The long demise of the stretch limousine | Hacker News Reader

The long demise of the stretch limousine

nytimes.com

68 pointslxm82 comments

http://web.archive.org/web/20230429165712/https://www.nytime...

I never really considered it until this article, but I think socially stretch limos are kind of a "poor people thing" now. The article kind of mentions it but once it became to accessible, it lost its allure. I think a bentley is a better indicator of wealth now if we're talking about cars.

"indicator of wealth"

Maybe. I think it is an indicator of multiple things, one being wealth.

Another thing that comes to mind is of someone that needs to signal, badly, that they have wealth. Some people may be interested in those signals, but I hope/guess not too many.

PS: I'm all for people having wealth and spending it on things that make their lives better, but conspicuous consumption/Veblen goods/positional goods seem like some kind of ancient software in humans that hopefully will pass in time.

There is conspicuous consumption, but it is not in the form of cars.

Who cares if a car is a limo or a Bentley? The comfort and quality and safety is relatively all the same, whether it is a $50k car or a $500k car. You are going to sit in it looking at your phone all the same.

But the higher bar to achieve is real estate, time, and professional network. Where you live, where and how you spend your time, and who you work with are all easy ways to determine socioeconomic status, so there is no reason to waste money on cars/jewelry/etc if you get no extra utility from them.

(As of Jan 2023) Warren Buffett famously drives a 2014 Cadillac XTS and owns only one car. Famously, because most other billionaires have much flashier cars, and warehouses full of cars.

You may not feel the difference between a $50k car and a single $500k car, but having seven $500k cars, one for each day of the week, in different colors, just hits different. It's conspicuous consumption, even if you don't notice or care about the particular object of the consumption.

There are people out there with just so much money that you can waste money on every half a whim, and still have... pretty much the same amount left over. It means you can buy jewelry you might want and just throw it away like you're in Brewster's Millions. At that level, who cares about utility?

Must be a boring life when nothing matters.

> It means you can buy jewelry you might want and just throw it away like you're in Brewster's Millions. At that level, who cares about utility?

If you want it, you are predicting it will give you utility. Even if it is just a few chemical reactions in your brain, and not an ROI measurable in currency.

From the references articles, the limos were significantly less safe than other cars because they often didn't have seat belts, and lacked the protection from the frame of a smaller car.

If you've ever watched a video[0] on how stretch limos are made (hint: it's even sketchier-looking than you'd expect), you'll get over the idea of riding in one pretty damned fast. Just thinking about a side-impact in one is nuts. The lack of seat belts is just the starting point.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ani9dWmdW_w

I'm with you on your PS but I don't think it will pass. I feel like humans are inherently comparative beings. We weigh and measure all humans we come in contact with and most are weighed by looks for a first impression. Some people are always going to measure by perceived wealth.

you're 100% right. people will readily jockey, compete, and gloat over the most artificial relative measures of heirarchy. think parking spots or badges in a video game.

wealth and class are two separate things. You can very much be lower class wealthy (Donald Trump) and upper class poor (every post-doctoral barista.) the need to signal wealth, affluence, and success however is very much a middle class eccentricity as cited by Paul Fussel.

Middle class people put stickers on their car to indicate their college, drive luxury vehicles that stretch them to the brink of their finances and insist on an almost suffocating degree of verbiage in their conversations. best summed up as $15 word people with $5 ideas they picked up on cable TV. They read, but they cant read positionally to determine a counterargument to a narrative theme. They rent limousines, they buy luxury goods and they conspicuously follow trends in fashion and thought (magnetic bumper stickers for the troops or plastic fitness bracelets.) the baby-on-board sticker is in prominent display because you need to know their importance.

the upper class do not. Instead the only conscious acquisitions they make align to their personal preferences, which are largely sacrosanct. Marketing may inform their choices, but appeals to gender and attempts to undermine their confidence will generally fail. They went to college, but its none of your concern. They dont get to the airport in a bentley or a rolls if they are wealthy, because they do not drive. They drive slowly because the well planned day revolves around them, not the other way round. They are quick to apologise, listen intently, and speak directly. what you see is largely what you get.

the lower class are largely the same as the upper class. they never went to college, but they dont care if you know. goods and services are purchased utilitarian or without consideration and the substance is largely overt or appeals to a simple motif (live/laugh/love, bless this mess, animatronic wall bass.) They know exactly what they like.

