Do some people really care that much about driving a really nice car?

My dad is perfectly okay with his 1992 Ford Taurus with 210,000 miles on it, no heat (he lives in Chicago btw), no A/C, and a f::::ked up passenger side door.

He's not poor by any means, he's a CFO of a bank. He just says that driving that P. Builds character and he only cares about having a car that can take him from point A to point B.

Yes some people really do. And clearly your dad doesn't.

I'm the same as your father

I make good money, respectable position

the car means little to me so long as I keep it running well enough to do its job

if I look a little deeper I suspect its to do with my view that people are too obsessed with spending money for some pretty random reasons

need to update for no reason, need to display my status, its expected

far too much waste in society

Your dad believes in saving money and one way to do that is drive his old car until the wheels fall off.

It is a different sort of status. I can appreciate your dad.

My father was a WWII veteran and the CEO of a highway construction company. He took pride in always having a current model year car in his garage. Chevy, Ford, Cadillac, Lincoln… The brand of car didn't seem to matter, as long as it was NEW. THAT was HIS symbol of success.

When I grew up and left home, I tried doing that for a while but found that I enjoyed buying and fixing up older cars. Sometimes, I even sold them for a profit, but that wasn't the point. I just had fun playing with old cars.

These days, I'm a bit more conservative in what I drive, but I still don't buy NEW cars. I'd rather let someone else take the big hit on depreciation for the first couple of years, and I'll come in and buy a nice clean used car that's 3-5 years old. They are still plenty reliable and comfortable to drive, and a lot less expensive to own.

Some people do. Smart people like your dad drive used cars to miminize the sting of depreciation, though a Taurus is probably one of the worst cars ford ever built and I wouldn't use one as a beater.

Your father sounds like a very pragmatic man. He doesn't view a car as a status symbol. Instead, he sees it as a tool for daily use.

To SOME people it's Really important. I constantly see people pulling out of a nearby apartment complex in BMW's or Mercedes, which tells me they are wasting money on a car rather than buying a home of their own.

As far as I'M concerned, few cars are out of my price range, but I drive a minivan mostly, and my wife drives a Prius. My old cars are just for fun.