Community Corner

Poll: If You Were Wealthy, Would Prius Be Your Car of Choice?

An automotive website this week released a surprising finding. For the California wealthy, the little Toyota that could was a winner.

 

Okay, let's say you're wealthy.

Life is good.

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No worries about work, because your book is selling well. No worries about a mortgage on your multi-million dollar home, because you paid it off years ago. No worries about your health, because the private trainer that comes to your home every Tuesday and Friday says you're in great shape.

But, there is the worry about the campaign dinner you're hosting tonight, because you forgot to purchase several cases of wine this week, and need to stock up.

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No problem. You hop in your car, and head down to the liquor store. But here's the question: What brand of car will you be driving?

Will it be the Mercedes? The Bentley? The Land Rover?

Well, curiously, it seems the wealthy - at least here in California - prefer, well, a Toyota Prius.

This week, automotive website TrueCar published results of a study that looked at the car-buying preferences of folks in ten very wealthy zip code regions of the United States. And to the surprise of many, California car owners in Century City (average income $751,000) and Ross (average income $497,000) preferred the Prius to traditional favorites Porsche, Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar.

"They're not buying it because it's cheap," Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence for TrueCar, told The Huffington Post. "They're buying it because it symbolizes a certain lifestyle and gets a message out. Plus, it's extremely practical for stop-and-go traffic, parking and gas mileage."

Even Atherton (average income $768,000) put the Prius in the top two, beaten only by that Mercedes Benz E-class sitting in my driveway. (Just kidding.)

So this is like one of those annoying questions TV reporters ask, something like "What would you do with the money if you won the lottery?"

Here's our poll. If you had enough money to buy whatever car you wanted, weren't worried about the insurance premiums, didn't give a hoot about $5.00/gallon gas (what is the price, by the way?), and could pay cash for the darn thing, what would you buy?

Tell us in the comments. Then take our poll below.


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