My favorite part about people driving modest cars, even when they have the means to get something far nicer, is this:
Cars are a status symbol, and also two-ton steel-and-aluminum death machines. Give your average person a rear-wheel drive 450 horsepower engine that can go 0 to 60 in 4 or so seconds. Add some excellent brembo brakes and brand new Y-rated tires for that feeling of safety. Now put them on an empty mountain road, with nice turns, and oh yeah that one turn actually has a pretty big bump. The car goes over too fast, loses traction and tires and brakes become useless, spins out, and ends up in a tree or off the side of the mountain. You know how often shit like that happens in silicon valley, where expensive cars are a dime a dozen and drivers are young and cocky and actual qualifications are nearly non-existent and beautiful twisty drives are easily accessible? All the fucking time. The closest I've ever come to death was on a beautiful pacific-ocean-following road due to someone's stupidity; quite literally a half foot or a half second more and I would have been finding out how safe my (15 year old) highly-scoring-on-the-safeometer car really is at a 150 mph speed differential.
I love fancy cars and great performance, but many of them are entirely unforgiving. Want to show off untold millions? Buy a $100k watch instead of a $200k car unless you're damn sure you know what you're doing. The watch won't kill you when you use it wrong.
