Do you know any wealthy people who actually drive low-key cheap cars?

[Anonymous]

I don’t. The ‘richest’ people I know are $500k / year lobbyists, and the $3m plus execs at my company. All drive expensive cars. But then so does my retired teacher dad. To each his own. My net worth is a bit over $2 million. My car is 11 years old, bought used 7+ years ago, still going strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My old CEO drove a ten year old ratty minivan. Shopped at kohl’s and sent his kids in state only schools and lived in a split level home on a 60x100 plot.

He made 5 million a year base salary and had a lot of equity before he did IPO etc.

In the single year of IPO made 55 million and later sold shares when company bought out got another 50 million.

Never touched a Starbucks either. That’s for rich people he say.

It dies happen. One year in 2009 company was short bonus money and he gave up whole salary to staff. Voluntarily.

What a very sad sad story. Guy probably had some disorder.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure why people are so hyped up about rich people driving normal nice cars. Our HHI is $2M+ and we drive pretty average cars. We have a Highlander Hybrid and a Honda Odyssey Minivan. They weren't cheap (the Highlander cost $50K and the minivan $40K), but we bought then outright and plan to drive them until the maintenance costs are no longer worth it.
People who are rich and plan to stay that way are very practical with their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the normal rich people we know casually trade in for the latest and greatest luxury SUV or Tesla every 12 to 24 months. The depreciation hit is MEANINGLESS to them (and their accountants).

This myth of rich driving Honda CR-Vs or a beat up Subaru is a coping technique by broke middle class strivers who can't afford nice new wheels.

Once you daily drive a cozy new luxury car you're not going back to driving crap. It's soul crushing.

If by “normal rich” you mean “$200k-$400k HHI UMC keeping up with the joneses” then I have no doubt they are all trading in luxury cars every 24 months.

No, real money. As in, public information when they sell a stake of their company for $50M to 200M and the wife is always driving the newest Porsche or Range Rover or Tesla suvs and hubby is always driving the new big Mercedes or BMW or Range Rover. The depreciation is nothing to people this rich. They love new cars, they trade up often. This reality pains the strivers daily driving a plastic piece of crap.

There are *maybe* 1000 families in this region who fit that “$500-$200m NW after IPO” demographic but I’m sure you know most of them and they all have the same car preferences. I’m sure your sentiment has nothing to do with you financing or leasing an expensive car and needing to convince yourself it makes you look like you’re part of this club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole post is nuts and full of delusional people. If rich people aren't buying expensive cars then who is buying them? Manufacturers aren't making these cars to look at, they make them to SELL. SOMEONE is buying and driving these cars and it's not Joe or Jane Blow middle class because they can't afford a six-figure car, they can barely afford a six-figure house.

The vast majority are lease. There are people who have a ton of money and $1300/month to lease a new RR is a rounding error, but there are many more who drive cars they can’t afford and wealthy people who don’t give a crap about cars and drive their F150/Silverado/highlander into the ground. The OP’s hypothesis that there is some sort of automatic correlation between driving a mass-produced middle class striver car like Audi/BMW/Mercedes and wealth is tenuous at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My old CEO drove a ten year old ratty minivan. Shopped at kohl’s and sent his kids in state only schools and lived in a split level home on a 60x100 plot.

He made 5 million a year base salary and had a lot of equity before he did IPO etc.

In the single year of IPO made 55 million and later sold shares when company bought out got another 50 million.

Never touched a Starbucks either. That’s for rich people he say.

It dies happen. One year in 2009 company was short bonus money and he gave up whole salary to staff. Voluntarily.

What a very sad sad story. Guy probably had some disorder.

Guy was super nice. All four of kids in State schools and worked in summers. Plans on giving away vast majority of it. He is an amazing investor so I am sure his 100 million is at least 300 million. He has a passion project he is working on related to autistism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole post is nuts and full of delusional people. If rich people aren't buying expensive cars then who is buying them? Manufacturers aren't making these cars to look at, they make them to SELL. SOMEONE is buying and driving these cars and it's not Joe or Jane Blow middle class because they can't afford a six-figure car, they can barely afford a six-figure house.

The vast majority are lease. There are people who have a ton of money and $1300/month to lease a new RR is a rounding error, but there are many more who drive cars they can’t afford and wealthy people who don’t give a crap about cars and drive their F150/Silverado/highlander into the ground. The OP’s hypothesis that there is some sort of automatic correlation between driving a mass-produced middle class striver car like Audi/BMW/Mercedes and wealth is tenuous at best.

Yeah, right, lol. Show me the data. By and large, middle class people are driving Honda’s, Toyota’s, Ford, and good old American cars. UMC drive SUV’s. Rich drive luxury cars. Not all rich. Some don’t care and drive beaters. They are not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole post is nuts and full of delusional people. If rich people aren't buying expensive cars then who is buying them? Manufacturers aren't making these cars to look at, they make them to SELL. SOMEONE is buying and driving these cars and it's not Joe or Jane Blow middle class because they can't afford a six-figure car, they can barely afford a six-figure house.

