Lucia

de Vernai

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March 28, 2008

Soon You’ll Be Driving a Tata! Better Indulge Your Ego Elsewhere

Cars are a status symbol from the day you get your driver’s permit in high school. The newly found freedom is always counterbalanced with the anxiety that comes with driving your homecoming date to the dance in your mom’s Suburban. And even if you are lucky enough to get mommy and daddy to buy you a Lexus for your 16th birthday and you think that all of your problems are over – I hate to break it to you, but you’re still driving a Toyota.

Soon enough the proud owners of Jaguars, after almost 20 years of trying to make driving a Ford look glamorous, will be driving Indian cars. Jaguar and Land Rover, Ford’s British luxury brands, were sold this week for $2.3 de Vernaiion dollars to Indian motor company Tata.

The price is approximately half of what Ford paid in 1989 for the brands that have never brought in a profit. The change of hands is a symbolic move in the changing global automobile economy. Ford recently got rid of Astor Martin, another luxury, UK-based vehicle. Meanwhile, Tata unveiled the world’s cheapest car, intended to allow consumers in developing nations to partake in the benefits of technology previously reserved for the world’s most privileged populations.

Tata’s spectrum of products now ranges from the up-to-$90,000 Jaguar to the $2,500 model the company hopes to sell a million of. That is certainly a sign that the sentiment and brand identity that previously allowed for vanity may soon cease to exist.

The cultural question then becomes: Are we ready to place value on something other than prestige? While thousands of miles and hundreds of thousands of dollars separate you and your Indian counterpart, when push comes to shove and the midlife crisis brings you to the car dealership, you’re both buying a Tata. Granted, yours will probably have cool gadgets like air conditioning and power steering, but let’s not get distracted by details.

The global automobile market is ceasing to be dependent on the U.S. and Western Europe as its primary customers. For many corporations, even those traditionally associated with affluent drivers, the vision of the future includes a diverse customer base. And who can blame them? It is estimated that car sales in India will quadruple in the next eight years – a rate the U.S. economy cannot compete with.  

The only viable choice we have is to indulge our vanity with something other than cars. Otherwise, the economic status symbol that the automobile has been since its introduction to the American public is bound to disappoint. The fulfillment that comes from working for 25 years to get that shiny Beamer is somehow dampened when a college freshman driving the same model cuts you off in traffic. Spoiled offspring and hardworking people in South Asia are by no means comparable, but equalizing factors at hand – whether the nouveau riche mentality or a global economy – are changing the role of cars in our understanding of class, privilege and status.

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