Those baby boomers always get their way. They got all that free love in the swinging ’60s, jobs for life, real estate when it was cheap, and can actually get money out of the Canada Pension Plan. (Me bitter? No. I get to work until I’m 83. Why should I be bitter?)
And I don’t know if you noticed, but the car market has also been at their beck and call. The market gave them cheap imports for their single years, created minivans for their family years, and concocted luxury SUVs so they would feel good about themselves in their peak earning years.
Now that they don’t need minivans and SUVs, they’re gravitating back to big, comfortable cars.
But get this — and this is so like them —- they don’t want their big comfortable cars to look like big comfortable cars, they want them to look sporty. When they’re in these vehicles, they want to roll the window down, blast the stereo, and let the wind ruffle their hair-replacement transplants.
Vehicles catering to this demographic can be roughly described as large coupes, or sedans that look like coupes, and they have been popping up for a few years now. Consider the Mercedes-Benz CLS Class, Jaguar XF, Infiniti G37 (coupe and sedan), BMW 6 Series, Audi A5, Acura TL, and Pontiac G8.
A quick tour around the Toronto auto show this week revealed even more new models in this mode. Witness the Passat CC, the new Hyundai 2010 Genesis coupe and sedan, the new Cadillac CTS, the new Lincoln MKZ, and the new Nissan Maxima. (Not at the show, but very emblematic of the trend, is Porsche’s new “four-door” — the Panamera.)
Michael Pistol, a colleague who specializes in design, noted that these vehicles also tend not to be “too optimized.” By that he means they’re not about being organized to an inch of their lives, but have special aspects, in both the interior and exterior, that are there “just to look good.” Pistol feels this is a backlash to some of the overly technical aspects of some high-end vehicles — which actually scare people.
He also noted that, if the driver’s seat doesn’t look like as comfortable as a La-Z-Boy, buyers wouldn’t be interested.
I shouldn’t be too hard on boomers. For one thing, I am one (at the tail end … always the worse end). For another, this class of vehicle is an entirely good and cool thing.
– Michael Goetz has been writing about cars and editing automotive publications for more than 20 years. He lives in Toronto with his family and a neglected 1967 Jaguar E-type.
