ADP

Hi all,

I occassionally ride my bike to work, taking a short cut through an area in Southampton that is probably the most affluent of all. Needless to say, the houses are monsters, 8 bedrooms, million pound specials.

Being on a push bike, I get a good chance to rubber neck. One thing Ive noticed is that most of the houses have generally pretty rubbish cars. Sure some maybe in the garages, but generally there are 2 or 3 cars on the drive being early evening when I drive past.

I wonder why people with so much money choose so spend so little on their cars? maybe its why they have so much money

Anyone else noticed this? Maybe the houses are owned by old money, ie they bought them 40 years ago when actually they werent too expensive hence they may not actually be minted??

Andy

camk

Thats how they manage to have great house's, they don't blow their dough on petrol guzzling insurance nightmares.

Brendan Hughes

On the other hand, I always liked Jasper Carrott's comment about Solihull (probably made in the 70s). "There's a lot of surface wealth; they've a couple of cars on the drive, but there's sod all in the fridge."

Thread hijack - so why is it, whenever I see a picture of someone's scoob outside their house on here, it's always one of those nasty modern Barratt estate houses?

ADP

I dont know, but Ive noticed that too.........I think the "average" scooby buyer is probably affluent without being loaded, hence thats the kind of place they go for.....or something like that?

fatherpierre

Or they're mortgaged, loaned and have HP up to the hilt.

boxst

Hello

Several reasons:

Either they don't care about cars. They have children of car-able age and they are theirs and the other nice car is stuck in the garage.

I have a £600K house, but out front is a Rover 214. The Supra is under armed guard in the garage.

Steve.

Tiggs

people with money have learnt what has worth and what doesnt. i know many, many people with millions of pounds but few of them bother with big cars, 48inch tv's or super thick stereo wire!

instead they have learnt that at the end of the day happiness comes from being finacially independant and having your health and family around you.

flick through Non Scoob and its often full of people who want to know how they can get a better credit card deal so they can still run their evo 9.

one could draw the conclusion that in 30 years time there will be plenty of people who may look back and realise that their "i want it NOW, you only live once" attitude they had at 25 has left them a long way from the nice house and financial security they see being enjoyed by those who were a little more sensible with their money.

T

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, thats me

The house isnt a massive mansion by any stretch but next door has just sold for over 400k and I have my elderley Golf GTI, main cos I have to run the house, 3 kids etc etc.

Cars are important to me (I wish they werent) but I dont want to get into massive debt just to own one, some of the ones on here that get up themselves about their cars are generally the ones in all the debt.

RON

Jus cos people live in a big gaff, doesn't mean that they have money, they could be lived in by older people who may well be struggling to run the house, or they could have been left the place, a big house doesn't always mean they're wealthy, I'll bet some of them could even be flats, full of broke students, hence, ****e cars!

workshy_fopp

Back to the original post.......
The million pound houses round my way do have posh cars outside, generally a GT car and a 4x4, e.g. Maserati & X5. The 500k ones have W reg Golfs run from new and Volvo 240/740 estates.
The demograhic is geography teachers who have inherited.

NACRO

Brendan said :"Thread hijack - so why is it, whenever I see a picture of someone's scoob outside their house on here, it's always one of those nasty modern Barratt estate houses?"

I noticed that too! I have some nice pictures of my scoob in various exotic locations (and Portugal!)maybe I should get posting them. I can't do one outside my house as I live in a top floor appartment.

RON

Build a big ramp, and get a very fast shutter!!!
Drive fast, and get someone else to take the pics!!

Tiggs

although in the real world ppl are more likely to say "if he can afford a nice new Barratt home why has he got that ugly jap car on his drive"

47 NAT

Intersting thread, but I thought it was the other way round, unless you live on a golf course or Manor

Nearly all of the cars nr me are pretty sporty or are older prestiage..spelling?!!! (not sure on the people that drive them though) Dont look that much really, the houses here are anywhere from £150-200k-£3.5m through the area... Theres some nice motors, dont get me wrong, but nothing out the ordinary, if you know what I mean

OK my spellings sh4t, but you get the drift of it...

