Brand Stereotypes - Pure BS?

[dr Dunkel]

Hello fellows,

I have just reached Strömstad (on the west coast of Sweden, probably only well known for our Norwegian friends) for my well earned summer holiday. My brother picked me up at the train station with his nice Volvo 245 Q-car. After the mandatory few hard accelerations I asked him if he had had any serious fun with the car lately.

Well, that he had. A couple of days ago he was down in the center of the small town when he spotted a Ferrari 355 with a youngish male driver. They got alongside and exchanged a few short revvings and cruised along until they reached a stretch of straight road going out of town. Both hit it about the same time and the Ferrari could not manage to pull away. This was in a race from about 30 km/h to about 160 km/h. They parked up afterwards and the guy in the Ferrari kindly asked if there was anything done to the suspiciously innocent looking Volvo. "Naa, nothing special... other than that I have drilled a couple of holes in the airbox", he replied. The guy with the Ferrari was just laughing by this time Then he was told that there is a tuned Volvo 850R engine under the hood. The guy replied that he thaught that the car sounded a bit suspicious... but admitted that he never thaugt the Volvo would keep up. They talked for a while and were on their separate ways again.

The stereotype image of owners of certain brands are nothing but generalisations and prejudice. There are assholes out there but for the most part we are all just motorheads with different sized wallets.

[Giannis]

Very nice topic dr Dunkel, and thanks for bringing it up.

Actually I was thinking the same some time ago, due to a funny incident that occured to me. As you may know, i am doing my PhD in Civil Engineering at the local univercity, so i have to go there almost every day. For this reason, i usually use the Clio, since it's not far away. One day i took the Volvo with me, and when i parked it and got out of it, i was asked by a colleague if this was my grandfather's car. I was pretty shocked by this question and asked for some arguments.

He said that Volvos (it's a coincidence that we talk both about Volvos) are supposed to be bought by older people, and are slow and boring to drive. Well, after a short ride with me he changed his mind.

Overall, i think that such stereotypes do exist. There are people out there that don't know anything about cars, and believe what they have heard sometime, or have stuck with old facts, like Volvo making boxy cars.

[dr Dunkel]

Giannis, if people driving a Volvo in Sweden are having a hard time, I can only imagine what they have to put up with elsewhere! Good that you showed your colleauge what he was missing...

[Amo]

I do agree with you dr. Dunkel. I think you are right in saying for the most part, we are petrol heads, but some have bigger wallets. BUT it is sort of hard not to have the prejudices in your mind when the man in the big black BMW pulls out of a give way from a side street, with enough time because their car can do 0-60 in 0.00000000005 seconds!

P.S. No offence to BMW drivers, I am a BMW fan after all!