In the immortal words of Rodger Myers Jr., “You kids don’t know what you want. That’s why you’re still kids, ’cause you’re stupid.” I mention this because a couple of hours ago, Farago posted this little nugget about Generation Y and what they want when it comes to cars. According to the Deloitte survey, the three most important factors are exterior style, price and green. Which Robert categorized as, “complete horseshit.” Hmmm, not a lot of wiggle room there. But, obviously RF’s right. Horsepower is the number one thing a kid cares about, followed quickly by torque and then number of turbochargers. I think. And as commenter bleach said, “Environmentally friendly, eh? I’m guessing that survey also found Gen Y considers abstinence from sex, drugs and alcohol to be cool too.” Ha ha ha! But kids are pretty stupid (see above). So I decided to ask my 28-year-old fiancee (the age range of the survey was 17-28 year olds) what she thought. “Yup,” she totally agreed. Though for her it would be affordability, looks and environmental friendliness. What about performance I asked in a panic? Surely you must want performance? “No. The only people that care about performance are gearheads like you. I just want to go 80 mph on the freeway and get to where I’m going.” I was a bit shocked, especially because this blasphemy was happening under my roof. What about getting on the freeway quickly — surely that had to matter! “Most cars get on the freeway fine.” Safety? “No.” Um — I was fishing around — good brakes, surely. “That would fall under performance. Look, I’m a little spoiled from driving your car, but really price looks and whether or not it hurts the planet sound right.” Gulp. For the record, I’m not marrying her for her opinions on cars. Anyhow, what do you think the kids want?
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Jonny, you should know better than to EVER ask the average female anything car-related. Actually, asking them what they want (even about things non-car related) and expecting a reasonable answer is not recommended either
As far as young males go, they want 3 things:
1) Performance (acceleration and handling)
2) Looks
3) Sex Appeal/Status
I assume it’s been this way since the beginning of time. “Modability”, technology and nice interiors also matter to some young guys, although these criteria can fall under the 3 main categories too.
What the auto industry really needs to worry about is what kids whose parents are buying them new cars want.
Right now probably Hondas and BMWs, depending on how well mommy and/or daddy is doing, with some 370Zs, Gs, ISes, Mustangs and Corvettes thrown in. If they play too many video games they might want one of those rally car inspired things.
I’m doubt they want Scions; only old people on fixed incomes drive those. I’m sure that’s not something the youth want to emulate.
Young people who have graduated college and are working, and buying something new, probably have the same preferences.
I don’t buy new, so my tastes shouldn’t matter to a strategic consulting/market research firm that is doing its job (although that is rare).
A major market research mistake is asking people what they want in a car. They don’t know. Instead market research firms should ask people what specific cars they like, and their clients should benchmark those cars.
Kids around here want to look prestigious. Economy cars and modern muscle are kind of “low rent…” Your friends (and enemies) will all envy you in your lightly used Audi A4, or 318, or RSX. Pop in an Ipod adapter and go.
I came out of a Tim Hortons a few months back, and this disenchanted young man had parked his black 2008 Mustang Bullitt alongside mine of the same variety. Talking with him I got the feeling he was kind of pissed his Dad didn’t spring for something like an E92 M3. “I wanted a beemer but all I got was this discounted Mustang…”
I asked my kids,(18-b and 16-g)and the reply came back as ‘my own’. Instead of driving their parents boring and old cars.
There is a reason why the Mustang and the Corvette have been around for so long. I am 18 years old so I feel that I fall into this category and if money was no object I would buy a Corvette ZR1. No matter how hard the media tries the youth will always dream of owning a sports car.
Young people can afford not to care about performance because most cars are quite good in the handling and acceleration department – especially compared to vehicles of 15 years ago.
It’s not that young people don’t care about performance; it’s that they can take for granted that acceptable performance levels will be present in just about every vehicle on the market. Today’s “acceptable performance levels” would have been considered sports-car material 15-20 years ago.