On the other hand, theres a council estate (Or ex, a mosr of have bought them) not far from us and they have some nice cars.....TVR's, loads of M's, Scoobs, Evo's, Liners, etc, etc...

Nath

MarkO

Have to agree with Tiggs here.

We may soon be in the situation where we're looking to buy a large beautiful house, with big gardens, not in an estate, set back from the road, etc., but we'll have an old Pug 306 and a 2nd-hand Defender on the drive.

Having 'done' sports cars for a few years (got 'em out of my system) I'm just not bothered these days about having something flash so much. Particularly something that costs upwards of a grand a month to keep/run.

About a year ago I made the mistake of working out (on paper) how much I was paying per month, all-in, to run my STi - and it was then that the idea took hold to get rid of it. And that was when I was earning loads - certainly more than enough to run a Scoob without any problems.

It does astonish me to see some of the threads on SN where people are talking about whether they can afford a Scoob, talking about paying several thousand a year for insurance, etc., but then asking about refinancing options. A particular favourite was somebody asking last year where he could get a £25k consolidation loan for his debts, when at the same time he was investing in an induction kit and new £1500 brakes for his STI!

Cars are fun, and I don't regret having owned the two Scoobs, but these days I get my thrills on two wheels (powered by my legs ) and really have better things to spend my money on.

Oh, and I totally agree about the 'Barrat Homes' thing - it's astonishing to see so many pics of cars parked outside rabbit-hutch homes where the monthly costs for the house are probably half those of the car on the drive!!!

NACRO

lol@RON

It would be a one shot deal though, what if I made a mistake!

ProperCharlie

People have different priorities - some people *like* barrat homes. People have asked me why I live in Walthamstow - couldn't I afford to move to somewhere "nicer"? Well I could but I don't want to. In all honesty if I had to pay for running the car out of my own pocket I'd probably go back to being mondeo man. I love the car but I wouldn't shell out £1k a month for it.

Tiggs - these millionaires without thick wires for the stereo, they really are missing something. I think you should have a quiet word with them.

Charlie

davyboy

I also think a lot of cars you see in the pics of are in front of their parents homes too!

lol

Markus

Mark. Not referring to me as the consolidation loan chappy are you? (no I'm not having a go)

I agree with the comments on here that people with nice houses generally don't spend the money on flash cars, some do, some don't. I agree with Mark, worked out how much the scooby was costing me, and was rather shocked, and well, there were other things going on too, and it was time to sell the old girl. I love the cars, but there is a point where a hobby becomes a luxury, and/or a financial liabilty, and that is what was happening. Thankfully, I've moved to Canada where the pricing of houses, taxes, fuel and most other things are somewhat less expensive than here, even still, I'm not, for a while anyway, going to be getting a scooby, a years time, maybe, but by then, I might be a changed man and not want one, might get a 'vette

MarkO

Markus - might have been. Can't really remember though, although I did know that you were sorting out an impressive loan back then, and I did wonder why you didn't just sell the scoob. If it was you, I wasn't having a go either, just thought it was a bit daft at the time.

Sounds like you're well-sorted though, now, and have done a similar sort of thing to me (but a bit further). Was watching a program Get a new Life the other day where a couple moved to Canada (near Calgary) and it looked a fabulous place to be. Like Scotland, but 'bigger'. Not sure about the bears though!

I think most of us probably have a mad "you only live once" period, and spend a few years recovering (financially) from it. I know quite a few people who are starting to think that Scoobs are becoming ridiculously expensive to run, despite the fact that 2-3 years ago the thought wouldn't have been entertained for a moment. Guess your priorities change as you grow older....

[bloody hell - what's my dad doing posting on SN using my userid?! ]

fatherpierre

Or they're just not interested in cars. To some, a car is an A to B thingy.

[Edited by fatherpierre - 6/11/2003 9:06:47 PM]

fatherpierre

Very true J4

A friend of mine pays as much per month for his car on a loan, insurance, etc. as he does for his mortgage.

About £700 per month or so.

**** that.

[Edited by fatherpierre - 6/11/2003 10:56:58 PM]