I would disagree that the upper class are not swayed by identity markers like gender. There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class, specifically on assessing peers and concerning class pooling (especially among the upper class nonwhite in a majority white country). There’s also plenty of appearances for gender markers— fatness is low class.

> There is plenty of sway happening in the upper class

I mean my anecdata says it _looks_like_ there is plenty of sway - the end goal of course is as always distraction from useful information that can be used for planning

I don't think of every PhD barista as upper class at all. Holding a doctorate is at the upper end of academic attainment. Someone without even an undergraduate degree but who inherited wealth is not going to see that barista as their social peer.

I think that you missed OP's argument - they're arguing that "wealth" and "social class" are orthogonal. Neither of the two would see each other as their social peer since they have neither wealth nor class in common.

* PhD barista: Low wealth, high class

* High-school educated trust fund baby: High wealth, low class

This sort of framing does seem very medieval though - I get mental images of rich merchants and indebted aristocrats when reading it.

No, I'm disagreeing with their argument and saying social class is not the same thing as academic attainment.

To return to the topic of the article, a limo is (was) a means of signalling wealth. You cannot tell from the outside if the person riding in it has inherited their wealth or earned it from monetising their PhD. But the world changed and now you can see teenagers from working class families able to afford to rent one for the high school prom, or 20-somethings for a stag night.

I think I generally agree with your sentiment but how are mega yatchs explained? They're not a practical choice because there's more rooms and resources on it then is humanly possible to consume either with friends or by yourself. They are only available to the mega mega rich. What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a yacht

> What drives a mega wealthy person to choose a [mega] yacht

Private jets allow them traveling without the inconvenience of other people. Mega yatchs allow them having a private hotel that follows them as they travel.

A mega wealthy person has a busy schedule meeting with other elites, and they will often want to do that with maximum comfort and privacy. As long as the schedule isn't too tight, their crew can guarantee that the yatch will be there for them when they arrive, without the risk of having to see or be seen by lesser people.

The fact that the immense majority of people can't do the same is just the icing on the cake.

Having a fancy floating house boat is strictly the small beer end of mega yachts for the ultra wealthy.

Paul Allen's Octopus was so much more:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht)

[2] https://www.boatinternational.com/yachts/editorial-features/...

This is an interesting example. The wiki said he was worth $200B at his death, while his boat cost $200M when built. When he died it sold for 230M. So in a sense it was an asset, in that it did not depreciate (ignoring inflation). Though I’m sure it cost a lot to operate and maintain.

So he spent 0.1% of his wealth on this! Pretty reasonable budget to spend on something you enjoy IMHO.

He also put it to use on some exploratory missions, rescue mission etc.

isn't that 0.1% of his wealth?

For comparison, if your net worth is $500k, that's like spending $500 on something.

I don't think you've seen what a mega yacht looks like. My point was that a mega yacht is absolutely in excess of what any human being can use. There is definitely at least partially some form of status symbol wrapped up in one

The mega yachts are absolutely status symbols, but you should also see them as an extension of the private hotel concept - they're not just a private hotel for the owner, but for their friends and business partners, as well as conference venue.

Which set of studies did you use for this summary of the condition of 8 billion people? I know a broad swathe of people across the whole wealth spectrum, and none of them fit your thesis.

I guess some say "anecdata" others say "anecdata"?

This seems very inconsistent with my experience. I tend to find most people are the same, it really just is a matter of how much money you have to get what you want and what impresses your peer group.

You hit the nail on the head.

What do you think class is?

Class is determined by one's role in society.

Working people are working class, and Donald Trump is not one of them.

Owning people are "owning class" also called "bourgeoise" and Donald Trump is one of them.

"Lower class" and "upper class" are nonsense Americanisms.

