Choosing the right ride
• Automotive typecasting
• What you drive is who you are, right?
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Leighton Kuwaye finds his souped-up Honda Civic worth the effort: "My car is my girlfriend. That's how I think of it."
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser |
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| Linda Yu says her Chevrolet Prism represents "someone who's going places." One of those places will be a BMW dealership, she hopes.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser |
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| Deb Matsukawa tools around town now in her "Girl" Echo. The car made a poor first impression but turned out right for her.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
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| Marty Barter, as a sales manager at Honda Windward, helps match cars to customers. For himself, he chose a CRV.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser First Hawaiian International Auto Show Featuring hundreds of new cars, trucks, minivans and sport-utility vehicles from more than 30 manufacturers, and a $1 million exotic-car display. Hawai'i Convention Center. March 20 and 21, noon to 10:30 p.m.; March 22, 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; and March 23, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. $6 for 13 and older, $4 for 62 and older and military (with ID), $3 for children 7 through 12, and free for children 6 and younger. Discount coupons available at O'ahu branches of First Hawaiian Bank, participating new-car dealers, and online at hawaiiautoshow.com or autoshowusa.com. |
It was, she says, the damndest looking thing.
"It looked like it ran into a wall, the way the back was popping up like that," Matsukawa said. "I really didn't like it at first."
When she first ran across the curiously shaped, newly introduced Echo, Matsukawa rejected it on sight. But as the weeks became months and the parade of new and used maybes began to morph into one continuous stream of forget-its, Matsukawa softened.
"It grew on me," she says.
On further inspection, Matsukawa found that the Echo was an unexpectedly good match. Its compact body matches Matsukawa's petite frame, but it's also roomy. Comfort, feel, look, color and other considerations aligned nicely enough and the cost, after some negotiation, was manageable. A solid candidate.
Still, the final decision wasn't easy. The car, the first Matsukawa would ever buy brand-new, would have to be practical, of course, but also fun. It would need to accommodate an active outdoor life, but also be presentable for dressier occasions.
It also couldn't just be an "it."
" 'She,' " Matsukawa said. "All my cars are girls."
Girl Echo had to reflect Matsukawa's evolving identity.
Girl Echo turned out to be the first in a series of life-affirming decisions for Matsukawa. Within the year, she walked away from a job she had held for a dozen years and returned to the University of Hawai'i to finish a degree in art.
The car now takes her to work and school and, time permitting, to the training spots she frequents as an active marathoner and triathlete.
"I guess we match," Matsukawa says.
Par for the car
One should never underestimate the importance of a good automotive match in American culture. Despite Henry Ford's early one-color-suits-all policy, today the diversity of our lifestyles, differences in our standards of taste and disparities in our incomes are all reflected in the cars, trucks, motorcycles and SUVs that zip along our freeways.
Unlike, for example, Amsterdam, where popular ultra-compact Volkswagens illustrate a collective desire to utilize every crowded inch of street parking, people in the United States are brought up to devoutly believe that cars transcend function — that what we drive somehow tells who we are, who we think we are or who we want to be.
As kids, we press our noses to the side windows and call out the makes and models of cars in the next lane. As adults, we sit behind the wheel and think we know exactly what kind of person is driving that Lexus GS1 or that Chevy S10 up ahead.
Car companies spend of millions of dollars each year jockeying for market position with branding, positioning, defining, targeting and whatever-ing initiatives. This begets the hundreds of millions of dollars of targeted advertising that seeks to fuse our notion of what a car is with our notion of who we are.
And this advertising does its work. From early Ford commercials, with their homage to the Old West, to Nissan's present commercials, populated with well-heeled, multi-culti partygoers, car advertisements are high-profile and highly effective at paving the mental roads that lead to dealer lots.
Striking a match
Marty Barger, general sales manager at Honda Windward, has 13 years of experience in matching cars and drivers. In that time, he's learned that some pairings are easier to read than others.
"Porsches and Corvettes have a type of image, and a lot of times you can see that in the guys who drive up in them," he says. "They have a little swagger. Sometimes they're fun; sometimes they're a pain in the ass."
Honda, like its competitors, designs and markets different types of cars for different demographics. Its new Element model is geared for Generation X; the CRV carries a functional, outdoorsy image. The most popular models pull double duty, Barger said.
"We might sell a Civic or an Accord to someone in their teens or 20s who's going to jazz it up and customize it," he says. "And in the afternoon, we might sell that same kind of car to a couple in their 60s who's going to use it as their old reliable."
Sometimes, Barger says, image pulls rank on function.
"There are some people who should probably get a mini-van because of the number of passengers they'll be carrying, but instead they'll get an SUV because mini-vans are associated with soccer moms and that sort of thing," he says.
Image isn't everything
Leighton Kuwaye knows what you think of him and his souped-up, fully modified 2002 Honda Civic.
"Typical Hawai'i Japanese guy," he says. "I think people make assumptions when they see the car. There's definitely that Asian stereotype — racer guy, townie."
Kuwaye is from Hawai'i, and he is Japanese. But he doesn't race and he isn't a townie (he grew up in Hilo). He prefers collared shirts and long pants to backwards caps, racer Ts and shorts.
Still, Kuwaye, a stock person at Armani and a part-time teacher's assistant, says he and his Honda — baggage notwithstanding — are a good fit. He likes the car's look and the fact that it's dependable — a balance of style and substance.
He also likes that the car is easily customizable.
Kuwaye says he's invested about $4,000 on rims, sway bars, strut bars, tinting, a lowered suspension, and modified intake and exhaust systems.
But, again, he doesn't race.
