Sadly not true in today's world for most people at least. I think most of the forum members here would be impressed more by a person's mind rather than what they own or what they can do on a sports field but we are in the minority.

Ah, yeah. It depends on the place too. In here, we do exchange of information, not exchanging pictures of cars (though there's the Off-topic for all that) but it's always done in a humble manner.

In my place, more and more people are buying cars just for show-boating. An example would be my neighbours - when they got rich, they forgot about themselves, and their other kids (less than 8) would be bragging about how rich they are and how money is earned by pressing the ATM. Worse off, they parked their car in such a manner that the car is being paraded in an auto-festival, and inconvenience the others neighbours to park their own car.

Well, who cares if it's a Mini-Cooper or anything? I want nice and pleasent neighbours, not paraders. I wish I was living in the 80s or 90s.

 

I don't think I was show boating or wasting money. I bought my first used car last year. Prior to that, it was about 40 years of new cars. I kept them an average of ten years. So, since I kept them so long, I figured buying new saved me money. I'd be paying for the car only about 1/3 of the time. Maintenance, insurance, taxes and gas would have been incurred anyway. But again, over a long life, these costs tended to go down.

 

It is really simple. If you live in a city with good public transportation you don't need a car. This has simply become social pressure and is ridiculous. I am originally from a large city with great public transport and would never own a vehicle there, now everyone is compelled to own one because it is western standard of living. I have lived in Canada for 17 years now and only bought a vehicle 1 year ago because I literally live in the middle of nowhere now with a nearest town 2 hour drive away from me. And once you buy a vehicle, you immediately lost money, money that you will never get back.

Dont do it unless it is an absolute necessity.