BAD430BENZ

me too....cutting lawns is getting old

IAA-C63

You may be right, though a lot of wealthy people prefer to have a less flashy car, plus they may have other nice cars additional to their C63.

Yuille36

True so very true. I have a rich cousin that had over the years; Ferrari's, Porsche's, Audi's, and Mercedes, now he just drives a Bentley

I can attest to this, as most of the people in the exclusive gated community drive simple cars, but trust they have their exotic/exclusive car sitting in the garage

Cylinder Head

iTrader: (1)

Most popular car among millionaires is a Loncoln Town Car.

That being said, this thread sucks.

IAA-C63

If the thread doesn't interest you, just move to the next one. Everyone doesn't have to be interested in every thread.

JarZ

Totally correct. I know a guy who owns buildings in NYC (brownstones) and drives an Acura TSX from 05. My father in law has some wealthy friends and they all drive non-flashy cars.

betrezra

I doubt there is a correlation between wealthly people and driving bland cars.
I know many wealthy folks with good taste in cars.

jim07

Yea, money and nice cars don't always go together. I know Mr. Butts of H.E.B. gorcery chain (billionaire+) He and his wife drive a Buick LeSabre and a old one at that. Its all about being a car guy or not. I would be more like Jay Leno if if I were a Billionaire.

I bet there probable needs to be some ajustment to the poll after the last few days of the market -----------

IAA-C63

My thoughts on the relationship between car choice and wealth:

- Serious car enthusiasts are more likely to stretch themselves to get a performance car, so the ratio of their income to car price will tend to be lower than for non-enthusiasts and other types of cars. I've heard of enthusiasts spending as much on a car as their annual income.

- As the price of performance cars goes up, the average incomes of their owners will also tend to go up. Someone mentioned posting an income poll for E63 and S63 owners, and that would be an interesting way to test this hypothesis. Also, I posted this same poll in a Porsche 911 forum, and I did find the incomes from that poll to be considerably higher than for our C63 poll.

- Based on a book I read, the typical wealthy person isn't a car enthusiast and drives a "premium" car in the $50K price range, like an MB or BMW, but not AMG or M, and not a Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo, etc.

- Some wealthy people deliberately choose a less flashy car to keep a lower profile, but some obviously also say the heck with it and get Rolls, Bentleys, etc.

I think that the bottom line is that if someone is driving an expensive car (say well over $100K), they're probably doing well financially. In the extreme case, think Bugatti. In the case of more affordable cars, the owner probably isn't wealthy, but you can't tell for sure.

IAA-C63

Me too, it would be nice to have that kind of variety.

pdjafari

2M is the highest? I'm offended...chump change

propain

Funny what some people feel is a lot of money. I guess it depends on where you live.

After tax 2 mil is about 1.3 mil. Two people with successful careers can easily attain that income.

Now live within those means. 2 70K cars. 1 Family wagon. Maybe a boat and a house worth about 2.5 mil. Tax, Kids, Daycare, retirement, college and maintenance on all of those and you are no longer that well off. A C63 is a good purchase for a 2 mil a year before tax income family. If you live within your means.

Now if you are making 2 mil on your own and don't have a wife,kids and home then your doing well and a C63 is below your means for sure.

PGT

please to be explaining what you do to earn that money!





cuz I want to sign up.

SMP

I wish that would be the case ..... Federal and State income tax combined in California is 46%. Also, here in California, that $2.5M home will cost you about $28K/year in property tax alone.

AMGTTV8

So does your attitude.

AMGTTV8

I'd say that correlation and causation are two very different things and need to work together in order for there to be any relevance to the matter...

Just because A tends to move with B doesn't mean that B caused A to move...

Trying to determine the socio-economic position of an individual by looking at his car is like making a decision between the chicken or the egg...you've only got a 50% chance of being right.

jim07

Just because A tends to move with B doesn't mean that B caused A to move...

Trying to determine the socio-economic position of an individual by looking at his car is like making a decision between the chicken or the egg...you've only got a 50% chance of being right.[/quote]

Sounds like a Prius driver--- Do you work for NPR??? Just kidding

Oh! I didn't read you Bio --- Maybe it's the NRA!

I guess it's hard to tell-- like income & Cars

AMGTTV8

Sounds like a Prius driver--- Do you work for NPR??? Just kidding

Oh! I didn't read you Bio --- Maybe it's the NRA!

I guess it's hard to tell-- like income & Cars[/QUOTE]

LMAO....

propain

Yup, I wasnt including state tax. In New York its about that. 35% fed and 8% State. Cali goes to 11% for over 1 mil income. Sucks.


28K? Yeah, same here in NY depending on property size. 2.5 Mil can be up to 40K in taxes a year as well.

SMP

Don't forget social security,medicare and CA SDI/SUI tax ..... and half the money is gone

propain

Exactly. That's my point. 2 mil combined income is not as much as people think.

If you live like you make 2 mil the C63 along with the wife driving another 70K and the family wagon costing 70K its right where you should be.


Now many factors apply. If you make 2 mil and live in a small home and have no kids and are not married. Then yes, go get a lambo and enjoy!

IAA-C63

I agree that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, and of course this standard maxim applies generally, not just for this poll.

My point was that, as you get into increasingly expensive cars, it will be more likely that the driver has money. There aren't a lot guys driving a newish Ferrari or Lambo with a $100K income.

At the same time, when you get down to car prices lots of people can afford, you can't tell how much money the driver has. But the odds are that they're not rich (because only a small percentage of people are rich).

All of this means that the scatter plot probably has a wedge shape.

IAA-C63

"Easy" for a couple to make $2M? $2M isn't "a lot of money"? Seriously? The median income in our poll is about a tenth of that. And reduce that by another half for the median US household.

iKai

2 mill isnt really hard to make in a year if you have your mind set on it and the situation you are in allows it to happen.. without revealing identities, i know for a fact that people i know and work with can make 2 mill easily in about 2 or 3 months. one person i know of owns one of the biggest and cleanest modern coal refineries in north eastern china and he only owns a c63, porsche design edition 3 cayenne gts, and a toyota fj cruiser.

ATL_MB

Not to take this thread even further off course (although it was stupid to begin with), but anybody paying anything close to the federal marginal rate is an ***-clown idiot. I am well into the highest U.S. tax rate, and pay about 18% average income tax. That is typical. I remember an article about V.P. Cheney making over $14 million a year while in office and paying right at 15%, because almost everything he made was dividends, which is taxed at 15%.

I am in Hong Kong now, and everybody in the U.S. talks about how low taxes are in Hong Kong (15% max average rate), but no one here believes it. Overall, we don't pay much more in the U.S. because there are NO deductions in Hong Kong (other than a small exclusion for low wage earners and a small housing expense deduction). So the advertised rate isn't everything.

With regard to property taxes, there are none here, which is great, right? Not even close. US$28,000 will probably pay 3 to 4 month's rent on a decent 3-bedroom 1,200 sq. ft. apartment. Instead of property taxes, the government owns almost all the land and closely controls it in order to raise money through periodic land auctions.

The above rant, of course, ignores payroll taxes, which are high, but again the highly paid don't pay the whole way. SSI cuts off around $105,000 or so, I believe, which means that someone making $300,000 pays just 1/3 the average rate of someone making $25,000.

So if we are going to complain about taxes, at least recognize that the marginal rates don't mean much.