Cars and social status
Social status has always intrigued me as I’ve never really been able to get my head around it. Maybe it’s because I’m a Liberal by instinct and see social status as being of no interest?
Anyway, this particular ramble is about cars and the perceived social status that goes with them. Of course, such social status before the motorcar was based on the ‘turnout’ of the horse, harness and carriage, so Jack Hargreaves tells us in an episode of the early 1980’s Ch4 TV programme ‘Old Country’. You can find it here on YouTube -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9gbY0cAvDA
For me too it all started back in the early 1980’s when my dad, who’d previously bought his own cars (his first was a Morris Traveller), was given one by his employer, seemingly because he was a branch manager as a part of his employment package. A nice yellow MKI Vauxhall Astra. The car he sold on gaining the Astra he’d previously bought from his company when the lease on dad’s area manger’s car, a green Triumph 1500, came to an end.
You may realise realise from this that dad’s area manager had gained a company car some years prior but then again an area manager covering the whole of the north west of England would clearly need a car and anyway he was obviously deemed to be of a higher eployment/social status. As an aside, I bought that MKI yellow Astra from my dad’s company when it in turn came to the end of its lease. Dad, at that point, was given an MKII Astra.
Without doubt I’d noticed, unsurprisingly, that dad’s area manager was given a higher spec’ car and it made my youngish mind wonder about cars and social status.
Yes, of course, cars have always had a status about them as in the early days it was only the wealthy who could run them. As they got cheaper the ownership base widened, but even in the early 1960’s having a family car was still relatively unusual amongst ordinary working class/lower middle class folk. The local doctor would have one to do his rounds, but they were still pretty much beyond the pocket of many working people. Now, of course, the lack of a car is all but seen as odd in our car dependent communities.
I read the other day about what, if I recall correctly, was a Dutch study regarding the effects of taking children to school by car instead of walking/cycling. Unsurprisingly, the walkers and cyclists taking their children to school were fitter, had less body mass but interestingly they also seemed happier too. So clearly running a car on shortish journeys has more than financial consequences; it damages your health/wellbeing too.
The now infamous school-run clogs up roads around primary schools in particular and often the journeys made are less than a couple of miles. But is having a car and taking your children to school in it all part of social status or is it just a consequence of young families living their days at 90mph so to speak? I suggest both.
Does a parent in a basic run-around car feel socially inadequate against a row of top of the range German cars that their children’s friends parents roll up in? Are parents who walk or cycle their children to school left feeling as though they don’t quite fit in?
And here’s another interesting and rather sad aside. Quite some years ago, during the time I was a local councillor, I was contacted by a pensioner couple who asked me if I could try to get a local circular bus route to take in their estate. It seemed like a good idea to me so I surveyed the quite middle class estate telling them about the request and asking for support to campaign for the route to be adjusted accordingly. Suffice to say I got a lot of negative responses from car-owning folk who did not see the need/want a bus trundling around their estate. I only got positive responses, in the main, from households without a car and they were few and far between. Without a groundswell of support the campaign was doomed. See what a mean about car dependent communities; we’ve got them and some folk will cling hard onto them.
A chap I know recently told me that a friend of his had likened his car to an old lady’s shopping car. Yes, it’s a small car but quite adequate for his purposes and budget and the person making the remark had a much fancier car. Did it make him feel inadequate and looked down upon? Yes, it certainly did.
All this makes me think that cars are very much the ultimate status symbol in our society. Having a car is vital if you want to fit in. Having a grand car is a further step up and you may well feel the need to compete with your family/friendship group to stay fitting in. It’s like having the latest i phone, wearing the latest fashions, even having the latest footballers’ hair cut, for blokes anyway. And talking of Prem League footballers and indeed other successful sports people don’t they always have an expensive car to go with their perceived celeb’ status?
And what of Tesla’s? With sales seemingly dropping off following the company owner doing what looked to many to be akin to a 1930/40’s German political salute the cars gained the unfortunate nickname ‘Swasticar’ and overnight a popular car amongst the middle classes with an environmental/social conscience became a problem. Will they sell second hand? Will environmentalists continue to buy them? Will they now sell to far right supporters? Probably not as they also tend to be fossil fuel enthusiasts, so no buyers there then. If you bought one to be up with the latest car trend or simply because you want to do the right thing for our environment* then buyer regrets may well be an unfortunate consequence.
I must admit that I’d rather not have a car. It costs me small fortune to run, but our evermore car dependent communities mean that unless you live within a major city your public transport options, particularly with regard to buses, get less and less by the year. But just look at how London is changing (health warning -petrol heads should not view the following video because of potential detrimental blood pressure consequences) but will it lead to a whole new social status issue with cycles? -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OunBRdTIe3w&t=339s
Yes, I’ve got a car but it’s not a BMW, Merc’ or Audi etc. so no, I’m certainly not trying to fit in and may well be looked down upon and perceived to be of a low social status as a consequence, but frankly this old Liberal doesn’t give a damn.
Now go out, stretch your budget as far as you can, lease a fancy car and show it off at the school gate and amongst your friendship group. But you’ll have to keep upgrading to maintain your social status. If, however, you can’t afford to upgrade (oh the social shame of it) change the number plate to a personalised one. It’ll get you some social Brownie points and stop folks reading your reg plate to clock the age of the car and them realising your just a poor person struggling to keep up.
* Electric cars generally are not necessarily good for the environment as we may like to think because mining for the minerals to build batteries is a massive problem in the making.
No comments:
Post a Comment