Question of the Day: What Do The Kids Want?

by Jonny Lieberman

Published: January 12th, 2009

question of the day what do the kids want

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?

Jonny Lieberman

Cleanup driver for Team Black Metal V8olvo.

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Areitu on Jan 13, 2009
# Flashpoint : January 12th, 2009 at 11:28 pm “I want something with reclining leather seats that goes really fast and gets really shitty gas mileage” -” how bout a 6000 SUX?” YEAH ! That sounds good ! Ho about cruise control? DOES IT COME WITH CRUISE CONTROL? - “Sure ! We’ll even through in a Blapunkt !” I'll buy THAT for a dollar!

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Kid cassady on Jan 14, 2009

I'm 22 now. Having been a car nut since age 2, at age 16 I presumptuously presented my parents with a list of cars I would like to have purchased for me, among them: - BMW 850i - Porsche 944 S2 - Alfa Romeo 164 S - DeLorean DMC-12 (I was only partially kidding) If you extrapolate my choices to the larger youth population, every teenager wants a foreign car that is ludicrously impractical, costly to insure, has difficult to find, expensive parts, and is not as fast as it looks. I ended up eventually with a Saab 9000 Aero, which only meets one of the above criteria.

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