I can tell means "Can afford to buy an expensive car," thereby telling us nothing new about the buyer of an expensive car. Similarly, "like to reward themselves for achieving their goals" can be understood as "Would buy an expensive car". In related news, men who have cancer are cancerous, and are more likely to die of cancer than men who do not have cancer.
If you are looking for love, you may want to steer clear of women driving sport-utility vehicles.
So an article that began by saying that your book is being judged by its cover is now encouraging you to judge other books by their covers. Also, I was really, really hoping that the next sentence would reveal that market research has shown SUV-driving women to be both fatter and smellier than their car-driving counterparts. But alas:
Mike Michels, a Lexus/Toyota spokesman, says 66% of the RX 350 SUV buyers are female, and 78% are married. Their median age is 55 and they have a median income of $141,000. About 25% of female buyers have children under age 18, suggesting that many are empty-nesters.
Oh well. Also, it seems a little crazy to recommend that men "steer clear" of women driving SUVs based on the sales figures of a luxury model that doesn't even rank in the top-ten selling SUV models for 2007. I'm not saying that the RX 350 figures are any different from other, better-selling models; I'm not doing that research. It just seems like a hasty claim. All those poor SUV-driving single women, destined to be alone because Forbes says talking to them ain't worth it. It's a shame.
Then the article inexplicably craps out and talks briefly about niche marketing, ending with a strange discussion of Volvo's attempts to market their cars to a wider range of audiences. No tidy conclusion. No "So next time your love life can't get any traction, consider a change of wheels." Nothing. Just this:
The Volvo S40, with a base price of $24,365, has helped Volvo reach single women who want safety in a more stylish package at an affordable price.
The End. It started with a promise to outline unconsidered ways your car might affect how you're perceived, and ended with the boring machinations of a car company's marketing success. It's like they realized that the article was incredibly stupid about halfway through; that everyone already knows that nice cars suggest that you're rich, and less-nice cars suggest nothing (but don't preclude you from being rich). They realized the article was a useless nothing-husk, and they bailed. But not before an awesome slideshow. Some of the contestants:
Volvo S40
Base Price: $24,365
The woman who drives this car is often in her 30s, college-educated and likely isn't status-conscious. She is more concerned about the welfare of her family and friends than about image.
You are a saint, hypothetical Volvo woman. You care more about keeping your family and friends safe than you do about looking cool. If only hypothetical Mazda woman had been so selfless, instead of choosing Botox injections over a life-saving surgical procedure for her daughter.
Jaguar XF
Base Price: $49,975
The woman behind the wheel of the Jaguar XF is an educated and highly successful woman. She surrounds herself with the finer things in life and is equally as likely to be single or married.
Did they mention whether this woman was a woman? Also, "finer things in life" = "bought a Jaguar XF. Duh." Adds nothing except redundant redundancy.
Lexus RX 350
Base Price: $37,500
Behind the wheel of this car is a married mother who is a college-educated professional and takes great pride in herself and her accomplishments. She surrounds herself with luxurious things because she has the money to pamper herself. But she doesn't make frivolous purchases; she wants luxury that fulfills a purpose and performs a function.
"Takes great pride in herself and her accomplishments" = ...I don't even fucking know where they're getting this. Did they do demographic research on pride levels, or does it just mean "Proud to have bought a Lexus RX 350"?
Also, I don't want to be this guy, but don't words like "pamper" and "luxury" sort of imply frivolity? I refuse to link the dictionary, but words like "excessive" and "unnecessary" are likely to come up a few times. When your car has a "backup camera" and DVD voice-activated navigation, shit is getting to be a little frivolous. Also a little frivolous: parsing definitions like this. Moving on.
Acura TSX
Base Price: $27,785
The driver behind the wheel of the Acura TSX is a successful woman who is likely married with a median income of $87,000. She likes tasteful things but isn't into flash and status.
In this article this amounts to a colossal dis of the Acura TSX. A car under 30,000 dollars? Clearly this woman has no interest in flashiness or status. I'll bet she doesn't even special-order her maple syrup. Is it not weird for them to write all these captions as if they're talking about a specific person, while continuing to describe stats like median income? She's fucking fake; just keep your weird illusion going and say she makes around $87,000.
Mercedes Benz CL Class
Base Price: $103,875
This affluent man is a captain of industry or a very successful professional who wants it known that he has arrived. He surrounds himself in tasteful luxury and attacks life. He doesn't waste time on the mundane or frivolous.
I know this gets repetitive, but doesn't "surrounds himself in tasteful luxury" just mean that the car he bought is tasteful and luxurious? So aren't we really just inferring things about the car he bought based on the car he bought? Or did they go to his house and approve of his subjective taste in grandfather clocks? Also, this man considers the mundane and frivolous a waste of time. Case-in-point: he does not "get" the mail. He doesn't "make" breakfast. He doesn't "go on" dates. He attacks his mailbox. He destroys breakfast. He assaults women. And he never laughs, unless he hears a joke that is relevant to his stock portfolio. Envy him.
Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Base Price: $31,975
This woman demands respect. She is a successful, independent thinker with discerning tastes. She is not shy about what she wants, likes to make bold statements and is driven to succeed.
You do not fuck with this woman. She is both "successful" and "driven to succeed" (as evinced by, you guessed it, her goddamn car). She is also an independent thinker, unless she only decided to buy the car after reading about how cool it is on forbes.com... Then she would be quite dependent, if you think about it. And she likes to make bold statements, like "You, sir, murdered my grandfather," and "Reagan was assassinated by his own brain". I assume. Or maybe "likes to make bold statements" is just another euphemism for "drives a nice car". But that would be readily apparent anyway, so I'm sure that's not it.
Lincoln Mark LT
Base Price: $38,340
This well-to-do guy wants it all and is in a position to get it. He likes the best things in life and doesn't mind being noticed. He is driven to succeed and likes to make a statement wherever he goes.
Hey, Forbes caption writer: we fucking get it. Nice cars. Successful. Likes the best things. Successed. Finer things. Success-oriented. Statement-making success story. Success-loving. Why not try saying things that the cars in question, like, do? If my only criterion for a car is one that says "This guy's successful", I'll just go buy a speaker I can mount on top that says "This guy's successful" over and over and over. And I will use the money I saved to hire a discreet hitman to murder the editor of Forbes magazine.
Or, better yet, they could hire me to write these captions, so that I can be successful, too. Here's my audition:
12-Speed Mountain Bike
Base Price: 75 dollars
No hill is too steep for this guy. Typically in his mid-tweens, with a median annual income of his-allowance-times-52, this kid commands respect on the playground. Driven to succeed, this jack-of-all-trades can adjust his speed to any situation. He appreciates the finer things, like Biggie-sized fries and expensive packs of baseball cards. What a successful succeeder.
Lamborghini Murcielago
Base Price: $300,000
What a success story this guy is. A Powerball jackpot winner, he has no idea what 35 divided by 5 equals, much less how to manage money. But he just bought a Murcielago, so he is a successful, finer-things-loving, tasteful, individualistic, go-getting captain of industry who takes pride in his achievements and is addicted to meth.
*Whew* Did you actually read all of that? Sorry. Goodnight.
