For some people, it`s a condominium in a trendy city neighborhood or a big, turn-of-the-century house in a high-class suburb.
For others, it might be membership in an exclusive country club, a degree from an Ivy League college or a house full of antique furniture.
But for most Americans, the ultimate symbol of status is, was, and likely will continue to be the luxury automobile.
Rightly or wrongly, people driving a new, shiny, big Cadillac, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Lincoln, Jaguar or Rolls-Royce usually are perceived as being important and/or rich, or at least ”better off” than most.
Those behind the wheel of a lowly Yugo, a basic Hyundai Excel or a beat-up old Chevrolet, on the other hand, are more likely to be viewed as being nobodies and, if not poor, barely making ends meet.
And while the luxury-car driver is likely to generate wonder or admiration among onlookers, those with cars at the opposite end of the automotive pecking order likely will elicit pity or simply be ignored.
”Research has shown that people in big, expensive cars are even likely to get away with more traffic violations than other drivers, and their driving habits are more likely to be imitated by others because the cars they drive convey the perception that they are somebody important and, therefore, somebody worthy of being followed,” said Midge Wilson, associate professor of social psychology at De Paul University.
The fact that the luxury automobile is the ultimate status symbol to a lot of people should come as no surprise.
For decades, Detroit automakers and, more recently, those in Japan and Europe, have bombarded the American public with advertising to convince us that big, heavy and expensive automobiles with leather upholstery and thick-carpeted floors will make us more popular, and feel more important and sexy than cheap, thin, little cars with cloth seats and vinyl floor mats.
And then there`s the movies. People who are depicted as rich on the big screen virtually always are driving big, luxurious automobiles or expensive sports cars.
Social scientists point out, however, that personal transportation devices have been the most popular means for conveying social status throughout most of history.
”In the past it was the size and look of one`s horse, chariot or carriage that mattered,” Wilson said. ”In this day and age, it`s the automobile that communicates to others our status in the world.”
Transportation has been more popular than houses and other objects for communicating social status because, by definition, it`s a mobile symbol, according to social scientists.
”With a luxury car you can create the impression that you are somebody important even if you`re really nobody living in a rundown house in a less-than-desirable neighborhood,” Wilson said. ”On the job, where no one knows what your house looks like, that luxury car can give the impression that you`re a wheeler-dealer.”
Owning or leasing a luxury car by itself, however, does not give one true social status, according to the experts.
Moreover, not everyone, and perhaps not even most, buyers purchase luxury vehicles for the purpose of communicating to the world that they are rich or famous.
”Putting all of your assets into a luxury car won`t buy you true social status,” said Margo Smith, professor of anthropology at Northeastern Illinois University. ”It only confers social status on you from those whom you drive by, but don`t know.”
Even if one can easily afford to buy a luxury car, he or she has achieved only the ”simplest level of social status,” said Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. ”The next level is acquiring taste. In other words, you have to become a connoisseur.
”But you really haven`t arrived until you are in a position of giving money away,” Csikszentmihalyi said.
”True social status to many people also means having the right house and right circle of friends,” Smith said.
Smith and Csikszentmihalyi added that social status can be attained without any material trappings.
”Albert Einstein had no car, no house of his own, and he always seemed to wear the same clothes, and yet he unquestionably had status,”
Csikszentmihalyi said.
”People who have a certain measure of confidence about their social status don`t feel compelled to buy a luxury car,” Smith said. ”In fact, they are usually comfortable about buying a less expensive model. They usually have other symbols to express their social status.
”They may, for example, see their jobs as giving them sufficient social status, or they may express their status by shopping for their clothes at Marshall Field`s instead of K mart, or choosing the opera for their leisure-time activity over a Chicago Bulls game.
”In fact, some people who attain wealth, importance and/or fame in life will go out of their way to avoid purchasing a luxury car so that they don`t attract undue or unwanted attention to themselves,” Smith said.
The notion that we are what we drive, therefore, is ”not true in and of itself,” Smith added. ”Our lives are more than just our cars. Even though some people put a lot more stock into them, an automobile is, after all, simply a means of transportation.”
In fact, Csikszentmihalyi said, it would be more appropriate to say that
”you drive what you are,” because most people buy cars that fit their personalities.
”The problem with some people, however, is that the car begins to affect their personality,” he said. ”They allow the car to own them. One of the first signs of that occurring is when one begins to start worrying about every little dent in his or her own automobile.”
The reasons people might buy a luxury car, other than to communicate status, can vary greatly, Csikszentmihalyi said.
”Some people simply like the quiet ride and comfort that a large, luxury car provides,” he said. ”Others might simply prefer the smell of leather upholstery to the vinyl kind.
”The automobile, furthermore, is becoming the only place where people can experience total privacy, and some people want to experience that privacy surrounded in luxury,” Csikszentmihalyi added.
Another reason some people, especially senior citizens or middle-age people who have raised their families and have achieved a degree of success in their careers, will buy luxury cars is to reward themselves for their hard work, said car dealer John Weinberger.
Weinberger is president of Continental Motors, a network of car dealerships in the western suburbs, including a foreign luxury and sports car operation in Hinsdale.
”Yes, anyone buying a Rolls-Royce is definitely seeking status,”
Weinberger said. ”There`s no other reason to spend $200,000 on a car.
”But from my experience as a car dealer, the person who buys a, relatively speaking, less expensive luxury car like a Ferrari, a Bentley or a Mercedes, for example, is doing so to reward himself for the hard work he`s done raising a family or achieving success in a career or a business,” he said.
Some people may also buy luxury cars for what some psychologists call
”ego-defensive” reasons, said John Edwards, director of the graduate program in social psychology at Loyola University.
”Sometimes when people find something about themselves that they feel is socially unacceptable, they`ll purchase a car that they percieve will protect themselves from that unacceptable trait,” Edwards said. ”For example, a person who feels like a wimp may buy a large, expensive car to prove to himself and others that he really isn`t a wimp.”
For the record, cars considered to be luxury cars by the auto industry include those carrying the Acura, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Saab, Sterling and Volvo nameplates.
A few industry officials also include Buicks, Chryslers and Oldsmobiles in the list.
These cars, however, can differ dramatically in cost, and each confers different degrees of status, according to automobile dealers. In fact, different models of the same car can confer different levels of status.
While an Acura Legend, for example, does convey status, the less expensive Acura Integra does not, experts on luxury cars say. And while there is a degree of prestige connected with owning a Buick Riviera, there is none, the experts say, in owning a Buick Skylark.
Of all the so-called luxury cars, the Rolls probably is the most prestigious on the market, as well as the most expensive, according to Weinberger. Close behind the Rolls in status are the Bentley and Jaguar, he said.
But, the least prestigious luxury car today is the Cadillac, ”which just 10 short years ago was considered to be the top luxury car,” Weinberger said. ”Even the Infiniti, the Lexus and the Acura, relative newcomers to the lineup of luxury cars, are considered by the public today to be a cut above the Cadillac,” he said.
”When General Motors, which manufactures Cadillacs, decided to make the car smaller a couple of years ago, people decided it wasn`t much different from a Buick or an Oldsmobile.”