It’s the same reason she doesn’t have to worry about safety. Virtually every new car sports a gazillion air bags, so buyers can take it for granted.
I’m 18, and I want a GR-series STI. I currently drive a Fit.
(And to no_slushbox, I don’t play many video games. :))
Most of the kids at my school want anything European because that’s what cool people drive, yo. I’ll never stop laughing at the retard with the Volkswagen Jetta that has Mercedes AMG wheels. If you combine two German car manufacturers, you double the coolness, bro.
My best friend (who isn’t an enthusiast by any means) just got a 2008 Mazda6.
iPhone
They all want(ed) the G8 ST. I think…
I strongly suspect that Gen – Y wants;
1. Affordability, becaus w/o this, there is no car.
2. Styling. Something that looks cool – not their parent’s car.
3. Green Cred, because they’ve been raised to think green (they all recyle)
I hate to break it to you, fellow gear heads, but even in my generation (boomer) an lot of people really didn’t give a damn about 0-60 times.
People need to stop asking kids what they want, because all they’ll find out is that they want something that looks like an F430, gets the mileage of a Prius, can perform like a ZR1, has the interior and NVH of a Maybach, and costs less than a Cobalt.
Kids buy the coolest car that they can afford, which, depending on who they are, can be anything from an SN95 Mustang, to a 1st gen xB, to an old Towncar. Or it could be a Olds 88.
These surveys shouldn’t be asking what features kids want, because there’s no relation between features and what cars they end up buying. Instead, they just need to ask what cars are “cool” right now, which is a pointless moving target if there ever was one.
I think the fiancee is pretty typical.
The real question in most buyer’s minds young and old is: “How does it make me look?” Depending upon the crowd they travel in, green might be oh-so-cool look to go for. Monster truck plays to a certain crowd while the Fit goes for a whole different group.
Someone once described a car as the clothing you leave parked in front of your house or workplace. Sounds about right. There isn’t a universal answer to the question of what people want.
P.S. The job of marketing is often to segment people into groups and then tell them what they want based on their group affiliation. Speaking of which, there are no defined generations as in “boomer”, “gen-x”, etc. People are born and people die every day. This birth year market segmentation is a tool of marketers trying to work their magic. It isn’t real.
there are lots of normal mainstream kids, just like the adults. They care about this stuff, and will grow up the same. The majority of people RF’s age buy stuff like Camrys… or Buicks :)
They want the same thing as adults: something they think their peers will approve of. Whatever that happens to be. No matter how ridiculous it is to the casual observer.
I’m a little out of that range, but my wants haven’t changed since then:
1963 Lincoln Continental Convertible with a Roush prepped crate motor.
and
Lotus Super Seven.
I don’t think that will help the marketers much.
As someone who falls towards the younger half of that age group, a lot of that makes sense. The price is HUGE! We want the best that we (or mommy and daddy) can get for the money. And the green part also goes with the price. The better gas mileage the less it costs to run. Makes total sense to me… And even though I drive a 2005 Impala, not a 2005 BMW, the looks are important to me. My requirements are that it is in good shape and isn’t a Camry when it comes to looks. Luckily my car has the spoiler and alloy wheels. But looks are very important.
I really would love to have a car that is incredibly fast, but I haven’t encountered a single situation where my Impala hasn’t been fast enough. Plus this car can hold a lot more stuff than so many other cars out there and when I’m having to move out of the dorm for the summer it’s a great car.
Speaking as a 19-year old college student, my top three criteria are:
1. Practicality (I want to be able to fit all my stuff into it when I move, which happens a lot with people my age)
2. Fun-to-Drive (mostly handling, but a bit of grunt couldn’t hurt)
3. Affordability (I’m an engineering student, so the low tuition/high starting pay probably skews this somewhat)
But then again, I’m also a nerd, so what do I know?
Depends on the girls Jonny…
(you too, thetopdog)
My ex loved her 750i because it was fast. (she’s 32) She previously had a Firebird with whatever the hipo 350 is. She was once stopped after being clocked north of 150.
