Generally speaking, cars have become one of society’s notorious status symbols. People know which brands are expensive, and which are not. With clothing, one can pull off any knock-off, but with cars, there is no fooling anyone. Pop culture has taught us that without even seeing the driver, one can already tell whether he is young or old, rich or not, and quite frankly, whether he’s good-looking or otherwise, through the car he drives. In movies for instance, the action star would just have to drive the sleekest car in town, and the girls would literally throw themselves at him (also for some reason, exciting cars are usually owned by handsome drivers, simply because life is not fair). Here is a list of the most popular characters from books and movies and the cars they drive (see the pattern):
5. Steve McQueen and his 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT. The movie Bullitt in 1968, featured a constantly imitated auto chase around the streets of San Francisco (otherwise known as the greatest car chase in film history). And my question is, who doesn’t think that drivers in car chases are sexy?
4.James Bond in Casino Royale and his Aston Martin DBS. Need I say more? This is 007 we’re talking here. So…
3. Tony Starks with his Audi R8 e-tron. He’s Tony Starks period
2. Edward Cullen and his Volvo C30 . If you do not know who Edward Cullen is, then you have a problem. But seriously, the hero vampire in the book (and movie) saga Twilight was described as “achingly handsome”, so wouldn’t it be just fitting as well that he drives a looker like a Volvo.
1. Christian Grey and his Audi R8 Spyder. The erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey’s male protagonist has a huge fan base now with a lot of delirious women changing their last name to Grey. He is said to be young, handsome, business-savvy, and charming, with a “dark side” which befits to drive a sexy car like the Audi R8.
At the end of the day, it’s just a social perception. Plain car-plain person, sexy car-sexy person. Whatever we think, that is just how things are, but the real struggle is for the driver to keep up with the car. Just saying.
“The car has become an article of dress without which we feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete in the urban compound.”
― Marshall McLuhan
