The Difference Between Mini Cooper and SUV Drivers

The SUV driver is:

1.    A conspicuous and gluttonous consumer who flaunts his possessions.
2.    Loud and obnoxious, impatiently ordering food and talking with his mouth open.
3.    Dependent on his gadgets in order to define who he is to himself and to others.
4.    Fond of believing that his giant SUV affords him advantages in a car crash, which will result in his decapitating the driver of the smaller car.
5.    So lazy that he deludes himself into believing that his SUV will compensate for his inept driving skills.
6.    Fond of wearing a safari vest, a titanium military watch and other “outdoor” gear so that his SUV drive will transport him into an action movie that features him as the star.
7.    Woefully lacking in self-esteem and intimacy, deficiencies he tries to compensate for by hiding behind the grotesque armor of the biggest, most aggressively styled SUV imaginable.
8.    Fond of multi-tasking in his SUV, which has become, de facto, his “office away from the home.” As such, his SUV is equipped with Bluetooth headphones, DVD player, a laptop, a fax machine, a copier, a printer, a microwave, and other gadgets that make him feel like he can always enjoy the comforts of home. Of course, his multi-tasking diminishes his already crappy driving skills and makes him more of a danger to others than ever.
9.    Happily oblivious of the fact that his ugly SUV blocks the sight of the driver behind him, emits ten times more pollutants than ordinary cars, and gulps three times the gas. He happily accepts these “small disadvantages” so that he can live a life of vain self-absorption.
10.    Like a crack-cocaine addict dependent on cheap gas so that his consumer habits reinforce our government’s dependence on foreign oil,  which comes from countries who long for our destruction. These are the same countries whose rulers and citizens gleefully applauded when they saw the World Trade Center buildings go down.

The Mini Cooper driver is

1.    proud of his diminutive car and the conspicuous way its tiny dimensions alert others to the fact that the Mini Cooper driver is making an anti-SUV statement.
2.    Fond of eating sushi and sipping Perrier while driving past SUV drivers who are snorting down triple-decker cheese burgers and supersized milk shakes.
3.    Fond of doing yoga and other exercises that maintain his lithe physique while driving past SUV drivers whose bloated stature needs a behemoth vehicle to accommodate their ever-expanding corpulence.
4.    Prone to going to foreign and independent films while his SUV-driving brethren frequent “blockbusters” that feature muscle-bound action heroes, scar-faced, eye-patched villains, and gratuitous explosions.
5.    Fond of his car’s horn sound, which is gentle and restrained  and suggests the tender admonishment of a benevolent uncle rather than a rude honking of the horn. The Mini Cooper driver also takes note of the way his mild sounding horn contrasts with the typical SUV horn, which, sounding like the bellicose cursing from a luxury cruise ship, scares the living shit out of nearby drivers.
6.    Tolerant of aggressive drivers who cut him off and instead of succumbing to road rage and instead of playing “gotcha” and trying to get back at those who disrespect him on the road he focuses on the Cold Play or other “sensitive dream pop” that is playing from his iPod. 
7.    Proud of the way he dresses himself like a hipster in order to maximize the “Mini driving experience.” He wears the latest “understated, tasteful, all-cotton gear,” which contrasts sharply with the clothes SUV drivers wear—nylon sweat suits, loud prints, and other sartorial grotesqueries.
8.    Proud of the way he keeps his Mini bare and clean as he finds clutter adversarial to his “Mini Cooper lifestyle.”  At most, one might find a worn copy of Flaubert’s Madam Bovary, most likely in the original French, lying in the back. In contrast, his SUV-driving brethren keep their vehicles littered with fast-food rubbish, strewn clothes, loose CDs, and other paraphernalia which reflect the chaos and disorder of their lives.
9.    Someone who exclusively uses an Apple computer. SUV drivers in contrast use PCs.
10.    Someone who travels throughout the world, making sure to avoid the tourist spots. SUV drivers in contrast rarely travel at all and when they do they make sure to go to all the tacky tourist attractions.

Comments

[Jess Q.]

I know you wrote this almost exactly two years ago, but I loved reading this and I thought you should know. It really made me chuckle. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and the SUV drivers are in full force here, though the terrain is absolutely flat until you go north, and the roads are the most pristine and pothole free that I've ever seen in any state or country I've visited. Sigh. Such a waste. And so, my boyfriend and I now own a 2003, new-to-us Mini.

While I think both your lists are a little stereotypical, they're also what I think both SUV and Mini drivers aim for, respectively. Although, you forgot to mention Starbucks. (And depending on how you feel about Starbucks, they could be on either the SUV or Mini owner's list.)

Unfortunately, I'm a "corpulent" Mini owner, who only dreams of having the space in my cluttered house to do yoga (which I do like), and who wishes she had enough money to eat sushi all the time. (Alas, I am but a poor college student.) I also own a PC, although I'm making the switch to Apple as soon as my bank account permits it.

But I absolutely *wish* I was the type of person who you say drives a Mini, and that's what I strive to be. I just have to wait patiently for my weight to drop off (5 pounds down, 95 to go), and I'll be that much closer to the ideal lithe hipster you speak of. Until then, I guess I break the stereotype. In a very lame way.

[jeffrey McMahon]

You're spot-on about the stereotype. It seems stereotypes are grossly over simplistic and highly inaccurate on one hand but on the other hand they do capture some essential feature that people either are or that something they aspire to be.

I drive a Maxima.

[Paul]

Where does that put somebody with a 9 year old Honda Accord? :)

[jeffrey McMahon]

Someone who drives a nine-year-old Accord is prudent and shuns the ostentatious and tawdry consumer trappings of our modern age.

[Ed]

Get with it, McMahon. You know the latest and the greatest is my smartcar. Makes the mini look like an SUV.

[jeffrey McMahon]

Indeed, the Mini is obsolete in the face of newer smart cars.

[Ed]

Nothing mysterious about us; we smartcar drivers are wacky attention whores, pure and simple. If we were around in 1957, we would have bought an Edsel.

[jeffrey McMahon]

I'm sure the appeal of the SmartCAr is more than attention.