What your car says about you!

Editor’s Note: Jeff Cobb has cancelled this year’s Live Oak Concours d’Elegance cancer benefit. The exotic car show was scheduled for mid-April at City Park. But Cobb, citing personal reasons, had to cancel the show for this year, but hopes to host it again in the future. The April print edition of 225, which contains an item about the show on page 40, went to press before the show was cancelled.

If you can’t judge a book by its cover, can you judge a person behind the wheel by the car he (or she) is driving?

Sure you can.

It may be as easy as reading the bumper stickers loudly announcing political or religious positions, expressing a sense of humor, declaring allegiance to a sports team or even threatening tailgaters.

Stopped for a red light at a major intersection is prime (and safe) territory to study vehicles and drivers around you. A sports car, slung low and growling with latent horsepower, may represent the driver’s love of speed. The gleam of a luxury sedan’s leather and wood appointments could be a display of wealth and power. A pickup, long and wide, looming high on oversized tires and rumbling with the throaty noise of a turbocharged diesel engine, may be the driver’s way of overcompensating for his … well, let’s not get too deep here.

Not everything on the road lends itself to instant analysis. What about the fleets of compacts rolling our streets in a variety of shades, shapes and brands? Unadorned with slogans, politicians’ names or other outward declarations, these cars look—at first glance—to be anonymous means of transportation.

Efficient and dependable? Yes. Rolling billboards proclaiming their drivers’ personalities? Not at first glance. But most every car on the road tells a story that reflects the owner’s personality.

Take the vehicles in our driveway. Ignore for the moment the stickers that proudly proclaim my political allegiances or subtly announce my religious denomination. My pickup will tell you something more about me.

My 2009 Toyota Tacoma is a working truck. Not like a real tradesman’s truck driven by a carpenter or plumber or painter; my career keeps me behind a desk. My truck is devoid of flash: no color-coordinated bed cover, running boards, nor shiny seldom-used tool box. As the years and months pass, the dings will increase and the scratches lengthen.

We have a large yard that keeps us busy: organic garden, landscaping work, chickens, bees, a burgeoning citrus orchard and construction projects. The truck bed betrays traces of sand, gravel, garden soil, mulch and even stray leaves from other peoples’ bags that we’ve picked up.

The 2000 Honda minivan shows most of the 150,000 miles it has served as a trusty machine for carpooling, cross-town dashes to soccer games and long-haul road trips. A couple of dents and a few gouges are visible, telling details of our family’s story.

“The minivan’s image has changed over the years,” says Leon James, an international expert on driving behavior and a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii. The boxy icon is being repositioned as a sportier, hipper vehicle to project a younger image, he says.

Large sport utility vehicles—one of the most popular styles on America’s roads—have undergone a similar image change in the last decade, James says. “In those days, drivers liked SUVs because they were aggressive and intimidating,” he says.

Now, more drivers see SUVs as bastions of protection. “They feel safer in them,” James says.

For many Americans, what kind of car they drive holds important significance. “Not so much as a status symbol, but by giving them distinction in society,” James says. “More expensive cars have different appeal. They bestow distinction on the driver.”

Jeff Cobb understands that need for distinction. He owns one of the city’s busier import-car repair shops. After more than 30 years repairing cars, Cobb has developed a sense of what different personalities drive.

Mercedes guys tend to be very organized.

Jaguar drivers are usually easygoing.

Lexus owners can be arrogant.

Corvette drivers don’t want anybody else riding with them—it’s a two-seater, after all.

Owners of 7-series BMWs are family guys, while the 5-series drivers “just want to haul ass.”

Alfa Romeo drivers look for fun.

Porsche drivers tend not to trust their mechanics. One Porsche driver brought Cobb a three-page color-coded list of the work he thought his car needed.

Range Rover owners: “You can hit them with a baseball bat, and they just go with the flow. They are nonchalant about breakdowns (because) they happen so often.”

Subaru owners are laid back. “It’s OK. Just take your time.”

Mitsubishi owners want “something cheap that just gets you there.”

Another Cobb axiom is that drivers are often brand-loyal. “A BMW driver doesn’t like driving a Mercedes. He’ll come back saying you just can’t feel the road like you can in a BMW.”

Cobb may be an exception to his own rules. He currently has either 16 or 17 cars; he’s not sure. About five of them are Mercedes-Benzes. One is a show-quality Lamborghini. And then there is the ’99 Ford F-150 pickup that he uses to haul firewood or lumber for construction projects.

Cars are personal for everyone, but everyone is different, says garage owner Blaze Ragusa. “Some people get very attached to their vehicles. Some people just abuse them.”

Ragusa’s seen many kinds of drivers in his 30 years of “pulling wrenches,” the last 19 years of which he’s owned his own shop.

“Drivers’ personalities just flow into their cars,” he says. “For some people, the appearance is everything. For others, it’s the quality of the mechanics.”

Ragusa sees guys riding high in big four-wheel-drive pickups that have never seen a gravel road, and he’s seen guys who use their trucks as mobile offices, constantly working to earn a living. He’s seen jet pilots driving sports cars for the speed and “old car” guys who drive vintage rides as their everyday cars.

Ragusa’s everyday vehicle is a 1995 Toyota pickup with more than 200,000 miles. He bought it from the original owner—a client—after working on it for 12 years. “To her, it was a throwaway. To me, it was a treasure.” The biggest attraction to Ragusa’s little blue treasure lies under the hood: Toyota’s 22-R four-cylinder engine. He knows that at 200,000 miles, that engine—especially under Ragusa’s expert care for so long—is just now broken in.

Ragusa’s other car is a 1956 Pontiac he’s been restoring, a process often sidetracked by other projects for valued clients. That car remains at Ragusa’s Government Street garage. Every morning he pushes it out of the shop. Every evening he pushes it back in. “I’ve pushed that car more miles than I’ve driven it,” he says.

Cobb has a saying: “People who don’t like their cars don’t fit their cars. They’re always complaining.”

Ragusa fits his both his vehicles; the one he drives just as much as the one he doesn’t.

Cobb fits his automotive harem from his Lamborghini to his F-150.

I fit my Tacoma pickup, and it fits me. I hope to keep working with that truck for at least a decade. I flirted with the idea of finding a cool, vintage pickup; in my mind it was a ’60-ish Ford in turquoise and white. Something that would look great parked in front of our ’60s-era ranch house. Practicality won out over that flirtation. I can garden, but I’m not much of a mechanic, and those “cool” cars mean investing a lot of time with wrenches.

My wife, though, longs to end her relationship with our trusty minivan. It no longer fits her image, and with our daughters in their teens (the eldest with a hand-me-down Mazda), we no longer need such a people-hauler.

My wife’s identity is changing; no more “soccer mom.” She likes to imagine herself behind the wheel of the most recent version of the Ford Thunderbird. The sleek convertible built between 2002 and 2005. I like the thought of that. Every once in a while I’ll look for one online. In mint green. She’d be happiest in that.