We’re all at least a little guilty of assigning personality traits and cultural quirks to people based on the cars they drive, and frequently not for the better – I’m sure you could easily reply with strong beliefs if I asked you what vehicles jerks prefer. But we like to keep things much more positive here at The Autopian, so let’s flip it. What cars exclusively give you positive vibes about their owners? The gang piped in on Slack:
Mark Tucker: “Saab owners. They’re as weird as their cars are, but always good folks. Classic British and Italian sports car owners are good folks too, if a little pedantic and rivet-county.”
Replied Matt:
“Have you ever met a mean person driving a Volvo 240 Wagon? From the 1st owner to the 19th owner, nice people.”
Thomas Hundal is a very nice guy who drives a Boxster, so this tracks:
Boxster owners are also surprisingly nice. A friend was recently musing about some of the antisocial behaviour in Corvette owners groups, when I opened up a Boxster owner’s group and saw an impressive landscaping run, a celebration of a gay wedding with many well-wishes, and someone using FB’s anonymous poster function not to harass, but to wish everyone a lovely weekend with a picture of their own Boxster.
Mercedes Streeter with a (disappointing) surprise:
If this were 2008, I’d say Smart owners. But today, Smarts are sometimes owned by massive jerks. The kind of people who say they bought a Prius just so they can save money for more bullets. Smart owners in 2008 were so wholesome they voted me to be the spokesperson of Smart USA; too many Smart owners in 2026 want to ban me from bathrooms.
Your turn!
Which Cars Have The Most Wholesome Owners?
Top graphic images: Porsche; iOS
I haven’t met a mean ACVW owner. Even the ones who drove split window bus prices through the roof. How could you, anyway? Bugs be cute!
Not exactly the question at hand, but I’ve noticed that all the BMW drivers I have met on a track day have all been nice people, as compared to BMW drivers on the road that… well, you know.
More relevantly, and not to suck up to any resident editors, but I doubt there are very many jerks driving 2CVs.
Straining here as I’m trying to remember the last time someone cut me off, robbed a bank and got away, did a street takeover, wove through traffic, sped through a school zone or rolled coal in a Citroen 2CV.
Whatever car I’m driving at that point, cos I’m awesome.
Aircooled VW owners. A little quirky, but generally nice people. 🙂 (Although I’m a little biased, have a ’69 Squareback that I’m working on).
I came here to say this, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with air-cooled folks. 1972 Super Beetle owner here. You kind of have to be nice, because every time you go anywhere in a Beetle people will stop you to talk about the one they used to have. I even had a group of teenagers taking selfies with it once, because they’d never seen one before.
I’ve never met an a-hole who drives an Outback, or any other non-performance Subaru.
Considering where I live (Burlington, VT) that’s a sample size of roughly half the adult population.
They may not be assholes but they ARE some of the slowest and most annoying drivers in existence. In my area (DC) 90% of the time there’s someone holding up traffic doing 5 under in the fast lane it’s a damn Subaru. They also love to slam the brakes on yellow, refuse to turn on red, et cetera.
Most are probably decent people, but holy shit. You might be okay showing up 15 minutes late in the name of safety but if I show up that late it’s going to be a problem….
I’ve noticed here in MN that the Subie drivers seem to have been taking lessons from the Prius folks – either 5mph under the limit and driving like they’re scared of everything around them, or being an absolute terror by tailgating and swerving through traffic. The latter always seems to be the wilderness trim models for some reason.
DC traffic is 90% assholes. The fact that some of them drive as Subaru is irrelevant. DC traffic just doesn’t care.
Mini drivers tend to be decent people. When my wife bought hers she got sucked into the culture almost immediately. She is not naturally a car person. We’ve been to several Mini rallies since and the folks who show up are generally pleasant. I like to say it’s an odd cult but a very friendly one.
Probably a bell curve fit. I’ve met owners of both high end and low end cars who range from those who i can’t get away from fast enough to my wife has to drag me away. I’m quite easy going and someone has to be a high function scumbag to really offend me.
On that note most owners of older Volvo, Saab, domestic restored and not so restored products are fine as are all Mazda and Toyota owners.
