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Comment by finnh | Hacker News Reader

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.

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 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.

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.

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!

Wait, I want to do that!

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.

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.

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