"Sometimes people will pull up next to me and rev their engine like they want to race, but I just keep going at my own speed," he says. "I pretend I don't see them."
Nonetheless, Kuwaye gets a lot of attention. He's been pulled over several times so police could inspect his modifications. He got tagged once for an illegal tint, which he quickly corrected, another time for his car being too low. That one was thrown out when he proved that the officer's measurements were inaccurate.
Is it worth the hassle?
"Oh, definitely," he says. "My car is my girlfriend. That's how I think of it."
Mistaken identity
Gee Bing has a bit of an identity problem. He's an SUV guy stuck in a Dodge Neon.
Bing, a student at Chaminade, visited a local dealer last year after seeing a newspaper ad for a Nissan X-Terra. One bait-and-switch later, he left the lot with a 1996 Neon.
That wasn't the worst of it. A few weeks later, the dealer called and told Gee that there was a problem with his financing. Gee returned to the lot and — somebody call the cops — was talked into switching the old Neon for a new one.
The problem is that Bing, by look, disposition and every other personal inventory item, doesn't match either of the smallish cars. Though Bing says he's generally satisfied with his Neon (despite recurring battery and gas-tank problems), he'd still prefer the sporty look and outdoor capabilities of the X-Terra.
"I'll probably trade in for an SUV later on," he says.
A running start
Linda Yu is the proud owner of a 2002 Chevrolet Prism. She says it "signifies someone who's always going places."
That sounds about right for Yu, who, in addition to her job as a counselor at Kawananakoa Middle School, operates her own side business and is pursuing a Ph.D.
"I live in my trunk," she says.
Yu says the subcompact car is good for getting in and out of places quickly. Better yet, it provides Yu, who just started driving two years ago, a powerful sense of freedom.
"I used to be very dependent on other people for rides," she says. "Now, I'm a lot more independent.
"I can be carefree in this car," she says. "I can roll all the windows down and enjoy the ride."
Of course, it's always nice to upgrade.
"I've always dreamed of having a Beamer with a sky roof," she says.
• • •
About the only time you can get people to talk candidly about the postmodern trinity of race, class and gender these days is when you're discussing cars.
Who would think that the vehicle of so much stereotyping would come equipped with a stereo?
In a highly unscientific survey, we asked shoppers and sales people along Nimitz Highway to do a little free association with some car brands and styles. Specifically, we wanted to know what type of driver they envision when they think of these cars.
In return for their most honest, un-PC responses, we promised not to name any names. Here's a sampling of what was said.
Mini-van
- "Soccer mom."
- "Upper middle-class. Educated. Probably takes the kids to all kinds of lessons and soccer practice."
- "Boring."
Lexus
- "Doctor. Maybe a lawyer."
- "Middle-aged, lots of money. Hawai'i Kai type."
- "Old Korean lady with the big sunglasses."
Jetta
- "College."
- "Single woman. Haole or Japanese."
- "Young. First job. First car."
Convertible
- "Definitely haole."
- "Tourist."
- "Haole, mid-life crisis guy."
Station wagon
- "Big Samoan family."
- "Old Japanese couple driving 10 miles an hour."
- "The kind that feeds the outside cats. Get all kine junks in the back."
Saturn
- "Kind of pake."
- "Practical. Doesn't really care what kind of car he drives."
• • •
What you drive is who you are, right?
You can never be too young or too educated — unless, apparently, you drive a 1997 Nissan 4x2 truck.
That, more or less, is the expert assessment of the Car Talk "Car-O-Meter," the online auto-prognostication arm of NPR favorites, Click and Clack, the Tappet Bros.
Always one to second-guess my purchasing decisions, I called on the Scope to tell me how compatible I am (or am not) with my much beloved, much dented Nissan truck.
Sound silly? Think again. As Click and Clack point out, "Driving the right vehicle, i.e., having the correct 'carma,' will give you an incredible lightness of being, a constant sensation of euphoria and, possibly, a Rocky Mountain high." The wrong car, they warn, can lead to "a life of quiet desperation, not to mention an incredible headache, lower-back pain and continuous hemorrhoidal flare-ups."
(Whoa, move over Dennis Miller. Click and Clack just referenced Milan Kundera, John Denver and Henry David Thoreau in one paragraph.)
In order to get my compatibility reading, I filled out a quick survey, which asked for responses, on a scale of 1 to 10, to statements like, "If there were only two jobs in the world — accountants or social workers — I'd want to be an accountant" or "I don't really care about what vehicle I drive; it's just a way to get from point A to point B."
Based on my responses, the Scope determined I'm compatible with my truck "only in terms of the extent to which (I'm) a cheapskate and (my) income."
On the negative column, the Scope determined that I'm too young, too educated, too much of a risk-taker, and too much of a snob to drive a Nissan 4x2. It also found that I'm more objective and logical than other Nissan 4x2 owners, and that I don't care as much about my truck as others do.
Insult to insult, it also called me a "bit of a nut case."
But this is the cool, creepy part: Based on my profile, the Scope produced a list of cars with which I'd be more compatible. No. 1 on was the Dodge Colt Vista. Dodge Colt Vista! A huge, ugly, noisy, unreliable piece of scrap that just happened to be the best car I ever owned.
I couldn't believe it. Dodge Colt Vista! The one I had was a hideous two-tone brown with a collapsed roof liner that sat on my head. It leaked, it stalled, it stunk like the 16 generations of mold that lived in its carpeting.
Man, I gotta get me another one of those.
Curious how compatible you are with your vehicle? Check out the Car-O-Scope in the "Time Kill Central" area at http://cartalk.cars.com.
— Michael Tsai
