Light On Dark Water

Conspicuous Automotive Consumption, Then and Now

Everybody makes fun of the ostentatious tacky tail-finned cars of the 1950s. And with good reason.

1958 Imperial Ad-02

1958 Chrysler Imperial

But this is just as bad, though in a different way. It’s certainly every bit as ostentatious.

2013-escalade-ext-gan-radient-silver-masthead-colorizer-960x375

2013 Cadillac Escalade “Truck”

The whole “Sport” “Utility” Vehicle thing has been annoying for a long time, though at this point I suppose everyone has learned to ignore the absurdity of vehicles originally designed for sport and utility becoming the preferred mode of suburban transportation. But luxury SUVs from Cadillac, Mercedes, et.al. take it a bit further. The Escalade is one of the most ostentatious, and the addition of a stubby little truck bed just leaves me shaking my head and wondering why.

Notice the shift in tone of the ads: in the first one it’s just “Don’t you want to look rich?” In the second, it’s “Don’t you want to look rich?” plus a bit of “Don’t you want to look unconventional?”

I’ve read that the SUV fashion was partly driven by EPA fuel economy standards, which caused ordinary passenger cars to get smaller, but did not apply to trucks, which the SUVs technically are. If that’s true, then the push for fuel economy is responsible for the revival of the gas guzzler. Unintended consequences strike again.

Maclin Horton
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31 responses to “Conspicuous Automotive Consumption, Then and Now”

  1. Marianne

    I’ve always thought SUVs became so popular largely because women like them, since they feel safer in them.
    And it can’t have hurt that a different executive department, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, highlights how unsafe small, fuel-efficient cars are.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    That’s definitely a big factor, that women like them, for safety among other reasons. I’ve heard women say as much. Both sexes tend to like big, comfortable, preferably luxurious, cars. Personally I get a kick out of high gas mileage.

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  3. Art Deco

    Everybody makes fun of the ostentatious tacky tail-finned cars of the 1950s.
    I have never heard anyone make fun of tail-finned cars. Is that how you amuse yourselves in South Alabama?

    Reply
  4. Mac

    Really?!? Maybe you’re too young. I suppose it’s fallen off in recent decades, but it used to be a standard jibe, often mixed with others at the expense of the 1950s.

    Reply
  5. jacobus

    “Unintended consequences strike again.”
    Indeed. We would have been better off just straight up raising the gas tax.

    Reply
  6. Louise

    I drive a mini-van. Here, that’s a small car! 😮
    That truck thing sure is ugly. 😛

    Reply
  7. Louise

    Personally I get a kick out of high gas mileage.
    Indeed. I’d quite like a Ford Expedition which is an 8-seater because then we could fit all the family and perhaps have extra space for luggage, but the mileage is so much worse on those things. Plus, I don’t really like the idea of driving trucks. A full size van would be very handy, but again — mileage.

    Reply
  8. Daniel Nichols

    I must confess to a temptation to sneaking out at night and spray painting the word “OINK” on Humvees and other obnoxious “cars”. But then we have a huge 10 seater Ford van, which gets appalling mileage. We bought it last summer so that all the (then) seven chitlins could go on vacation; the old We Are Family schtick. But the oldest two were total assholes, complaining and tormenting the youngins, and we came home early….We do need to get rid of that behemoth, but we sure didn’t get it for status or to look cool.

    Reply
  9. Mac

    Big vans and SUVs are perfectly justifiable for big families. Passenger miles per gallon are probably quite high. But I work in a rather ritzy part of town, and have always found it somewhere between amusing and annoying to see a new Suburban or a Tahoe or any one of those monster SUVs tooling around occupied by a lone woman, or perhaps a woman and one child.
    Louise, I guess you’re familiar with the term “mommy van”? 🙂
    What a shame about your vacation, Daniel. Teenagers….
    And Hummers–actually I was going to add that to this post as the sort of ultimate in ostentation, but was out of time. To my knowledge I have never personally known anyone who owned one, and if I meet someone who did would definitely start off with a negative impression.

