Go To The Head Of The Class

Black Enterprise, April, 2001 by Jay Koblenz

TRAVELING DOWN THE ROAD OF CAR BUYING IS AN adventure, to say the least. It's not just the challenge of deciding what you want and how many dollars you're going to spend. There's also the matter of deciding which car matches your personality. After all, the car you drive makes a very distinctive statement about which features of a car you find most important.

So, how do you determine which vehicle is right for you? As a start, decide your personal priorities when you begin shopping for a new or used car or, as is increasingly the case, a truck.

There are nearly as many reasons for picking a particular car as there are facets to your personality. Each factor plays a part, some more important than others. Still, the choices can be broken down into four segments: style, function, performance, and value. All come into play in every decision, hut the priorities may vary to the extreme.

Let's examine how each of the four factors comes into play and which vehicles dominate the categories.

STYLE

For some, it's love at first sight. But anyone would be hard-pressed to consider a vehicle's other virtues if they found it visually unappealing. And beauty is in the eye of the buyer.

Style-conscious buyers make sacrifices in other areas to make a statement and project an image. Think of yourself as rugged? Driving a Jeep Wrangler or a Hummer on an urban thoroughfare is a style decision because those vehicles weren't designed with the pavement in mind and you could turn to other cars for a smoother ride. On the other hand, owners of the traditional square-edged Volvo are also making a statement. They don't care about style. And the owner of a BMW Z3 roadster inching forward in heavy traffic is telling everyone else that she has a more frivolous, even frisky side. Still, some people buy pickup trucks because they need one, while others just like the muscle.

If you're going for pure automotive art, perhaps the top choice is almost any car from Jaguar. This brand epitomizes style. Each of its car lines is simply down-right sexy--and that notion has been ingrained in the hearts of men and women car buyers.

Although this year's biggest hit, Chrysler's PT Cruiser, may have other virtues, its unique good looks are, more than anything else, responsible for its success. That cheeky shape gets noticed on the road. The only question is whether it will have the same appeal in a few years, when hundreds of thousands of them are around.

But blending in can be a style decision too. There is safety in numbers, and millions of popular sedan owners prefer to merge with the crowd.

FUNCTION

If your primary concern is how well your next vehicle will function (since beauty is only skin deep), consider how you're going to use the car. Frequently, the small economy car best fits the bill for individuals, and the minivan nails it for families.

If you just need to drive somewhere and occasionally carry more than two people, it's hard to go wrong with one of the several well-built small cars. From the Hyundai Elantra to the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sentra, you get good economy, low cost, and more comfort than the more expensive cars of half a decade ago. You could add a sportier edge by moving over to a Honda Civic or Mazda Protege or sacrifice slightly in certain areas to save money with a Toyota ECHO. Buying more car simply means you care about other factors than function.

Of course size can be a big factor if you need your vehicle for transporting people. If that's the case, you can't beat the modern minivan. For the price of many midsize sedans, you can have a larger vehicle that gets nearly equal fuel economy, holds seven people and lots of cargo, and rides comfortably. Minivans are also ranked among the safest vehicles on the road. Just be aware that their big-box style may never be improved upon and that contributes to the "image problem" that minivans have with many buyers.

The best of the minivans is the Honda Odyssey. This is one big vehicle with a versatile flip-and-fold interior, smooth ride, crisp handling, and enough power to take a full load up a hill. If you want more choices than Honda offers, Chrysler's trio of minivans started the idea nearly 20 years ago and they still offer a greater variety of configurations than any other brand.

There is one other vehicle that means absolute function: the pickup truck. Pickups may be popular with a new set of style-and performance-oriented buyers, but for most buyers, trucks are something they need. Whether it's to haul your motorcycle out to play or bags of cement out to the work site, if you need a pickup, nothing else will do. Whether it's the biggest full-size GMC Sierra or the smallest Toyota Tacoma, none are as comfortable as a car.

PERFORMANCE

There is more than one type of performance. For all-out acceleration, the power under the hood is all that counts. For the first 50 feet across the intersection, bigger is always better. The Dodge Viper reigns as king here, but the biggest powerplant you can get in a pickup won't be far behind at the starting line. Go further down the block, though, and other factors enter in, from vehicle weight to turbocharging. At speed, aerodynamics play an important part. And if you want to accelerate in any weather, think of all-wheel drive. The cheapest Subaru will zip past that Viper in the snow.