Kind of a vague answer, but crappy cars with enthusiastic owners. Over the years I’ve been involved with the Malaise Daze car show, the Concours d’Lemons car show, and the 24 Hours of Lemons race series and I had a great time at all of them mainly because most of the participants realize their cars are junk or unloved and as such don’t take themselves too seriously, so the atmosphere is very fun and lighthearted.
A corollary has to be people who have preserved and kept up everyday cars for decades. Anyone with the money can buy some vintage sportscar and tell everyone they’re a connoisseur, but to be driving around in a worn but preserved with care sedan says something money can’t buy.
Yep, agreed, and there are always examples of those at the shows I mentioned.
The most wholesome, unpretentious vehicle owners are the ones who drive little compact 2-door pickup trucks. They’ll stop to help anybody.
They don’t have to buy huge lifted trucks to prove that they are somebody. They’re not trying to be something they’re not. They always carry jumper cables and a tow strap.
And they’ll even give you a ride to a service station, even if it means anybody with you has to either wait with the broken-down car or ride in the bed of the truck.
I can attest that SMART cars are owned by massive jerks.
Considering that Peter Theil bought one for his PA to run errands in….
Volvos used to be owned by nice people – Then they started selling SUVs, and those owners are jerks.
Studebakers – Those are owned by nice people.
So are Minis.
Taurus SHO owners
Mercury Sable. Of all of Mercury’s concurrent models, the most likely to have attracted the good neighbor crowd throughout its life. No hipsters ironically driving a land yacht/enthusiasts imagining it’s some sort of under the table muscle car, no sports car pretenders, no luxury dreamers, just a solid, inoffensive daily driver to do what’s needed in most cases with no fuss and runs good on regular gas.
Saab is a good answer, maybe Volvo, but I know some Volvo owners which are not “perfect” so who knows.
Skoda?
My time in the Mercedes w126 community taught me that they are the least judgmental group out there.
It’s regular to see concours-grade owners from say, Long Island, happily giving judgement-free advice to some guy in the Balkans or South Africa just trying to cobble together a running car.
Completely wholesome and absolutely worldwide. I can honestly say I never had a bad experience in the 4 years I owned the car.
I’m new to Classic Mini ownership, but my local(ish) group has been active since 1975 and are insanely helpful. One person just sent me CV boots from the club’s emergency stockpile so I can get the car on the road.
I noticed during my time as the owner of a Triumph Spitfire that it was impossible to do anything around it other than smile. That went for the owner too, even when stuff was broken. I don’t know if the owner is already wholesome or the Spitfire makes them wholesome, but there is something wholesome about driving a car that looks like a happy frog.
Had a friend in high school who had one, and for me, it was always the height of effortless, good-natured cool. The right amount of dashing and class, but not pretentious, edgy, or dangerous-seeming, esp to girls. And it seemed to make him even more that sort of guy; I was quite envious.
My knee jerk reaction was Volvo and I’m sticking to it. There’s something about the Swedish style of luxury that soothes drivers. It helps that modern Volvos usually have enough power to keep up with any traffic without having so much power that they reward aggressive driving. And obviously older Volvos were slow and today are driven by enthusiasts who love their quirky old cars too much to hoon them.
From my experience, definitely Volvos as well. Typically more reserved, helpful, nice people. No kids trashing and hooning them. Usually people who like interesting cars, unique boxy styling, safety, and old turbos.
CyberTrucks. It’s extremely considerate of them to clearly advertise they have no taste, no moral compass, and still clearly support an immoral fascist centibillionaire well, having only been released since the decline into hard-right politics and quiet-part-out-loud racism. Were only most other people so thoughtful as to advertise themselves as insufferable right from the jump.
Ram owners: “how quickly you’ve forgotten me now that there’s an even bigger gluebag.”
Maybe it’s because the sample size is small, but I have never encountered a Mini (any model) being driven dickishly (probably because of the inherent risk of doing so), and every person I’ve known to own one has been an absolute delight to talk to. I figured you’d get a few annoying knobs committed to the brand but not in my experience. Just happy people.