    Reply
  10. Rob G

    There are very few people on Earth who actually need a $75,000.00 car. In most cases it’s pure look-at-me b.s.

    Reply
  11. Art Deco

    To my knowledge I have never personally known anyone who owned one,
    I had a landlady who did. She was a local merchant and an agreeable sort with whom to do business. A great deal of snow in our part of the world made a market for vehicles like that.

    Reply
  12. Mac

    But then, who are we to judge? 🙂

    Reply
  13. Mac

    I was responding to Rob.
    I would think a Hummer over the top even for a snowy clime. There are plenty of 4wd vehicles that would do the job. In any case, there’s no such excuse in this part of the country. I think the only Hummer I’ve ever heard explain himself was a guy interviewed in the local paper when they first appeared on the market. He admitted frankly that he just liked the feeling of being the biggest dog on the road.

    Reply
  14. Art Deco

    There are very few people on Earth who actually need a $75,000.00 car. In most cases it’s pure look-at-me b.s.
    Since you can get a serviceable used car for under $20k, one is not compelled to purchase a household passenger car for even half that.
    Some people have a mess of disposable income and some people appreciate the technical and aesthetic aspects of an automobile. My great-grandparents loved their woody wagon, and not because they were histrionic.

    Reply
  15. Marianne

    Several years ago I was driving a 90-year-old neighbor to the store, and we were sitting at a stoplight when a Hummer pulled up alongside us. I said something about how ugly it was and how unnecessary, but my elderly neighbor was in love at first sight, and said, man, he’d love one of those, if only he were younger…
    There’s just something about big cars for some people. A complicated mystery.

    Reply
  16. Mac

    I don’t really get it. I can sort of see the momentary appeal of taking a huge thing like a Hummer for a drive. I can’t really enter into the mindset that would like to own it drive it all the time. Least of all can I imagine being willing to spend many tens of thousands of dollars on it.
    I’m not immune to the appeal of beautiful, well-made, high-performing cars (like this one), though I would never actually buy one, even if I could afford it. The appeal is obviously much milder for me than for a lot of people, but I understand it. But the appeal of the Hummer pretty much escapes me. I guess that’s why I conjecturally attribute it to something like sheer ego.

    Reply
  17. Art Deco

    I can’t really enter into the mindset that would like to own it drive it all the time.
    Maybe you ought to enter into winter in Central New York for five months.

    Reply
  18. Art Deco

    I would like an antique car, but first I would have to learn how to fix it.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Champion
    http://classiccars.com/listings/view/450045/1930-packard-antique-for-sale-in-volo-illinois-60073

    Reply
  19. Mac

    Does a Hummer really provide much of an advantage over ordinary full-size SUVs with 4-wheel-drive? There are people here who actually use their SUVs and pickups off-road for hunting and fishing, but don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hummer that looked like it had been in the woods.
    I covet that Studebaker. My father, through the ’70s and ’80s, bought five or six behemoths dating from the mid-’50s to mid-’60s. He’d see them sitting in somebody’s yard out in the country and make an offer. When he died, the family decided to sell them, and I seriously considered buying one. I think there was a Chrysler Imperial among them. But the same consideration stopped me: what’s that movie line?…a man’s got to know his limitations? You really need to be able to work on cars in a pretty serious way to own an old car. Also I had no place to put it.

    Reply
  20. Craig

    In my old neighbourhood there was somebody who owned a Hummer. That neighbourhood had no street parking, so it would often be found in the back alley, tucked up against the garage, but still blocking more than half of the width of the alley. Very annoying.
    We know a family, with 8 kids, who drive a big 10-passenger van to get around. They amused us with a story about being summoned to city hall to defend the application to license it as a private vehicle (as opposed to a business vehicle). They all trooped in and they got their license right away.
    We know another family in which there were 15 kids (!); they drove an actual school bus.

