The typical American car buyer is completely bamboozled.
His priorities are warped, his perspectives skewed. He believes he must have features and equipment and capabilities he could easily live without - and probably would never even miss: 150 mph-rated tires; $300 a piece 18-inch wheels; 400 horsepower engines.
He is mortgaged to the hilt - so that he can fiddle with fussy, over-teched controls that make doing simple things (such as changing a radio station) difficult.
Yet he also complains about the high cost of cars, about not-so-great gas mileage and uber-complexity - all of which derive from his PR-bamboozled sense of what he Has to Have.
Just the other day I saw a TV commercial for the 2011 Infiniti M56. It has a 420 hp 5.6 liter V-8 engine. It can reach 60 mph in about 5 seconds flat and will run to more than 150 mph, flat out.
I know, it makes me excited too.
But (as we say in the South) lookee here, now. How many of the middle-aged urban/suburban manager/professional types who buy a car like this will ever drive it faster than 100?
Or even 90?
And how often will they do even that?
2010 New York Auto Show Photo Gallery
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Geneva Motor Show Photo Gallery
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