If You Drive a Minivan You’re a Total Wuss and 9 Other Things Your Vehicle Says About You

Fair or not, your car says a lot about you. Admit it, you all make snap judgments about someone as soon as you see what they roll up in – mostly about the size of their wallets and the size of, uh, let’s say other things.

But the discerning gentleman (or lady gentleman, let’s not be sexist here – that is the preferred term, right?) can learn a lot more than that. And thanks to this helpful guide, you too will be able to answer the important questions without having to go to distasteful lengths like rooting through their garbage or actually having a conversation with them. So gather ’round, learn about your friends, marvel at the secrets of your neighbors, and most importantly, learn just what your car says about you.

COMPACT

Example: Volkswagen Beetle
What You Think It Says: That you’re trendy, maybe a little quirky and very fun if someone just takes the time to get to know you.
What It Actually Says: That you’re either a librarian or a kindergarten teacher and you spend most of your free time staging elaborate recreations of Jane Austen novels with your cats. You enjoy a margarita every now and then, but not too often because you might get wild like that one time at Kirsten’s bachelorette party when you poked the male stripper’s butt with your finger and then spent the next four hours telling everyone how “bad” you were.

SUV

Example: Ford Escape
What You Think It Says: That you’re comfortably middle-class, with a nice family that you want to keep safe, and hey, how else are you going to get your $300 of groceries home every week?
What It Actually Says: That you are safe, very safe, and that, well, that you’re about as middle-class as middle-class gets. You donated once to a charity combating global warming after Barb from HR told you that it would look good, but mostly you think all that stuff’s overblown. After all, it was cold yesterday! You have a Labrador Retriever, two kids, a boy and a girl, and your dream vacation is Disney World.

MINIVAN

Example: Dodge Caravan
What You Think It Says: That you’re a family man now, and even though you aren’t out partying every night, you’ve got something better – a big, loving family.
What It Actually Says: That you cry yourself to sleep every night, haunted by the ghost of the life you once had. You spent 3 hours yesterday cleaning baby poop out of the bathtub and then was browbeaten by your neighbor because your grass is 1/8th of an inch too long. When that was finally done, you shuffled back into your house, head hung low, and found your wife already asleep even though she promised that you would have sex for the first time in two months.

HUMMER

Example: Hummer H3
What You Think It Says: Fuck you, I’ve got a Hummer.
What It Actually Says: Fuck you, I’ve got a Hummer.

MOTORCYCLE

Example: Harley Davidson
What You Think It Says: That you’re a rebel, and no one’s gonna mess with you. After all, you’ve got your boys backing you up. While everyone else is busy crammed inside their stuffy little soul-killers, you’re riding free, the wind in your hair, headed to whatever lies over the next horizon.
What It Actually Says: That you’re a 52 year-old accountant, and you take the bike out on weekends, but only if the wife says it’s okay. You’re one boy short after Ira came down with hemorrhoids and his doctor told him he couldn’t ride anymore. You’re desperately trying to ignore that you have frostbite on your ears and you have swallowed more bugs than you can count, and the wind hasn’t whipped through your hair for at least ten years, which was the last time you actually had enough hair to whip, but you’re still aiming for that horizon. After all, that’s where the office of the prostate doctor is.

HYBRID

Example: Toyota Prius
What You Think It Says: That you care, man. That you care A LOT. You’re very sensitive and, sure, you paid a lot of money for your Prius, but that isn’t what’s important.
What It Actually Says: That you tell everyone you meet that you drive a hybrid. You dabbled with veganism, but you just couldn’t live without cheese. But you still only eat organically grown, local foods that you get from the co-op. What you can’t get there you buy at Whole Foods. You used to drive an SUV, but you traded it in, and you tell people it’s because you care about the environment – you saw An Inconvenient Truth seven times, and cried each time – but it’s really because you threw a fit when gas climbed above $4 a gallon and your wife told you that everyone was doing it and that your boys wouldn’t make fun of you for it.

PICKUP TRUCK

Example: Ford F-150
What You Think It Says: That you’re a man, goddammit. You get up for work at the crack of dawn and don’t come home until the sun sets. You work with your hands, like a real man, and people are intimidated by you because you’re so rugged and strong. Oh, and you’re a man. A real man. Everyone can see that, right?
What It Actually Says: That your father probably never told you he loved you, but you make up for that by flexing nuts all over everyone you see. You listen to a combination of country bro-rock and classic rock, and you make sure to blast it every time you drive through the “ghetto” – which you do with the pedal pressed to the floor and your doors locked tight. You own at least one cowboy hat and a pair of boots, which you wear on dates with real country girls who aren’t afraid to get down and dirty with you, but who also know how to straighten up like a lady and go to church with you on Sundays – when you’re not hung-over anyway. Your proudest day was the time you met Toby Keith and got him to autograph your girlfriend’s boobs.

LUXURY SEDAN

Example: Lincoln MKS
What You Think It Says: That you’re stylish, but in an understated, classy way. You understand both the value of appearances and a dollar. People respect you.
What It Actually Says: That you’re 60 years old and sigh wistfully whenever a Cialis commercial comes on. You’ve got money, but you’re not really rich, and are one bad investment away from selling Amway. You are incredibly, dreadfully boring, and spend most of your free time playing golf. You have a modest drinking problem, one of your kids is in med-school, the other has a drug problem and you don’t talk to that one after you cut him off. You’re obsessed with appearances, which is ironic since you appear to be an uptight bore to most people.

AMERICAN SPORTS CAR

Example: Ford Mustang
What You Think It Says: That you’ve got old school cool, and whenever you drive by, you know that everyone’s thinking the same thing: there goes Steve McQueen.
What It Actually Says: That you’re probably a car fetishist, obsessed with not just muscle, but American muscle. You spend most of your time loving your car while your wife is forced to spend most of her time loving herself. You like things that are older, classic, which makes sense since those are two words most people would use to describe you and Steve McQueen died over 30 years ago, which is the last time you were culturally relevant.

FOREIGN SPORTS CAR

Example: Ferrari LaFerrari
What You Think It Says: That you are very wealthy and have a huge penis.
What It Actually Says: That most of your money actually belongs to your ex-wife, who’s told everyone that you actually have a micropenis. Sorry, bro, it’s all over town.

Muscle car image by InsatiableWanderlust/Shutterstock