To look at them by median income, age, occupation, family size or where they live, people who buy minivans and people who buy sport utilities look fairly similar, the automakers' research has found. The typical minivan or sport utility purchaser is most often a fairly affluent married couple in their 40's with children. And while minivans are sometimes labeled ''mom-mobiles,'' the principal drivers of minivans, like sport utility vehicles, are actually a little more likely to be men than women.
Yet a growing body of research by automakers is finding that buyers of these two kinds of vehicles are very different psychologically.
Sport utility buyers tend to be more restless, more sybaritic, less social people who are ''self-oriented,'' to use the automakers' words, and who have strong conscious or subconscious fears of crime. Minivan buyers tend to be more self-confident and more ''other-oriented'' -- more involved with family, friends and their communities.
....minivan buyers tend to be more comfortable than sport utility buyers with being married; sport utility buyers are more commonly concerned with still feeling sexy, and like the idea that they could use their vehicles to start dating again, said David P. Bostwick, DaimlerChrysler's director of market research.
''We have a basic resistance in our society to admitting that we are parents, and no longer able to go out and find another mate,'' Mr. Bostwick said. ''If you have a sport utility, you can have the smoked windows, put the children in the back and pretend you're still single.''
Minivan buyers are also less likely than sport utility buyers to have reservations about being parents. ''Sport utility people say, 'I already have two kids, I don't need 20,' '' Mr. Bostwick said. ''Then we talk to the people who have minivans and they say, 'I don't have two kids, I have 20 -- all the kids in the neighborhood.' ''
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Minivan people want to be in control in terms of safety, being able to park and maneuver in traffic, being able to get elderly people in and out,'' Mr. Schaafsma said. ''S.U.V. owners want to be more like, 'I'm in control of the people around me.' '' This is an important reason why seats are mounted higher in sport utilities than in minivans, he said.
Sport utility buyers are much more concerned with their vehicles' external appearance, while minivan buyers are more interested in the vehicles' interiors and practicality, said Thomas Elliott, Honda's executive vice president for North American auto operations. ''The people who buy S.U.V.'s are in many cases buying the outside first and then the inside,'' he said. ''They are buying the image of the S.U.V. first, and then the functionality.''
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sport utility buyers placed a lower value than minivan buyers on showing courtesy on the road. Sport utility buyers were more likely to agree with the statement, ''I'm a great driver,'' and to say that they drove faster than the average motorist.
Mr. Bostwick said that while some sport utility buyers mention that the vehicles' sturdy appearance looks safe to them, safety during traffic accidents tends not to be the real reason they buy a vehicle. ''It's not safety as the issue, it's aggressiveness, it's the ability to go off the road,'' he said.
Originally Posted by nhbubba
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