Gentlemen, have you ever considered your streak of bad luck in the dating department might not be you at all, but what you drive? Yes, cars are expensive and the nicer they are and the bigger they are the more expensive they are, but there are some purchases you cannot be cheap about. While you may fall into the fallacy that women are not into cars, this way of thinking can have some serious consequences. While you will probably not find the latest issue of Car and Driver or Hot Rod on your date’s coffee table or Kindle, women know more about cars than they lead you to believe, and especially which ones are just not cool. This is not to say that you should go sell your soul for a BMW, Mercedes-Benz or Lamborghini, but your choice of vehicle can say just as much about you as the clothes you wear and the place you live. Now if you live in a tent under a bridge downtown and choose Goodwill to buy all your finer clothing, it does not matter what you drive, so move on, nothing to see here. For those that are not stealing WiFi from McDonald’s because it is on the other side of the bridge you hang out under, here are five choices of vehicles that might be ruining your love life.
The Muscle Car That Has No Muscle
Muscle cars are called muscle cars for a reason, but when you choose one powered by anything less than a decent sized V8, you should be ashamed of yourself. Ever since they disgraced the Mustang with a four-cylinder, someone in the automotive design world has decided it is okay to put a tiny engine in a performance car. When there is a V6 in a “muscle car” it is no longer a “muscle car”, it just looks like one. Sure, you might have all the fancy stripes and aluminum wheels, but when you start it up and it emits the same sad sound as an old Chevy Cavalier with a bad exhaust, anyone who is not deaf is going to figure out that your hot looking car has been neutered. What does this say about you? It probably says one of two things, one, that you are cheap and did not want to pay the money for the extra horses, or that you are frightened of having a band of wild horses under the hood. When you buy any type of high performance car, it is usually assumed that you chose it because you are into cars, but when you opt for the six-cylinder, you might as well go buy some senior citizens old Buick Century. Oh and one other thing, unless it has paddle shifters, there better be a standard transmission. If you buy a Camaro, Mustang, Corvette or any other muscle car with an automatic transmission, you need to have your man card revoked, right now, hand it over.
Leave The Minivan For The Soccer Moms
A single man driving a minivan is just unacceptable, even if you are just borrowing it, or you say you are borrowing it. Unless you are a contractor, plumber, HVAC installer or something along those lines, driving any type of van automatically throws you into the “creepy” category. Everyone knows the scary stories about the serial killers with vans, enough said on that one. Driving a minivan also brings out suspicion in someone whom you might want to start a relationship with. You say you are single, you say you are not married and do not have any kids, so why do you drive a minivan? All you need to do is throw in a car seat and some Cheerios and your date will be excusing themselves to the bathroom at the restaurant and never coming back. While there are some not-so-cool vehicles that with some accessorizing can be passable, there is nothing you can do to a minivan to even get it on the same planet as cool. What was that? You have a minivan because you wanted room to put your 10,000-watt stereo system? Well, let me share something with you, all that money you spent on that killer sound system, could have been better spent on a car, or even a truck that does not scream “I am Hannibal Lecter, would you like some Chianti?”, enough said on that one too. Just say no to minivans, soccer moms everywhere will thank you.
Does The “C” In CUV Stand for Cute?
No, the “C” does not stand for cute, but it might as well. With the growing number of consumers wanting an SUV that got more than five miles per gallon, the Compact Utility Vehicles have grown in popularity. While you might fall under the spell of Kaley Cuoco and be tricked into thinking that a Toyota RAV4 is cool, stop and take a step back. Kaley in the RAV4 is cute, you, not so much. It is quite possible that a CUV could fit into a full-size say Ford Expedition or Lincoln Navigator, so do yourself a favor and choose the Expedition or Navigator instead. No, they do not get great gas mileage, but at least you are not driving something that looks like the younger sibling to the monstrous SUVs that we know and love. Much like a minivan, there is nothing you can add to a CUV to remove the “cute” factor. For the money you spend on a CUV, you could easily find a nice, older V8. Rules of thumb, if it has special features to accommodate car seats, turn around and run, far away, to the section of the car lot with real cars, trucks or SUVs.
Anything That Says Smart Or Fiat On It
If you look at a car and think that two of them would fit in the parking spots marked “compact only”, it is not for you. While it has never been cooler to be “green”, the only smart thing attached to a Smart car is the designer that brainwashed consumers into buying them. The only way you could get less cool than driving a smart car is park your minivan, ride your moped out the sliding door and zip on over to the local grocery store for the 75-pound bag of cat food to feed your 50 cats. Fiat, depending on whom you ask, translates into a legal term or “let it be”, and that is exactly what you should do, let it be and move on to something else. The Smart car, the Fiat and all of its clones are cute little cars for cute little people, who just happen to be the only ones that fit in them. While these are only two of a long list of subcompact cars that are powered by something similar to a lawn mower engine, Google some pictures and print them out for reference, if your car looks anything like either of them, it is time to find something bigger, which is just about any other car on the planet.
Any Compact Car Or SUV That Boasts A Lithium Ion Battery
Yes, we all want to save the planet and it is trendy to be “green”, but if you really think about it, we will all be long gone before the ozone layer disappears and planet Earth implodes. Now this is not to say that all hybrid or electric cars should be avoided like the plague, Toyota seems to be the only one that got the idea that people do not want hybrids that look like hybrids. The Avalon and Camry on the outside are identical, but much like the deceptive muscle cars mentioned above, if someone opens the hood, the cool factor drops a few points. While Toyota was the first to offer a mass produced hybrid with the Prius, they just are not sexy. Even now that they have a larger one, trumped by an even smaller version, start recycling more and find a car that runs on gas only. With more carmakers seeing the value of adding a turbocharger to increase power and still keep the fuel mileage somewhat reasonable, there are many more choices of non-hybrid vehicles. Having a car you have to step on the brake or plug into your house to charge is just embarrassing. There are ways to save the planet and still save your manhood, so skip the Prius or the Leaf or any of the other subcompact, overgrown radio controlled cars.
I hope that you have made it to the end of this and still have your man card. If not, perhaps you should start doing some surfing and hunt down a car that will not scare your next date away. While there are some occasions that you may have to drive one of these less-than-manly vehicles, do yourself a favor, with the money you saved from not buying a cool car, go on Amazon to buy yourself a disguise so no one sees you driving it, you will thank us later.
Article By: Tammy Lettieri
