Class Rules

The �Mondeo Test’

But the truth is that car choice, like almost everything else in England, is mostly about class. If you are conducting research – or just have a mischievous nature – you can trick English people into admitting, albeit indirectly, the real social-class reasons for their car choice. You do this not by talking about the make of car they actually own or would like to own, but by asking about the brands they do not like and would not buy. Mention the Ford Mondeo³⁶ to a member of the middle-middle or upper-middle classes and they will automatically make some sort of sneering jokey comment about вЂ?Essex Man’ or insurance salesmen – in other words, the sort of lumpen lower-middle-class person associated with this particular make of car. вЂ?Mondeo Man’ is the current generic euphemism for this social category.

Some upper-middles may be too polite, or too squeamish about appearing snobbish, to sneer out loud, so you have to watch their faces carefully for the characteristic brief wince or little moue of distaste that will be triggered by the word вЂ?Mondeo’. Among the higher or more secure reaches of upper-middle, the reaction is more likely to be mild, benign, somewhat condescending amusement³⁷, and the genuinely upper class may simply have no idea what you are talking about. I found that the Mondeo-test is a pretty good indicator of class-anxiety: the more scathing and contemptuous someone is about Mondeos, the more insecure they are about their own position in the social hierarchy.

This is not a question of price. The cars driven by Mondeo-despising upper-middles may well be considerably cheaper than the reviled Mondeo, and the almost equally ridiculed Vauxhalls and other British-made вЂ?fleet’³⁸ cars. But however inexpensive and lacking in comfort or luxury features, the Mondeo-despiser’s car will be a foreign, preferably Continental make (Japanese cars are not favoured, although marginally more acceptable than Fords and Vauxhalls). The only exceptions to this anti-British rule are Minis and big, four-wheel-drive вЂ?country’ vehicles such as Land Rovers and Range Rovers. Those who regard themselves as being a class or two above Mondeo Man may well drive a small, cheap, second-hand Peugeot, Renault, VW or Fiat hatchback – but they will still feel smugly superior as Mondeo Man glides past them in his bigger, faster, more comfortable car.

The �Mercedes-Test’

Upper-middles who pass the Mondeo-test – those who are merely mildly amused by your suggestion that they might drive a Mondeo – may still reveal hidden class anxieties over the Mercedes. When you’ve had your complacent little chuckle about Mondeos, try saying �Now, let me guess... I’d say you probably drive a big Mercedes.’

If your subject looks hurt or annoyed, and responds either tetchily, with a forced laugh, or with a scornful comment about �rich trash’ or �wealthy businessmen’, you have hit the adjacent-class insecurity button. Your subject has made it into the upper-middle �intelligentsia’, �professional’ or �country’ set, and is anxious to distinguish himself from the despised middle-middle �business’ class, with which he almost certainly has some family connections. You will find that his father (or even grandfather – these prejudices are passed down the generations) was a petit-bourgeois middle-class businessman of some sort – perhaps a successful shopkeeper or sales manager or even a well-off car dealer – who sent his children to smart public schools where they learnt to look down on petit-bourgeois middle-class businessmen.

Many English people will tell you that there is no longer any Jane-Austenish stigma attached to being �in trade’. They are mistaken. And it is not just the tiny minority of aristocrats and landed gentry who turn up their noses at the commercial world. Upper-middle class people in �respectable’ professions, such as barristers, doctors, civil servants and senior army officers, can often be equally snooty – and the upper-middle chattering classes (with their �nice-work’ careers in the media, the arts, academia, publishing, charities, think-tanks and so on) are the most disparaging of all. Very few of these people will drive a Mercedes, and most will regard the Mercedes-driving classes with at least some degree of disfavour, but only the insecure will get all huffy and heated and scornful at the thought of being associated with such a vulgar, business-class vehicle.

Again, the price of the car is not really the issue here. Mercedes-despisers may drive either equally expensive, more expensive or much cheaper cars than the Mercedes they find so abhorrent. Nor is wealth per se the problem. Upper-middle Mercedes-despisers come in all income brackets: they may make as much money as the �vulgar rich businessman’ driving the �Merc’ (as he would call it), or even more, or much less. The class issue concerns the means by which one acquires one’s wealth, and how one chooses to display it. A Mercedes-despising barrister or publisher might well drive a top-of-the-range Audi, which costs about the same as a big Mercedes, but is regarded as more elegantly understated.

At the moment, BMWs are tainted, to some extent, with the same business-class image as the Mercedes, although generally associated with a younger, City-dealer, �yuppie’ stereotype. Jaguars have also suffered a bit from a vulgar �trade’ connection, being associated with wealthy used-car dealers, slum-landlords, bookmakers and shady-underworld characters. But Jaguars are also the official cars of government ministers, which to some lends them an air of respectability – although others feel that this only confirms their inherent sleaziness. In both cases, however, these associations may be fading, and I did not find either of these cars reliable as a class-anxiety indicator. Should you wish to replicate my highly scientific class-anxiety experiments – or if you just fancy tormenting some socially insecure upper-middles – use the Mercedes test.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-06