The vast majority are lease. There are people who have a ton of money and $1300/month to lease a new RR is a rounding error, but there are many more who drive cars they can’t afford and wealthy people who don’t give a crap about cars and drive their F150/Silverado/highlander into the ground. The OP’s hypothesis that there is some sort of automatic correlation between driving a mass-produced middle class striver car like Audi/BMW/Mercedes and wealth is tenuous at best.

Yeah, right, lol. Show me the data. By and large, middle class people are driving Honda’s, Toyota’s, Ford, and good old American cars. UMC drive SUV’s. Rich drive luxury cars. Not all rich. Some don’t care and drive beaters. They are not the norm.

DP. But you’re sadly mistaken. The ones who buy/lease the BMW/Benz/Audi’s are the ones who make decent incomes but have the most debt aka the middle class folks. Drive a nice car and live in a decent sized house but have nothing but debt. Those “luxury” cars are nothing but overpriced status symbols With “features” that a generic Honda and Ford have nowadays. People will lease a brand new BMW X3 but then have a 100k student loan note. In otherwords, broke people are driving these luxury cars.

The Keeping up with the Joneses mentality in the the DMV is super real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why people are so hyped up about rich people driving normal nice cars. Our HHI is $2M+ and we drive pretty average cars. We have a Highlander Hybrid and a Honda Odyssey Minivan. They weren't cheap (the Highlander cost $50K and the minivan $40K), but we bought then outright and plan to drive them until the maintenance costs are no longer worth it.
People who are rich and plan to stay that way are very practical with their money.

$50K car is not average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole post is nuts and full of delusional people. If rich people aren't buying expensive cars then who is buying them? Manufacturers aren't making these cars to look at, they make them to SELL. SOMEONE is buying and driving these cars and it's not Joe or Jane Blow middle class because they can't afford a six-figure car, they can barely afford a six-figure house.

The vast majority are lease. There are people who have a ton of money and $1300/month to lease a new RR is a rounding error, but there are many more who drive cars they can’t afford and wealthy people who don’t give a crap about cars and drive their F150/Silverado/highlander into the ground. The OP’s hypothesis that there is some sort of automatic correlation between driving a mass-produced middle class striver car like Audi/BMW/Mercedes and wealth is tenuous at best.

Yeah, right, lol. Show me the data. By and large, middle class people are driving Honda’s, Toyota’s, Ford, and good old American cars. UMC drive SUV’s. Rich drive luxury cars. Not all rich. Some don’t care and drive beaters. They are not the norm.

The vast majority of new luxury cars are leased and that data comes from the manufacturers themselves. As to
models that link was posted earlier in the thread.

There are plenty of rich people who drive normal and unassuming cars. There are plenty of median income people who drive luxury cars they probably shouldn’t be driving. I suspect you fall into this latter group and spend your time posting on the internet about your made-up network of friends who are all worth a confirmed $20m-$100m and convincing others to see the world in your same “monkey see shiny BMW monkey think owner rich” lens.

[Anonymous]

In Texas, the big money cattle ranchers and oil tycoons drive top trim pickup trucks. Think Tundra TRD PRO, RAM 2500 Laramie, Ford F250 Platinum. These are the type of people who would consider Rock Creek Park "a small patch of land".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In Texas, the big money cattle ranchers and oil tycoons drive top trim pickup trucks. Think Tundra TRD PRO, RAM 2500 Laramie, Ford F250 Platinum. These are the type of people who would consider Rock Creek Park "a small patch of land".

That’s impossible, according to OP the truly wealthy only drive <24 month old Range Rovers or Teslas. The people you’re describing must be broke MC strivers.

[Anonymous]

So for all the people calling BMW/Audi/Mercedes "striver" cars, please tell me what brand of car I should be driving if I want 0-60 in 4 seconds or less and need 5 seats. And don't say Tesla because that's a nerd car. The reality is, there basically ARE no cars with more than 2 usable seats and 2 barely usable seats (e.g. porsche 911) that hit 0-60 in sub 4 seconds that are not either a BMW, Audi, or Mercedes. Maserati and Jaguar do not have any such cars. Although there is a Maserati SUV and lambo SUV but those are SUVs, not cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole post is nuts and full of delusional people. If rich people aren't buying expensive cars then who is buying them? Manufacturers aren't making these cars to look at, they make them to SELL. SOMEONE is buying and driving these cars and it's not Joe or Jane Blow middle class because they can't afford a six-figure car, they can barely afford a six-figure house.

The vast majority are lease. There are people who have a ton of money and $1300/month to lease a new RR is a rounding error, but there are many more who drive cars they can’t afford and wealthy people who don’t give a crap about cars and drive their F150/Silverado/highlander into the ground. The OP’s hypothesis that there is some sort of automatic correlation between driving a mass-produced middle class striver car like Audi/BMW/Mercedes and wealth is tenuous at best.

A lot of the newer F150s and Silverados being sold are being marketed as 70,000 dollar family haulers (competing with Land Rover, etc) and as haulers for expensive toys like boats and horses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In Texas, the big money cattle ranchers and oil tycoons drive top trim pickup trucks. Think Tundra TRD PRO, RAM 2500 Laramie, Ford F250 Platinum. These are the type of people who would consider Rock Creek Park "a small patch of land".

I went to a Fourth of July party down south hosted by a wealthy family and the entire driveway was filled with these trucks.