My current (23, I know, I know) has a turbo Eclipse. That she regularly gets heavy on the right foot with. She also has ‘fast’ on the car shopping list. But she can also change her own tires. And really got into helping me assemble an engine. If only she wasn’t majoring in accounting…
When I was a kid, we wanted handling. We lived out in the (sort of) boonies. Tons of backroads to carve. GTI, Opel Manta Rallye, X1/9, those were the cars we bought. The fact that the rest of the world had T/As and trucks didn’t hurt getting us, umm, attention from girls was a bonus.
Of course, I’m weird and so are most of the people I know.
no_slushbox :
I’d put it another way: car companies should be worried about what the parents who are buying a new car for their kids want, because at the end of the day the car that will be bought is the one they want that the kid will accept.
Also, who the hell is getting brand new cars bought for them as kids? I was as pampered as anyone without a trust fund can be, and I got whatever car my parents wanted to get rid of. In this economic environment even the most reckless of upper middle class parents are probably downgrading to nicely used cars.
I’m 24 and I drive a Mazda3 hatch.
Styling: weird
Price: low (for a new car, that is)
Green cred: some
So I guess I fit the bill, except that the performance is better than average too.
…but if I were slightly richer I would have got a Mustang GT. Purchase price, mileage, and insurance convinced me otherwise. I guess that’s the difference between what I wanted and what I actually bought.
“I strongly suspect that Gen – Y wants;
1. Affordability, becaus w/o this, there is no car.
2. Styling. Something that looks cool – not their parent’s car.
3. Green Cred, because they’ve been raised to think green (they all recyle)
I hate to break it to you, fellow gear heads, but even in my generation (boomer) an lot of people really didn’t give a damn about 0-60 times.”
I’m sure you nailed it. For most kids today just as for the population in general, cars are essentially appliances. The passion for cars shared by young and old through the ’50s and ’60s does not exist anymore. Except for the usual handful of gearheads of course.
I am old enough to remember when cars became no longer cool. It was about 1972. The kid with the great car went from the top of the social pecking order to the bottom almost overnight.
I’m with Detroit-Iron
toxicroach:
At the end of the day the parents are of course the deciders, but sometimes the kid gets to pick it out. I’m sure there has recently been a steep decline in that practice.
In this economic climate (not so much the “credit crunch”, but simply peoples’ newly discovered personal fiscal conservatism) selling any new cars to people in the 18-28 range is going to be an elusive goal.
I wouldn’t say less kids are gearheads today than back in the day. They just transfer the passion to what they can own. Back in the 70s if you were a gearhead you got a beat up muscle car and slowly added go fast parts as you could afford until you had a monster. Today the same still holds true, except that muscle car is replaced with an import, Honda, VW, Mazda, Subaru, etc. Although there are still those who go ‘merican and get an old Fox Body and build them up. I don’t think the percentage is that different. It wasn’t like every kid was driving a suped up muscle car in the 70s. Most were in whatever they could afford and didn’t have that much desire to go faster.
Im 23.
At 20 i bought a Scion xB. at 22 I bought a GTI.
The xB was ok. It was kinda cool, but it couldnt get out of its own way. I LOVE my GTI. But i dont need such a big car. If Ford brings us a Fiesta ST or RS that will be my next car.
My 21 yr old daughter recently moved out and took my 1986 Tercel 4wd with 245,000mi, with her. I tried to talk her out of it. Not stylish, not safe, still moderately reliable, green only when you consider how long it has lasted and the reasonable mpg, and certainly cheap (she insists that at one time I said I would ‘give’ it to her). She wouldn’t own a car if she could avoid it.
My 18 yr old daughter decided that she could no longer stand driving my beater ‘95 Corsica, and wanted a ‘95 Eclipse – until she read owner reviews. She just bought a ‘95 240SX – automatic… only because she couldn’t find a nice one with a stick. She wouldn’t consider anything bigger. Stylish, reasonably priced, and greenish… well, gold-greenish.
