Car owners often express their unique personalities through their cars. Whether its paint color, stickers, accessories, modifications, or even the car itself, car owners have a multitude of ways to express themselves using their cars as their medium of choice. The car itself, though, also has a personality all its own, one that can be expressed both on the surface as well as in more subtle ways.
The car as an extension of personality
In Western culture, and especially so in American culture, the car is a canvas for showing off one’s personality. The car is an extension of the owner, a way for them to signal who they are, what they like or don’t like, what group they’re a part of, and how they want others to see them.
Every day we see countless cars with bumper stickers shouting people’s political, social, and even dietary views at us. Drivers make aesthetic modifications like tail lights, body kits, and window tint. They add loud exhausts and turbos. Some even paint their cars and add graphics to help them stand out. Cars are an extension of the driver, and by default, their personality.
Even the stuff inside people’s cars can tell us a lot about who they are. Some people have clothes, others have school books, and others decorate their interiors with pins, paint, patches, stickers, and a any number of other personal items.
Whether an owner races their car on weekends and treat it like a member of their family or drives it to work every day and treats it like nothing more than a tool, all cars exhibit part of their owner’s personality. How its used and personalized not only helps us understand the relationship between car and owner, it tells us about who the owner is.
Everyone is different. And everyone’s car is different, just like them.
The car as a replacement for personality
At some point in the mid-20th century, a marketing philosophy developed around selling experiences and personality instead of augmenting them. Instead of selling cars based on performance or comparisons toward competitors, cars were sold based on what type of person the buyer wanted to be.
This resulted in things like “Pontiac, driving excitement!”, “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand.”, “Built Ford Tough”, and Chevrolet’s “The Heartbeat of America.” Instead of buying a car based on features they needed, buyers were being convinced to buy a car based on the type person they wanted to be seen as. And this hasn’t changed much over the years.
You want to be seen as safe and responsible? Buy a Volvo.
Want people to think you’re sophisticated? Drive a Jaguar.
Want to be ignored? Buy a beige car – a Toyota Corolla.
The car’s personality
Just like people, cars have their own personalities that they display, some intentionally designed into the car and others developed over the course of its life.
A car’s personality begins with the intentions of its designers and engineers. What it looks like, how it works, what features are available, and how powerful it is all factor into how the car is supposed to be perceived as well as how it’s perceived by potential owners.
Next is the selection of options that the owner chooses for their car. This can range from colors to trim to safety equipment and even what type of radio is installed in the car. The ability for the owner to choose some of options gives the car a sort of uniqueness that it wouldn’t otherwise have.
Once the car is ordered, equipped, and delivered, we’re now onto the aftermarket. Not only do aftermarket accessories allow the owner to impart their own personality onto the car, they allow the owner to add to and further accentuate the car’s perceived personality.
The last step in a car’s personality, though, is age. As the car ages, it wears into itself. It becomes more comfortable. It gets used to its daily life and settles into it. This is where more subtle parts of its personality begin to develop. The way the engine idles and responds to driver input become more and more apparent. The way that the car is able to translate the textures of the road to the driver are learned.
Cars and Material Culture
Cars are an interesting thing. There’s a lot that you can learn about a person through their car. The way that someone cares for their car (or doesn’t), the types of accessories they purchase, and what they keep inside of their car all give us an insight into an owner’s personality. It can tell us what they like to eat, what they value, whether they’re outspoken or introverted – it tells us a lot, almost as much as speaking to them directly.
Material culture is the stuff that we leave behind. Its the remnants of our everyday life, our behavior. It’s us.
The car is an ideal piece of material culture. Cars are created by us. We use them every day. We pour ourselves into them, whether we realize it or not. Cars are an interesting piece of material culture, though, in that we also choose them based on their own personalities, like we choose a friend and we choose them based on the personality traits that we believe we can take on from them. We give cars the personality that we want.
Whether we try to or not, we share our personality with our cars. They become an extension of us while at the same time developing a unique personality all their own.