Prius is the New Buick
It’s funny how the generations relate to each other. Having been born at the tail end of the baby boom, I have had a love-hate relationship with my fellow boomers since I was young enough to know what was cool. The 60’s were cool, damn it, and I had been born 10 years too late to really say I had been there.
Cutting high school to hear Daniel Ellsberg speak in Sproul Plaza in 1978 seemed just, well, derivative. Seeing Crosby Stills & Nash or Emerson Lake & Palmer around the same time was to see not a heyday but a sad, substance-laden dénouement, the dregs of a really good party a decade earlier.
Like a perpetual younger sibling, I lived in envy of the generation that had come just a little before me. And they knew it, too—walking down the street as though being the generation to march in Selma and organize a Be-In gave them some sort of lifetime coolness credential.
Over the last ten years or so that has started to shift. Gradually, for instance, it has dawned on me that I am still in my prime while they are looking kind of old. By extension, many of the things held sacred by elder boomers are getting close to being the opposite of cool—of being places where cool goes to die.
Take cars, for instance. As my car gets close to the 250,000 mile marker, I have started looking around at the new hybrids on the road—Northern California roadways are chock full of them—and many are being driven by baby boomers. By far the ride of choice for conscientious boomers is the Toyota Prius, with the almost iconic rear window that dips down below the trunk hood.
I thought they were pretty cool for the first few years, but I have noticed a disturbing trend of late. Increasingly, Prius owners are turning into the elderly drivers we usually see in Oldsmobiles and Buick sedans. They drive slowly, even in the fast lane. They brake for a stoplight a good 500 yards before it arrives. They see no need to signal before turning, as though a half-mile of crawling along the roadway were enough to alert the cars behind them of their intentions. They will become a Prius marketing problem, if this West Coast trend spreads to other regions.
I have an uneven record of prognostication. Don’t expect me to choose the shortest line at the checkout counter. I can’t predict an election to save my life. But now and again I do have a moment of clarity, where the pathway from the present to the future unfurls effortlessly and I can see the signposts as clear as day. This feels like one of those moments.
If you are looking for a great car that will also have a cachet of cool for the next decade, you might want to look beyond the Prius. It is absolutely a great car, but I believe its days as a style trendsetter are numbered.
Was this important enough to warrant a blog post? Probably not. I am even chagrined that a perfectly fine moment of clarity was somehow duped into predicting car fashion trends. But sometimes it’s this type of thing that grabs hold of my mind and demands to be written.
As long as my car holds out, I plan to keep scanning the lanes to see what new cars are likely to capture the twin crowns of greatness and coolness and hold them for a while. Because here in California, we might say we don’t care about cool, but that’s only when we’re too cool to care.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Ooh, get this shmancy car and use old frier oil:
http://www.hybridcars.com/vehicle/bmw-3-series-diesel.html
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Well I enjoyed reading it. I’m probably just a couple years older than you (graduated in 1977) but I too missed a lot of the coolness that many baby boomers enjoyed. But I’d rather be a baby boomer than a Generation Xer so I stay cool. I’ve noticed many of the things you’ve noticed including the death of the Prius trend.
The new trend is for SUV hybrids. I have very mixed feelings about that. They are advertised as being the cool new thing. And in many ways they are. But I just hate the whole marketing thing.
And yeah, the prius drivers are becoming the new Old People Drivers. When I’m behind one these days I find myself chanting “Please don’t let me turn into a dork driver.”
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Well, I saw my first Smart car the other day. So perhaps that’s what the cool kids will be driving, when the Prius becomes the symbol of blue-haired oldsters?
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Well, both the BMW (way sleek) and the Smart Car look like contenders. I’ll have to watch the roadways (some more) to see if I notice them about.
Cynthia, I graduated in ‘79, so yes, I’d say we had similar boomer-envy experiences. At the time I was SO glad to be graduating in the 70s, because anyone could see that people graduating in the 80s were going to suffer severe identity crises, brought on by lack of proximity to any source of coolness. So much for the predictive powers of 16-year-olds.
The hybrid SUVs don’t get very good mileage, but for my area they do have the advantage of a higher clearance—useful when the roads flood. Hopefully my old faithful will hold out until some of this technology settles out and a clear range of viable choices emerges (which I then have the money to afford).
