Rich people = same car

[nonickno]

To wonder why all the loaded people at my kids’ school drive the same car - Range Rover/ Land Rover? Surely there are more choices to spend money on?? They are like sheep!

Maybe they are SAHMs that don't drive much. I know many less confident drivers that feel the need to be high up. Trouble is they are 20min getting out a parking space in Tesco.

It’s not inverse snobbery, just a fact that lot of my friends have exactly the same car and I wondered if there was something brilliant about LR and RR that I had missed. I’m buying a new car so I’m asking lots of questions. Calling them sheep was a bit cruel I guess, but hey ho. I have a room in my house painted in DownPipe and one Inchyra Blue so I can’t talk....

My brother's (private) secondary school used American style carpool lanes for pick up. At 4 o'clock every Mercedes/BMW jeep within a ten mile radius would congregate. They were only ever silver or black!

My brother once hid when my dad picked him up in a Ford KA!

^this was 10 years ago.

My husband had a Land rover until recently. He has ordered a Jaguar F-Pace. I have a mini.
He likes cars. He doesn't go out drinking and doesn't smoke but likes cars.
We tend to go on journeys and we like the comfort. It also holds our cycles with ease.
Each to his own.

I don't think my 70 year old husband is aspirational and he's driven one of those for years. At the moment he has a Land Rover Discovery. He still works part time, project manages some jobs in a rural area and has to travel quite a lot where there is uneven terrain. I must admit I like the car, as much as I ever like a car, because I feel quite safe in it - same as when he had a Range Rover.

I've not previously heard that there is some snob value in owning such a car. We've known loads of people who have them or have had them. Audis, Volvos and Mercs seem to be cars that a lot of young people would like to own.

I was once queuing up in a petrol station. Guy in front of me had a Range Rover...he put in £5 worth of fuel.

Unless you are a prat in a souped up Subaru who can usually manage 100 mph in narrow roads at 1am in the dark!

I can state categorically that I have never been to Jersey and that my car has never left the US.

There seems to be an increasing number of posts aimed at slagging off or looking down on people for how they choose to spend their own money. Some of it is jealousy, some of it snobbery but neither is a good look.

I don’t drive a RR but I understand that some people do. So what? Some people may have bought it on finance like many people do even with Ford Fiestas. Some people buy outright too so let’s not try and console ourselves that all of these people are pretending to be rich and are really in lots of debt trying to big themselves up on Instagram. A proportion will be, many won’t.

It’s also not true that every genuinely rich person drives around in a battered old Volvo covered in dog hair either. Rich people are not homogeneous, just like poor people. Some will drive brand new Aston Martins and some will drive battered 50 year old mercs.

This whole thing where people try and make themselves feel better by complaining about how others are spending their money (and no they are not always in debt) whether that is on holidays, cars or handbags is getting seriously weird. There are currently multiple threads slagging people off for being able to go abroad on holiday, buy cars and even the nursery they send their kids to. Apparently all of these people who do these things are showing off and in debt because they have more expensive lifestyles.

@YesQueen so do i, never going to be out of a job in my role 😂

It's not inverse snobbery any more than laughing at people in Burberry overload a few years ago.

Of course, some people buy them because they need them, but many more because they want to be seen and it gives them the feeling they have "arrived" (and caught up with the Joneses presumably).

Why would anyone try to pretend otherwise? The "chelsea tractor" concept is hardly new.

Round of applause for @Unfinishedkitchen- brilliant post

@leckford haha so true. I live in jersey! Range rovers a go go!!

Maybe he was refuelling a courtesy car while his Ferrari was being serviced ...

@formerbabe

What @Unfinishedkitchen and @Sadie789 said.

Yes hear hear @Unfinishedkitchen

At least 6 of our friends have range rovers but they'd laugh at being called rich.

My twatty neighbour over the road has 2.

Ha,
This is like our old neighbourhood. We lived in the best in town (company provided). A guy at work commented, everyone who lives in x suburb has a Mercedes on the drive. We’d just got one a couple of months before. It must have rubbed off on us subconsciously .

Unfinishedkitchen

you can't pretend that RR are not currently a status symbol for some, come on

status symbol, not many can afford an 80k car

I'm baffled at how so many posters know that a) someone else's vehicle was bought for 'aspirational reasons' and b) that purchasing them on finance would mean they 'can't really afford it'.

Not to mention why you would give a shit about someone else's choice of car

I can't drive so I'm not taking the comments personally, I'm just Are people really that jealous and nasty about something doing them no harm (and quite respectably contributing to the UK economy and providing manufacturing and related technical jobs)?

Why bother?🤷🏼‍♀️

I worked for them a couple of years ago on a short term contract and while I was there attended an informational roadshow which apparently they have each year.

I was really shocked by some of the reliability stats. Apparently 17% of jlr vehicles break down in their first year. Also 20% of all aa / rac callouts are for a jlr vehicle.

Consequently I wouldn’t have one. They’re just not reliable enough.

I kind of agree with you & we actually have one ! We're v rural and have to be able to rely on 4-wheel drive in the winter with ice, mud etc (often get cut off & whatever we drive gets a massive caning). Plus DH is a car nut and when we change vehicles (which is rarely) he likes to get something we've not had before. The Range Rover is a lovely car to drive but imo is waaay too big - much preferred the old Volvo we had. But bc of the associations I do feel self-conscience driving it, esp when I have to go into our local market town.

The place is bloody choked with Range Rovers and Porsche Cayennes - massive, shiny identikit cars, driven down the middle of the road by shiny identikit women who can't fucking park them, in order to deliver their kids to prep schools just round the corner. At weekends they're all driven (aggressively) by their big-watch-wearing husbands, natch. And they ALL have personal registration plates, which is basically like driving around shouting 'I'm a twat'. It makes me go a bit hot-faced thinking about it.

So yeah, it's not the fault of the car, which is genuinely designed to be a workhorse (high end, admittedly), but I agree OP, it's a become a ubiquitous status symbol amongst wealthy social climbers.

We got a landrover freelander 2.
We got it for a number of reasons:
It's literally an armchair on wheels and we regularly make 5 hr forces to visit family
It is really safe. Especially for husband when he is driving though places that keep getting flood warnings atm and will come in again in winter
It's great for lugging stuff. I'm a youth worker and me and my husband are quarter masters for our local scout hut so bit boot is a must.
Great for dog and toddler
Really nice for my neck when doing up the seat belt for toddler.
Know a mate that does them up for a living and gets us discounts on parts. We do all the work ourselves since a lot of stuff we don't have to jack it up to work on it.
saying that. It is white. Really well kept before we got it and I love driving it and it does look the part. Our other car is a Mazda 3 which we got before hand to go with our Skoda Octavia (before bloody valet crashed it. Whole other story) the idea is we have one nice family wagon and the other car is suitable for long distance driving window husband can work upto 2 hrs away.