Because, as it’s Christmas Time, every car commercial seems to be about Cars with Giant Bows being Given as Gifts, and I’m trying to figure out if this is just symbolic thing, a real thing, or something car companies want to make a real thing.
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The Internet knows everything.
"Bloomberg Businessweek looked into this question, which really has two parts. First: do people give cars as gifts for the winter holidays and other special occasions? Second: do they buy giant red bows in real life? A representative from a company that sells giant bows for all purposes was able to answer both questions, reporting that they sell about 2,500 bows for cars every year. Sales increase around graduation time, Valentine’s Day, and of course Christmas. What’s interesting is that they only sell about half of those bows directly to consumers: it makes sense that dealerships buy the other half, and include them with home delivery of vehicles meant to be gifts."
But then the following is pointed out:
"Of course, the real reason for the barrage of car ads at the end of the year doesn’t have much to do with gift-giving at all: while Christmas and the end of the year give the ads a nice theme, manufacturers and dealers really just want to move the last of the previous model year of cars off their lots and into your driveway."
https://consumerist.com/2014/12/04/people-really-do-give-cars-with-giant-red-bows-on-top-as-gifts/
Maybe some people do, but certainly not in my economic strata.
And even if you're rich enough to be able to do this, I'd still worry that it would be the wrong color/model/feature set. $30K and up is a stiff pricetag for getting the wrong one. So I doubt that many of these end up being total surprises…
(Those who know me well enough to give me Christmas gifts know that (a) I have lots of guitar gear and Playstation video games, but also (b) that's a danger zone, because I can be picky and/or have one already – so I usually end up getting gift cards for GameStop or tshirts from ThinkGeek or Hot Topic… 🙂
I know someone who gave his mom a brand new porsche 911 as a birthday gift, so, yes. Us 99.9%, not so much.
+John Bump Was it a surprise though? Would suck to get a black 911 when you wanted red. 🙂
Yeah, this is all kind of what I thought. I know that +Margie Kleerup and I don't go car shopping just to browse, or noodle about wouldn't-it-be-nice cars that we woudln't actually ever by (and therefore would make a great surprise gift). I can't imagine buy a car for my wife (or daughter) without consulting them about it ahead of time.
Unless they had it on their Amazon wish list.
I can certainly believe that, for folk for whom it's a less onerous / significant purchase, that they might expect the dealership to throw in a bow.
+Valdis Klētnieks Presumably those who would buy cars would know the recipient well enough to know their color/feature preferences.
+Dave Hill That was so funny, that thing you said about putting cars on an Amazon wish list.
And then I found out that Amazon sells cars also.
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-now-sells-cars-1789150152
Now that I think about it, I've bought my wife two cars, but only one was a surprise and in that case I bought it to eviscerate and stick the engine/trans into the wrecked other car I bought her, so the color didn't matter much. (Color: somewhere between poop brown and rusted out.) Total cost of both cars was on par with how much a nice set of tires costs for a nicer new car.
I once gave my then-girlfriend a motorcycle as a surprise Valentine's Day gift, complete with big red bow, but the bike was old, well used, and I had just done a top-secret functional restoration.
So that's, like, 8% of a Christmas car, right?
Just today in my FB feed, a picture appeared of a guy I know with a new car and a big red bow on it. He chose it and ordered it, but I think he and his wife are treating it as his Christmas gift this year.
+David Newman So, see, that scenario makes sense. It's a family gift, family chosen, packaged in a celebratory fashion.
+Dave Hill I'm sure that I could easily buy a car for +Mary Oswell (and in sure you could too), but that is just way to impulsive of a thing for me to do. But then Mary and I look at new cars and use rental cars as a way to test out the new tech, and that is something you and Margie just do not do.
+Stan Pedzick True. People have different levels of planning and spontaneity.