And believe me, as irritated as I get at some drivers on the road, I have a very similar prayer! It will happen to all of us one day, I’m pretty sure.
April 4th, 2008 at 9:07 am
*shiver*
And yeah, the 80’s turned out to be pretty cool. The 90’s too. There’s always a cult of cool but these days I’m starting to feel like my parents who just don’t get the younger generation… gah!
April 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I can SO relate to the Buick reference - I have a standing order that, if I ever buy a Buick sedan, I am to be humanely put-down. Even though I look like I had a fun psychedelic orgy-filled experience when I was younger (I look like a younger version of Santa Claus), I too was born too late to be a part of the Boomer generation. I don’t know why, but recently I am getting irritated by the self-idolatry of some of the boomers. Maybe it’s because ad agencies are pandering to them and amplifying the trend… Anyway, back to cars. I have been saying all along that, if America wants a heavy influx of hybrids into the market, they will start making sports cars with hybrid motors. It would have great pickup and be fast, but when you are stuck in traffic, it’s still a hybrid. Sports car trends tend to filter down to the commuter cars after a while, so you end up with even more hybrids. But don’t get me started about plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars! The EV1 should have been named the NIMBY1.
Anyway, thanks for voicing what I have been feeling all along :-)
Gary
(of the lurking Sara and Gary)
April 4th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
As one of those older-looking Prius-driving road-blocking baby boomers, I have to say you young folks ought to be grateful that we’re trying to save at least a little gas so that you’ll be able to drive at all when you’re sixty. We know that the slower we go, the less gas we use. Remember that, you young whippersnappers! Let’s see how cool you look when there’s no gas left and you’re biking your groceries home from the store. In the rain.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Touché, Cookie! Represent!
April 4th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I’ve got your Prius beat - one word “telecommute”. Nothing decreases your gas use like not-going-out -)
HEY! YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
April 5th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Goat, you are right about the joys of telecommuting. Sadly, I cannot telecommute my daughter to school and back each day, but nothing makes me happier than a day spent working from home where I don’t have to get into my car at all.
About the sports cars, though… Driving home (again) from town this morning I remembered my favorite boyfriend in high school, who drove a metallic green ‘67 Mustang with a 3-speed column shift. *That* was a nice car. Ahem.
My point is that all the way home this morning I was behind a late-model Mustang convertible (the top was up, on a sunny day) driven by someone obviously trying to relive the glory days of the ‘67 Mustang but failing miserably in his attempt.
So while I think it is true that many of the snappy new hybrids will come out as sports cars first, can their eventual fate be much different from that of yesterday’s Mustang? OTOH, when that day comes I’ll probably be too old to drive anyway, so what do I care?
April 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Don’t know how much this talk about “old” vrs “cool” is tongue in cheek……….but as someone who graduated from high school earlier than you whippersnappers………..this visualization of “old” is disturbing.
Even as a joke (if it is).
It’s a place we’re all going, minute by minute. And the more positive that place is conceptualized, the better when we get there. (or should I say, as we get there?). Come on guys…..were’re talking Magic 101: Visualization.
Let alone the whole Respected Elders thing.
Hawk, who’d like there to be Some respect when I finally become a LOL (who in this case, hopefully will always laugh out loud….as a little old lady - who damn well will be wearing purple!!!)
April 5th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Oh, you’re wicked.
Me, I look forward to some telecommuting.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Oh Gods! I just got a [2002] Prius! But likely if you see me on the freeway I’ll be flyin’ down the road having found that sweet spot between accelerating and not slowing so my gas mileage goes UP! I did 43MPG last tank and am doing 38.5 this tank.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Hello from a lovely spring day in England.
By the way, Avalon Spring Witch camp was amazing and delightful.
Anne, reading your tales of the highway and memory lane makes me even more happy to live in a state where cool normally, only relates to the weather or the emotional states of family members, as in, ’she was certainly cool (not excited) about that invitation’. Minnesotans tend not to get too worked up about what others consider hip.
As for our bright red new Prius, we, my husband, age 42 and myself, age 57, love it. We are actually getting 45 miles per gallon and it is damn good in deep snow and high winds. What more could we want? And as an added bonus, it’s red exterior and charcoal gray interior goes with all of our basic wardrobes. And believe me, we do not lollygag down the highway.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
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