I’m sure you nailed it. For most kids today just as for the population in general, cars are essentially appliances.
They were appliances for most people, in many generations. Luxury appliances, if you go back far enough, sometimes overchromed if that was the style (but so were the stoves and fridges of the time!), but appliances nonetheless.
The problem is, if you get enough gearheads of any generation in one group, they’ll groupthink what you’ve just said. In your case, we have old gearheads, who only ever talk to other old gearheads, and not to housewives, cost accountants or farmers, all of whom, by and large, didn’t give a shit and bought the best appliance. Young enthusiasts? What young enthisiasts? Why, in my day, cars were Real Cars, ten yards long, with eight hundred pounds of chrome and engines measured in cubic feet, not these twinkie rolling discos we have today! Now get off my lawn!**
Ahem..
I’ve listened to baggypanted, backwards-ballcap guys in deathcar Integras and WRXs who’ve said almost the same thing: old people don’t care about performance or styling; they just want a sofa on wheels.
** channelling a little Peter De Lorenzo, there.
The priority list:
1. Has to look cool
2. Prestige is a bonus (Benz, BMW, etc)
3. Performance is irrelevant
As a 32 year old that can afford whatever I want, I’ll still go for looks over performance, but that’s mainly a function of where I live. In Montreal where the streets suck and the weather is atrocious, a beefy Range Rover Sport is a more desirable buy than a 911 Turbo. As CRAZY as that sounds, I know.
Mothers and especially fathers who want to demonstrate how well they are providing for their families. A lot of men value being an above average provider.
It’s the type of guy who buy their kids a new car at 16 another at 22, college and grad school are paid in full, a 100k dollar wedding and 250k for a house down payment. I know a bunch of people from families that consider that to be the bare minimum level of parental support.
I’m 24.
I want to rewind the clock 50 years, and make a small 4 door sedan out of an NC Miata (Insert 510, 2002ti, Cortina, Escort, etc. here). Tune an n/a motor (Duratec + DI) to about 200 hp, mate it to a 6 speed manual, and then call it a day.
Please delete BS like 10 way electric parkbench seats, light up cup holders, AWD, yaw sensors, navigation screens, and other miscellaneous garbage acronym electronics that will just break and cost me a lot of money 10 years from now.
Please add manual recaros, and HIDs. Make sure I can stuff a set of hoosiers in the trunk and the back seat.
As the primary feature is LIGHTNESS, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be under 15 seconds in the quarter and over 30 mpg on the highway. Put some BAMF tires on there and you’ll be embarassing the Ultimate DoucheMobile in no time.
Until then, I’ll keep buying used cars.
I am an 18 year old college student, and I drive a 2000 Saab 9-3 3-door hatch. I know this site doesn’t take too kindly to Saabs, but I do. I financed the car on my own and am mostly happy with it, despite the problems related to it essentially being an Opel underneath. I chose to buy the car because I thought it was a great looking car, and it’s pretty fast, and it gets good fuel mileage. What I consider cool is anything that can blow the doors off of all the ‘cool’ cars, and get decent mileage when its not, all while not drawing any attention to itself.
I also have a friend that drives a Dodge Ram 2500 that he financed himself and uses to snow plow and landscape, and I also have a friend with a 2003 Acura RL that he took no part in paying for. They are both happy with their vehicles, but performance plays no part for them, nor does effieciency or how clean it is. The truck does that job, and the Acura has the status.
I’m not sure how that figures into the survey, but those are real statistics.
I think kids are more interested in their cell phones than their cars.
As Jonny’s above-mentioned fiancee, I’m very impressed that only thetopdog seems to have fallen into the “let’s make generalities about females” trap.
To defend myself a little:
“affordability” is because I have always been broke. It includes used cars, because I have never had the money to buy something new.
