Even the cheapest car on the market feels luxurious now.
In comparison the difference between a Toyota and a Lexus is marginal.
Expensive cars are mostly about status signalling, we are long past good enough.
A Yaris and a Ranger (who doesn’t love a Ranger!) are going to serve you well, but they’re not going to have the active and passive safety features of a more modern car. Put next to cost it makes it a bit harder to perform maladaptive frugality.
Uhm, only if you are counting the most basic utility, then you're right.
However if you actually enjoy driving (A->A driving), there is a HGUE difference and it's not just signaling. It's that you probably can't tell the difference, or don't care.
There is no comparison between driving a new Porsche or Bentley vs a new Toyota or even a Lexus.
A new base-model Prius is absurdly luxurious compared to a base model car of 1975 or 1985 or even 1995. If you have lived long enough to see this change, then dropping 2x or 3x or 10x the cost of the Prius self-evidently puts you wildly beyond the point of diminishing returns.
The Prius is going to have excellent climate control, and a phenomenal stereo. It's going to have adaptive cruise control, and will warn you when you drift out of your lane, or if you're about to run into an obstacle.
Outside of motorsports-sorts of things, what you get out of more expensive vehicles is of limited utility. Mostly, it's just showing off.
Now, if you want a track weapon, then yeah, you DO get more by spending. But for a regular person who wants to get from point A to point B comfortably and safely? The Prius is fantastic, and it's hard to justify spending more unless you're willing to admit that it's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of thing.
I don’t know motorsports, but in all the sports I do know it’s that way. Tennis, cycling… there are serious diminishing returns in all of those and most kit spending isn’t justified by performance as much as status or stamp collecting.
So much of our lives are taken up by worrying about tiny performance differences that really don’t matter. It makes me sad for the waste of life sometimes.
BUT! It's easier than you think to get a point in participatory motorsports where the difference between, say, a Cayman and a Miata is something you can actively use.
I still feel like if you go out for a long ride on a Huffy from Walmart you might hurt yourself.
One time I bought a bike from Walmart and didn’t make it the 5km home before I lost a crank arm.
The groupset would drive it for me. If I was buying a new bike, and I knew I wanted to be a rider, I wouldn't mess about with anything less than Shimano 105. At Specialized, the lowest end bike with the 105 groupset on it is $2100. That's the Allez Comp, which has an aluminum frame and wheels.
The next step up the ladder would be their "endurance" frame, which is carbon. It's called the Roubaix, and equipped with 105 it's $2800.
Either of those would be a good first "serious" bike.
If the question is more about diminishing returns, I'd offer my own bike, which is a Giant TCR Advanced. It's a couple years old. I have about $5500 in it, all in, but that includes the middle-grade SRAM electronic shifting group, carbon wheels, and a power meter. The meter is skippable if you're not doing serious training, but I did and do use power data for training. Subtract $800 if you don't want that.
I honestly think spending more is just showing off. If that's your jam, knock yourself out, but it's probably not making a big difference UNLESS you need a custom frame to be comfortable.
This has nothing to do with higher end cars or bikes being "signaling" this is just an anecdote between your skill and the next level.
You could say the same thing about a tour de france winner with any bike vs you and your pals.
If you are competitive, you get to a point where the differences do matter.
No, that's precisely what it's about.
>You could say the same thing about a tour de france winner with any bike vs you and your pals
In cycling, a TdF rider's bike isn't significantly more expensive or fancy than the highest-end bike available from any given maker. A novice rider rolling up on something one or two ticks away from the absolute top of the line is being a silly person. Novices in any discipline who opt for the high end of equipment are making foolish choices, and are frequently teased about it.
>If you are competitive, you get to a point where the differences do matter.
My guess is that you don't know very much about cycling. Pogi would be as very nearly as fast on my $5000 road bike as he is on his TdF bike. His comp bike is a little bit lighter, and it has components that are one tick higher up and thus lighter, but the differences at this level are tiny.
Nobody who isn't being paid to ride needs to go higher than $5k on a road bike. Going higher is just showing off, which is of course a totally reasonable thing to do, but don't pretend it makes a real difference.
Not sure about cycling. But a general physical trainer wouldn’t hurt.
What, you mean like F1 where the rules of the engineering / tech of the car and shaving a second can mean 1st place vs not placing?
I was at a track day once, and you'd see guys rolling up with very expensive cars, and they were often clocked as noobs before anyone even spoke to them. The guy rolling up with a beat up 1st gen miata pulling a trailer with two sets of spare tires? Yeah, that guy got respect. Dude was scary quick in the turns.
But the ones that do? Ho-leee shit.
I've owned a number of cars, and this isn't just about luxury. It's about the quality of the drive.
If you call HVAC and a Stereo luxury, then you haven't updated your definiteion relative to "1976 or 1985".
Again, all purely subjective. But there is a huge idfference between a Prius and a drivers car.
What specific benefits does a "driver's car" have over a "regular" car, praytell?
I'm speaking here as an NA Miata owner. My car's waaay behind your Prius on the luxury scale: it's loud on the freeway, and rattles and bumps the whole time; there's no cruise control; the roof seals leak a bit if you don't close the windows / doors in just the right way; the AC's on the fritz at the moment, and I need to sand off and re-spray some peeling clear coat that makes it look dumb. I've put more time (and actual $$) into the car than its paper value should justify, but goddamn does dropping the roof and pulling out of the driveway put a silly smile onto my face every single time, and heel-and-toeing a downshift on a twisty road to hit the next corner just right never stops being a thrill.