    Reply
  21. Mac

    Now that the laws in most places (I assume) require that everybody in the car be seat-belted at all times, and children be strapped into car seats, big families have a really hard time. I hate to think what those big vans cost.
    Before that, you could just stuff ’em in any old way. I was one of five children and on long trips we used to sleep on the floor, or in the back of a station wagon. I guess the safety improvement is worth it, but I wonder.

    Reply
  22. Louise

    But the oldest two were total assholes, complaining and tormenting the youngins, and we came home early.
    Sorry to hear it, but I identify with that! (Actually, in our case it would be a different pair of children, but I can still relate).

    Reply
  23. Craig

    Well, I’m quite a bit younger than you, Mac, but I was also stuffed in the back of the station wagon when I was a kid. Apparently when I was a baby my parents just set up a playpen in the back of the van and let me play there!
    These days this would probably get you in court with “Children’s Aid Services”. It would be almost as bad as smoking.

    Reply
  24. Louise

    Passenger miles per gallon are probably quite high.
    Good point! Hadn’t thought of it quite like that. 🙂
    But I work in a rather ritzy part of town, and have always found it somewhere between amusing and annoying to see a new Suburban or a Tahoe or any one of those monster SUVs tooling around occupied by a lone woman, or perhaps a woman and one child.
    Our very entertaining former PM, Paul Keating, called them Toorak Tractors (Toorak being a fancy part of Melbourne).
    Louise, I guess you’re familiar with the term “mommy van”?
    Yessir! I always know I’m in the right place when I see a great long line of such cars at a park or similar when I go to a home schoolers’ event!
    Did you see this? (I put it on FB a while back).
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ4FWWnqrvU

    Reply
  25. Louise

    Before that, you could just stuff ’em in any old way. I was one of five children and on long trips we used to sleep on the floor, or in the back of a station wagon. I guess the safety improvement is worth it, but I wonder.
    When our fourth child was born we could no longer use a normal car because of these laws. Now even kids up to 7yo are required to sit in child-seats which just means that most families with more than 2 children have to make sure the back seat will accommodate 3 child-seats and have the requisite anchorages etc. Nothing much is geared for big families.
    I remember Mum and Dad taking us to the drive-in when we were in primary school and we lay on the station-wagon floor,half-asleep, for the trip home – which admittedly was pretty short.
    I do like the modern child-seats for the 0-4 age group because it really is handy being able to tie them down securely! (I mean, for my convenience, above all!)
    A friend of mine in his early fifties is one of ten children and I think they somehow just all used to pile in to their large sedan. 😮
    When I was a baby, I was just plopped into my bassinette which was just plopped onto the back seat.
    I cannot forebear to add “Never did me any harm.”

    Reply
  26. Louise

    Apparently when I was a baby my parents just set up a playpen in the back of the van and let me play there!
    I like it!
    These days this would probably get you in court with “Children’s Aid Services”. It would be almost as bad as smoking.
    Or letting your kids drink soda. Or sugar-free soda.

    Reply
  27. Mac

    Oh yeah, I should have remembered–even when my children were young (early 1980s) we didn’t necessarily strap them in. I remember one of them standing between the front passenger seats in our Volkswagen Rabbit. And when we had an old Volkswagen van, wandering around in the back. I’m not sure when we got real consistent about seat belts. In the late ’80s, maybe? And I can’t remember whether we used a car seat with our youngest.
    The video is hilarious, Louise. I missed it on Facebook.

    Reply
  28. Louise

    Heh! When we were in the apartments I saw that skit on The Incredible Crew, which the kids loved to watch and I had tears rolling down my cheeks. 🙂
    When I was about 5yo, we had these really nifty harnesses, which somehow attached to the seatbelt and enabled a child to either sit or stand up (we must have been pretty small for that!) They were cool. By the 80’s, seatbelts were mandatory throughout the car, in Tasmania IIRC and I think baby capsules came in around then.

    Reply
  29. Mac

    “baby capsules”–heh

    Reply
  30. Peter

    Supposedly, Escalades top the list of the vehicles most likely to be repossessed.

    Reply
  31. Mac

    That’s not surprising.

    Reply

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