“looks” is not “the trendiest thing out there”. It means, I don’t like white cars or cars that look like every other car on the road. Also I prefer two-door hatchbacks, small small small.
“green” means, I don’t want to pay a lot in gas. Basically, this is an extension of “affordibility.”
Performance is important, and I’d love to have a car that performed well. I would assuredly pick the best-performing car in my price range ($0-$500)
But Performance to me means “would handle great on a race track or if i was in some kind of elaborate police chase.” Neither of those scenarios applies to me on a daily basis, so unless the best performing car is also the cheapest, I won’t buy it.
Twin turbo costs extra, I heard.
“I wouldn’t say less kids are gearheads today than back in the day. They just transfer the passion to what they can own. Back in the 70s if you were a gearhead you got a beat up muscle car and slowly added go fast parts as you could afford until you had a monster. Today the same still holds true, except that muscle car is replaced with an import, Honda, VW, Mazda, Subaru, etc.”
To some degree, but the Import Tuner trend (the fast ‘n furious scene) is as dead as a doornail. Nopi is bankrupt and Sport Compact magazine recently folded. There never was the breadth and depth in interest there was for hot rodding in the ’50s or muscle cars in the ’60s. Kids today just don’t like cars the way we did. That’s my read anyway.
As someone who falls right in the middle of the targeted age group, I drive an 04 WRX wagon that I bought 1 year ago. It’s fast, practical, and reasonably efficient; those were my criteria.
It’s been said above, young adults buy whatever they think will make them cool. Among my college friends (almost all engineers) they buy sports cars (Boxster, RX-8). My friends where I live now all buy GM sedans because that’s what everyone else buys. My accountant friends all bought appliances from Toyota or Honda.
“These surveys shouldn’t be asking what features kids want, because there’s no relation between features and what cars they end up buying”
Errr… exactly right.
People say they are for this, that and the other (typically a mix of what their peers are doing and what their parents taught them) and they end up doing something totally different.
@porschespeed – Can I have your ex’s number? I like them a tad older in a large BMW that doesn’t start with “x”…
Quick headcount around the office has 1 green, and 8 don’t care about the green. Seriously, only those “cool” hippy kids on TV care about the environment.
The rest of us see “green” as “fuel efficient means cheap.” If my car ran for free on processed baby panda spleen, well, time to stock up on spleen before it runs out.
Now get off my lawn!**
LOL!
I’m 17, and I sure as hell know what I want in a car
1. Manual Transmission
2. High-Revving Engine
3. Good to Drive
4. Light Weight
5. Easily Tunable
I also have the good sense, unlike most other teenagers in not adorning my Civic with fake chrome wheel covers, fake Type-R or Turbo badges, fart cans, neon lights, 3 ft. high spoilers, and all other accessories that make me look like a jackass. I’m hoping to snag an early 90’s Miata for my next car and shove a Honda F20C drivetrain under there. 237hp@ 8700 rpm, 6sp man, good handling, 2100lbs, what’s not to like? Lack of power steering, so what? Power windows, mirrors, locks, softtop, who needs ‘em? Airbags, we don’t need no steenking airbags! Cheaper than an Elise, and more powerful.
A certain type of driver just pushes the accelerator less far down when driving a more powerful car. Fast acceleration isn’t in their thought process. When confronted with a dangerous situation, the solution is always to slow down. As in: “Traffic on the highway is going very quickly and my on-ramp is very short … so I better slow down to be safe!” For those types of driver, more power is of absolutely no use.