I think it's reasonable to assume one's "role in society" can extend beyond their economic utilization.

It can, but it's always predominated by their social relationship to the material means of production, which makes that relationship the primary determinant of their role in reproducing society. As such, one who sells their labor for a wage has a role that is most fundamentally different to that of one who controls (owns) the material means necessary to convert that labor into value.

I'm pretty sure they're not uniquely Americanisms, and thatwe got those from the old country, where there was the landed gentry and literal lords and kings and queens in the upper class, with peasants, serfs, in the lower classes. It wasn't until the French grew fed up with the system that it underwent a revolutionary change.

There's still a House of Lords (upper class) and a House of Commons (lower class) in the UK.

"Trump is <thing I look down upon>" but you inadvertently put a guy who was born into wealth in the same economic category as people who were born poor. Under what semantic regime is this possible? Lol

I could see the stretch limo coming back into vogue as influencers on the whatever platform embrace 1990s prom culture as the new currency.

It used to be the vehicle that unequivocally would declare your arrival, but I think that spot unfortunately has been claimed by the private jet.

I would not step foot nor let my kids step foot in a limo type car ever since I found out they are completely unregulated (in the US).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_limousine_crash

That article lists lots of regulations that weren't followed; that not all operators follow the regulations, and that regulations aren't always enforced doesn't indicate the category is completely unregulated.

The stretch jet does have some interesting aerodynamics.

Is that a 737 Max reference?

More a general reference to the fineness ratio[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fineness_ratio

Crawling around inside a long, low-ceiling car. Not an experience i equate with luxury.

At least American culture, driving used to directly equate to FREEDOM. However as more people tried to grasp that freedom, as the suburbs expanded and the roads bogged down, driving is increasingly associated with gridlock and traffic rule crackdowns.

Gone are the days of fantasizing about driving a supercomputer AI car into a mobile truck base.

Gone are the days of driving to some club or restaurant and the vehicle as a proxy of status.

In today's world luxury comes to the rich. Personal chefs, international air freight anything, parties at their resort sized mansion mini-city. Short of a state level police motorcade for the politically connected, why go to some remote event at all?

No, the limousine is seen as some high school prom or other pedestrian event and a thing for shows on TV.

The stretch limo always included a driver so you could be seen getting of the backseat in front of someplace nice and not have to figure out how to park it.

you just described any taxi driver or uber. uber even has separate category for more luxury :D

of course it is a strech but still I think valid point

Pretty much. The.costs are not much more than a taxi either, but since they are not a taxi different rules apply, one of which is they look much nicer.

Yes, and gone are the days of unincorporated land free for the taking from indigenous peoples, where one wouldn't have any laws or governments to worry about /s

Never forget the great Trail of Tears on which the indigenous Americans were forcibly relocated, chased by asphalt rollers and angry lobbyists from the automotive industry.

Wait, what?

The idea is the one or two important people sit in the very back, and the less important people (if any) do the scooting/crawling.

That’s what a stretch Hummer is for! All the luxury, twice the headroom.

Deluxe decked out Mercedes sprinter van. All of the headroom!

If you're not going to senior prom, you're not the stretch limo demographic. Welcome to adulthood!

I remember back in the early 2000s I worked for a company that "rewarded" developers with a ride around the city in a stretch limo to end up at a company party at a bowling alley. Seriously, this was the company's high school mindset. I was glad to get out of there after a short time.

Even in high school that kind of thing was lame. I forget why, but there was a time where the school took a bunch of us on a limo ride ... to Hometown Buffet. We all thought it was dorky as hell, but we did it anyway because it got us out of class. No ody thought it was cool, though.

Yeah that is the only use case I would approve.

Wait, I want to do that!

I recall a company "party" early in my career that had us crammed into a super-stretch limo with a hot tub where a trunk would have been. Hot tub didn't work. Smelled like Teen Spirit. Craptastic!

Is the drought blow back from the previous boom? There’s no mystique once you’ve done that awkward climb over your fellow passengers.

Totally agree. I feel the same about private jets. Most of them are too small for a tall person like myself to stand up in.

