Your Car = You (Whether You Like It or Not)

Pulling up behind a car at my parents’ local library I noticed that said car was the same model and color as the one that my roommate drove in college, a white Pontiac Grand Am.

This made me think how our cars are an extension of us- be it conscious or sub-conscious, and thus become a part of our personal history. College kids drive beat up Civics and old Camrys. Investment bankers drive sleek German sedans. Moms used to drive minivans, now they drive SUVs, treehuggers drive Priuses and the well-heeled treehuggers in today’s economy may drive Nissan Leafs.

Some thing is signaled when you say that you drive a Mercedes versus a Kia.

The point is even cited in the work, Get What You Deserve! How to Guerilla Market Yourself by marketing gurus Seth Godin and Jay (Conrad) Levinson, ". . . cars, as much as anything else you can buy, telegraph your professional and social status" (128).

And there is a fun new ad campaign by a precocious seven-year-old who is horrified by the “uncool” car that his parents drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pNUxIczig

Even kids know that a car is a reflection of you and who you are, or who you want to be.

Even some parts of our history are tied to certain cars. My first car was a 98 white Plymouth Neon. I drove it for the last two years of college all around Savannah, Georgia and made a lot of (G-rated) memories there. It died horribly- T-boned in Chicago and I bought a silver 99 VW Passat, which was my first love affair with a car. That car had everything I wanted- heated, leather seats, a CD changer, a sun roof/moon roof, and a delectable assortment of bumper stickers including one that said, "I Dig Pale Skinny Guys" It was a mobile personal ad.

I am currently carless and have been for the past three years. But when I get a full-time job I am looking at a Honda Insight as it is slightly cheaper than a Prius and yet it is a hyrbid without the overt lifestyle connotations of a Prius.

Therefore, to extricate ourselves from our cars we must not just relinquish the convenience and security that they provide. We must also give up a part of ourselves, of our identity. And that point is often absent from cars versus mass transit debates.