@ magoo – I think you’re wrong. Just about every car that is tunable has active forums. If you don’t believe that young people (16-35 in my mind) aren’t into tuning cars, just take a look at them. The magazine’s fail because no one reads magazine’s anymore. Nopi failed because it’s corny and everybody got sick of it. But there are plenty of kids that love to work on their cars and make them go faster. I’m 38, and I remember the 70s. I also know a lot of younger people who work on their cars, just from living in neighborhoods where that goes on. For instance when I moved to my neighborhood, Anaheim, CA, an 18 year-old kid came up to me as I was working on my car just to ask questions about it. He just got a beat 240sx that he is rebuilding. Check out cardomain.com, sure a lot of those cars are a bit silly, but you can see the passion out there. Check the site I go to all the time when I need to do a job on my car: twinturbo.net. See all the tutorials and tech posts on how to do repairs and upgrades. It’s crazy how much support you get now. Back then you had to take shop class and get to know people to learn anything. Now you can just go online and have access to thousands of people’s collective knowledge. I daresay it’s way easier to be a car guy these days.
My wife is at the top end of this agerange and probably doesn’t qualify for this survey as she has lived her entire life in brazil. She wants prestige first, cheap to run/insure 2nd.
prestige in brazil is:
1) “imported”, but not vw (unless it’s a fancy one — jetta, passat, or better). When I say “imported” I mean by brazillian standards.
– Anything Japanese
– Anything European, especially except:
* fiat
* vw sub 2.0L engine, except jetta
* chevy sub 2.0L engine, unless the model doesn’t exist in Brazil
* Renault
2) 2.0L engine or bigger = have money
3) Bonus points for SUV/Truck as these are (guess) — expensive in Brazil
4) Auto transmission = expensive in brazil
5) She is due for a car by Q4 2010 and is currently interested in either a minivan, a fit, and a couple of other suv’s. She currently LOVES her 2000 neon as it is reliable, doesnt eat much gas, and has a……2.0L engine (who cares if it’s only got 3 auto gears?)
Needless to say she HATES riding in the STi. The acceleration scares her.
+1 for SherbornSean and David Holzman’s comments.
I think cellphones are taking over as teen status symbols, with a car being within the financial reach of only a few young adults.
26 year old automotive engineer here.
Daily Driver:
- fun to drive
- clever (neat features such as plaid seats or unusual styling)
- practical
- easy on gas
My wife and I have a 2005 MINI Cooper S and a 2007 VW GTI respectively. The MINI isn’t the most practical, but it fits the other 3 criteria very well. My GTI fits all 4.
That said, I’m looking for a utility vehicle as a 3rd car. My criteria for it are as follows:
- cargo space
- ground clearance
- mpg
- awd
Thus, I’m hoping for a hybrid Venza to come out soon. Plus, the MINI is so stiffly sprung that I’m pissing blood after a trip to my parents’ 4 hrs away.
Scooter.
As a 20 year old male
im after
1) Performance
2) Durability/Dependability
3) Safety
Gas Mileage is a distant 4th
I drive an 02 Sentra SE-R
which touches lightly on all four
after college though im going for a new WRX
Beauty is only skin deep right?
At the high school I attended more than half of the cars in the lot were brand new. The parents did not want their child driving in a POS because they feel that the parent’s peers would look down on them. Also the parents are trying to buy their kids love. It was not uncommon for a child to drive in a $20,000+ car.
Cellphones aren’t even close to being comparable to cars as status symbols. Everybody has a cell phone, nearly anybody can afford a top of the line cell phone, tons of pre-teen girls have iPhones and Blackberries, it’s not the mid 90s any more.
@porschespeed – Can I have your ex’s number? I like them a tad older in a large BMW that doesn’t start with “x”…
You may think you want a 6 foot tall silhouette model for the chrome cutouts on the truck mudflaps who’s madly in love with you. You don’t.
The rest of us see “green” as “fuel efficient means cheap.” If my car ran for free on processed baby panda spleen, well, time to stock up on spleen before it runs out.
ROTFLMFAO
I’m 21 and I want off-road capability. There are just to many great places to go where there is no pavement.
I think you can tally that up under performance, but I’m an enthusiast.
However, if I were going to go to much further in modifying my 07 Jeep, and I wanted a second car…
It would be the complete opposite of what I have. Comfortable, efficient, 4 door (practical), fairly quick, and 100% not a Chrysler.