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marcus_holmestoday at 2:06 AM1 replyview on HN

It is an interesting exception.

The really rich people that I know of drive 10-year-old beaten-up Land Rovers, though.

I think there's a nouveau-riche slice of folks who buy "luxury" cars thinking that they confer status. There are brands like this in every industry, that adopt all the pointers of "luxury" except actual quality.


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bitwizetoday at 4:41 AM

There was a study sometime back that suggested most American millionaires live in homes of modest or at least unostentatious size and drive used cars of American make. These days it'd probably be of Japanese make, as Toyotas and Nissans are relatively cheap and last forever. Having a lot of money and showing the world that you have a lot of money are completely different goals. You'll be flat broke if you join an MLM with 99.5% certainty, but if you're a good enough salesperson they'll loan out a Mercedes or something to drive around so you can show off how rich the plan made you and "edify your upline". You're on the hook for fuel and maintenance, though.

Maybe it's the Scots-Irish in him, but my father was always one to go for the luxury stuff, but still seek out the good quality stuff at as good a price as he can manage and fix it up if it were broken. He knows how to keep a Cadillac Eldorado on the road for 20 years or more, so of course he's going to spring for the fancy if a used one turns up at a good price. In the 80s he bought a small mansion that was in a quasi-dilapidated state but had been standing since the opening years of the 20th century. We renovated it inside and out, and today it's on the National Register of Historic Places (though my parents no longer live there).