No hits for "ladder" or "frame" but an important though less direct cause is simply the difficulty of stretching modern cars.

Modern stretch limos seem to all be SUVs. I guess cause they're body-on-frame. The old ones were body-on-frame sedans like the LTC, which are no longer made.

Unibody has been taking over the SUV world too, of late.

Well the "U" tends to mean "unibody" instead of "utility" in those cases ;)

During the height of the Great Recession, you could get your hands on used stretch limousines for fairly cheap. There was even a time when homeless people were buying them to live in, and it wasn’t uncommon to see them parked on the side of the road.

Shoot, that was true long before any given recession. A stretch limo is a rapidly depleted asset that nobody wants after its a few years old. When I lived in Oklahoma City many years ago, I bought a limo off Doc Severinsen, who owned a nightclub there. It was built from a 1983 Grand Marquis, basically an extra-long police car. Didn't cost me a dollar, I just had to get it off their lot (it didn't run, until I fixed it).

How was the fuel economy? What happened to it?

Fuel economy won’t be as bad some might think. Length (as if something were extruded longer) doesn’t really impact aerodynamics much - it’s just the additional weight (body and furnishings) that screws things up.

And the non-stretch limos (Lincoln Town Car etc) went from sorta expensive to cheapo.

I see one in a trailer park I drive by sometimes

I saw one that the new owner lifted.

These will be back at some point... And there will be flabbergasted news articles talking about how Gen z or Gen AA want to see them for their novelty and there will be gray beard Gen x and Gen y talking about how back in their day everyone used to stretch limos.

But it will be a stretch limo cyber truck or a stretch limo SUV, there aren't very many land yacht style sedans left over yet, except for say the Lincoln Continental.

I mean, they won't be back if they can't easily be constructed by modifying existing production vehicles. The market for them is never again going to get big enough to support from-scratch production as a new model line.

I wonder how much more difficult it is to extend a unibody chassis vs the old body on frame.

Never mind the novelty of it, it's a bigger space inside, so instead of being limited to 4 or 6 of your friends (plus you as the driver), you can have 8+ people in a limo, plus (by the time gen AA or AB is ready for it) a robot for driver. The glory days will be back as soon as self-driving cars come around and people come to appreciate all the extra interior space, and are able to afford such a luxury.

> “When a stretch pulls over, everybody turns around to see who’s getting in or getting out,” Mr. Rose said. These days his clients prefer the discretion of a black sedan or S.U.V.

Ah, because these days, everybody turns around to see who's getting in and out, and a good portion of those everybodys can be expected to take videos and pics, immediately posting them online.

One time I had to take a ride in a stretch limo for a long ride to an airport because it was the only thing the car service had on short notice. I know they’re not meant for highway travel, but it was easily the worst ride I’ve ever experienced; it’s good that I don’t get seasick.

Is there any way a stretch limo is more comfortable than an SUV or a minivan? I always suspected that the limo was an artifact of the days when everyone drove sedans.

Doesn't the President of the United States still ride in a stretch limousine? What about other heads of state?

> more comfortable than an SUV

A limousine's seats aren't all facing forward, making it easy to have a party or conversation among many people. The seats tend to be more like couches, which can accommodate some horizontal activities.

The presidential limo was designed to resemble a Cadillac Escalade:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_state_car_(United...

Wow, that is sort of flabbergasting, including the history of the thing. To think that the car has been armored and protected like a tank for so long, yet all it took for JFK was an open convertible top.

I've managed to convince limo drivers at the airport to match uber's rate plus 20$ a few times. Pretty fun but I think it's an indication of how they're probably not getting a lot of business

Have to add this channel’s video, entertaining and informative: https://youtu.be/pjL3kjFKjIY

The most carsick I can ever recall being was while riding in a stretch limo. Never again, good riddance.

Stretched limos are tacky. That is the reason. As soon as they were rented by regular folk for special occasions, that became apparent. The facade was broken, and that was the end of that. It is that simple.

Did they become tacky because regular folk started renting them?

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