"Upgrading" to a more expensive car would buy me the luxury and the fun together - together with a lot of engine power I don't need outside the track, and would frankly be scared of day-to-day - and (to the point of this thread) I'm kinda frugal, so I don't feel any need to do that. But "luxury" (even "comfort", sometimes) and "fun" are orthogonal values, in the automotive world, and you asked, so that's the answer.
I'm not convinced there's a materially more-fun driving experience to be had by spending gobs more money.
If you optimize for that instead of other aspects, then Prius money would get you a Miata with most of the same features and a sportier aspects. And you're still a long way from a six-figure car. That was the gist of my earliest point.
I think the gist of your point got missed by both me and the GP. It read like you didn't think / understand fun was any kind of a value at all. I mean, you did ask:
> What specific benefits does a "driver's car" have over a "regular" car, praytell?
You're dead right on about the Miata vs Prius comparison, though. If I wasn't, for all of its manifest inconveniences, unreasonably in love with my (at this point classic status) little car I'd "upgrade" to a newer Miata.
That said:
> a materially more-fun driving experience [isn't] to be had by spending gobs more money
Kinda isn't the case? I've driven a couple of $100k+ cars, and they were a fricking blast. Effortless power is intoxicating; you feel momentarily like a super-hero when you put the throttle down. I can only imagine that a proper racecar is another leap beyond that - albeit with a massive decrease in comfort.
The catch, however, is that you can't safely (or legally) drive high-performance cars anywhere near their limit in public, only on the track. So, 99% of the time 90% of the money you've spent is wasted. My Miata is 90% of the fun 100% of the time, at (mostly!) legal speeds, and if I want to actually push its / my limits I can do that on a cone course in an empty parking lot, no track required.
(Also, little kids smile and wave at me all the time, because it's cute, and hard-core gear-heads start conversations with me about it at petrol stations. That's all fun, too.)
I think I'm getting a lot more enjoyment per dollar or per mile than the $100k+ fools do.
Unless, of course, they're doing it for status signaling, which they mostly are. That's fair, I guess; I don't think my Miata ever got me laid, which (I'm told) their cars do. The rest of us just wish they'd be damn honest about it, that's all.
The thing is all 100k cars are well past the point of diminishing returns.
I use to have a 993. It was a lot of fun. I also had a 2016 GTI. It was at least 85% of the fun for 20% the cost. It didn’t turn heads as much, though, which is what most people buying high end cars are after.
These days I get my zoomies on two wheels. I have a Triumph, so I’m very familiar with the gas station chat-ups. ;)
For people who don't like cars (/r/f*kcars is strong on HN) I understand their viewpoint. For people who LOVE cars, we see the details and appreciate the engineering, craftsmanship and art.
Will a Prius get you a->b the same as a "signaling car", yes. But for the hobbiest, it's the journey not the destination.
If you compare a Porsche Boxster to a Toyota, the Porsche is much more of a driver's car and if you're the right kind of driver, there's simply no comparison. (We'll ignore the FT86 / 86 for the moment ;)!)
If you buy a Bentley... you probably pay someone else to drive it for you.
Something to remember in all of this is hedonic adaptation. Buying a Porsche will feel in the moment different from buying a Toyota. But a few months later, you will be driving "your car" and much of the time, you'll be thinking about driving, traffic, signs, speeds, lights, pedestrians, bikers, the song you're playing, your next turn, a dozen other things. For the most part, you won't be thinking about how much "better" your car is in comparison to the alternative. You'll be used to it. You'll have adapted.
Different cars are certainly different for a personality who is drawn to the merits of automobiles. My favorite car was a $20K used Mazda 3 hatchback. I liked it much better than some much more luxurious cars (including the Polestar 2 Performance Plus I have now.) But that wasn't because of luxuries (the Mazda had luxury and heated seats and climate control and swivel headlights and adaptive cruise control and... and...) but because I enjoyed pressing the clutch, pulling the gear lever into second, releasing the clutch, putting my foot down, and steering through a corner. (The Polestar has some merits as well, but they are very different merits.) The Mazda 3 had a whopping ~186 HP... but it was fun. (Don't get me started on my 2007 Honda Fit... oh the memories!)
As far as the adaptation, maybe. But driving a Toyota never brought a smile on a twisty, ever. But it was reliable and always started :) The Porsche, every time, it never gets old [feeling] after many years.
Maybe you live somewhere that's possible, or not too far from such a somewhere. Rare to find such places within 50 miles of a big city though, unless you're in Germany and have the autobahn.
I suspect most premium cars get to spend a tiny fraction of their mileage doing the kind of driving where they'd measurably beat a mid-market model.
I ended up asking them what they do with their Porsche and apparently it's mostly going to car meetups and saying that they have a Porsche and feeling good about owning a Porsche.
So yeah as a former Miata owner I know that expensive cars tend to just be more fun to drive but if you live in an HCOL area with people who are highly leveraged, you'll find a lot of people who buy nice cars only for status signaling. I suspect in HCOL areas more do it for status than the actual love of driving.
(FWIW I find this in a lot of hobbies. I can ride a loaner bike faster than a lot of riders around here decked out in fancy kit, clips, and the best groupsets. A lot of people in HCOL areas engage in hobbies as an excuse to nurse a shopping and status addiction.)
Which goes back to the root comment that a lot of tech people highly leverage their life because it enables them to have a lifestyle and status that they think they need or deserve.