I think many of us have purchased a car we regret buying for one reason or another. Maybe it turned out to be horribly unreliable or you bought it before a major life change that rendered it incompatible with your finances and/or lifestyle. Or perhaps you bought it primarily for attention, not your own satisfaction.
Many people take this concept to the extreme by getting into debt up to their eyeballs by—in the words of David Mamet—signing “on the line which is dotted.” Rolling around in a new Mercedes shows the world that you’ve “made it.” Believe me—I understand the impulse, but only your family and friends care about your success. Everybody else is too busy trying to “make it” themselves to notice your flashy new wheels.
And I’ll venture to guess that an expensive luxury car is most enjoyable when you can truly afford it. Tom Ripley’s approach to life in the 1999 film “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” that it’s “better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody,” is not a motto to live by.
A lot of guys buy certain vehicles to impress the opposite sex. I’m not saying that that tactic never works because, in the past, when I was out testing high-end press cars, I occasionally noticed women were more interested in me than they probably would’ve been if I had rolled up in a beater Toyota Corolla. But overall, whenever someone has made it clear that (s)he’s impressed by what I’m driving or comes out of the woodwork to start a conversation about it (such as the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500), that person has been a dude—or three.
The truth is that no matter what you drive, people will notice it. And it’s normal to want them to like what they see (who wants to catch a disgusted sneer?), but you have to be honest with yourself: do you want to buy that sports car or off-road truck to get a reaction out of fellow drivers and people walking by, or because it gets an emotional reaction out of you? Your opinion is the only one that really matters. Yeah, someone at a red light may give you a slow nod of approval or shout out, “Cool car,” but the vast majority of people you’ll pass won’t even notice your ride or you in it. Even if someone out on the road thinks your car is the most awesome one (s)he’s ever seen and is convinced that you’re this generation’s Steve McQueen, you’ll never know anyway. Why pay for a minuscule possibility of impressing total strangers who don’t even know you exist? They’re not paying for the car—you are.
Money is too hard to come by and life is too short to buy something you don’t really need and—much worse—don’t even truly want. Get something for you, a vehicle that you enjoy driving . . . even if nobody is around to notice.
