Car-care and Decoration Rules

But class distinctions, and class anxieties, don’t stop with the make of car you choose to drive. The English will also gauge your social rank by the appearance and condition of your car – the way in which you care for it, or do not care for it.

The unwritten class rules involved in car care are even more revealing than those governing our choice of car, because we are less consciously aware of following them. The English all know, although we won’t admit it, that our car choice is a class indicator; and we all know, although we pretend not to, exactly which cars are associated with which classes. But many people are unaware that the state and condition of their car may be broadcasting even more powerful class signals than its make.

How clean and shiny – or dirty and scruffy – is your car? As a crude rule of thumb: spotless, shiny cars are the hallmark of the middle-middle, lower-middle and upper-working classes; while dirty, neglected cars are characteristic of the uppers, upper-middles and lower-workings (or in many cases ‘not-workings’ – the deprived, unemployed, underclasses). In other words, dirty cars are associated with both the highest and very lowest ends of the social scale, clean cars with the middle ranks.

But it’s not quite as simple as that. More specific class distinctions depend not only on the cleanliness of your car, but also on precisely how it got that way. Do you wash and polish the car yourself, lovingly and religiously every weekend, in the driveway or street outside your house? Then you are almost certainly lower-middle or upper-working. Do you take it frequently to a car-wash? Then you are probably either middle-middle or lower-middle with middle-middle aspirations (if you are upper-middle, your car-care habits betray middle-middle origins). Do you simply rely on the English weather to sluice off the worst of the grime for you, only resorting to a car-wash or bucket when you can no longer see out of the windows, or when people start finger-writing graffiti in the dirt on the boot? Then you are either upper class³⁹, upper-middle or lower-working/underclass.

This last rule might seem to suggest that one cannot distinguish between an upper-class car and an under-class one. In terms of degree of neglect, it is indeed impossible to tell the difference, but this is where one has to take the make of car into consideration as well. At the higher end of the social scale, the filthy car is likely to be a Continental make (or, if British, either a ‘country’ four-wheel drive, a Mini or something grand such as an old Jaguar, Bentley or Daimler); while at the lower end, the grubby vehicle is more likely to be British, American or Japanese.

More or less the same principle applies to the state of the interior of the car. A scrupulously tidy car indicates an upper-working to middle-middle owner, while a lot of rubbish, apple cores, biscuit crumbs, crumpled bits of paper and general disorder suggests an owner from either the top or the bottom of the social hierarchy. And there are still smaller clues and finer distinctions. If you not only have a tidy car, but also hang your suit-jacket carefully on the little hook thoughtfully provided for this purpose by the car manufacturers, you are lower-middle or possibly at the lower end of middle-middle class. (All other classes simply sling their jacket on the back seat.) If you hang your jacket on a coat-hanger attached to the little hook, you are definitely lower-middle. If you also hang a neatly-ironed shirt on a coat-hanger from the little hook, to change into before arriving at your ‘important meeting’, you are lower-middle of working-class origins, and anxious to proclaim your white-collar status.

There are minor variations to the interior car-care class rules, relating mainly to sex-differences. Women of all classes generally tend to have somewhat less tidy cars than men – they are rather more prone to scattering sweet-wrappers and tissues, and leaving stray gloves, scarves, maps, notes and other paraphernalia strewn over the seats. Men are usually a bit more ‘car-proud’, a bit more anal about keeping such things in the glove-compartment or side-pockets, rather less tolerant of clutter and muddle. Having said that, the upper and upper-middle classes of both sexes have a high tolerance of dog-related dirt and disorder (an immunity they share, again, with the lower-working/under class). The interiors of their cars are often covered in dog hair, and the upholstery scratched to bits by scrabbling paws. The middle-middles and lower-middles confine their dogs to a caged-off section behind the back seats.

The lower-middles might even hang a flat, tree-shaped, scented dangly-thing from their rear-view mirror to counteract any doggy smells, or indeed any smells. Their houses also tend to be full of air-fresheners, loo-fresheners, carpet-fresheners and other deodorizers – as are those of the middle-middle class, but the middle-middles know that hanging scented tree-things or any other dangly objects from your rearview mirror is lower class. In fact, you will not see any decorative objects anywhere in cars belonging to the middle-middle and higher social ranks. Nodding dogs on the back shelf, Garfields clinging to windows and other cutesy animal motifs are lower-middle and working-class indicators, as are bumper-stickers and windscreen-stickers informing you of the car’s occupants’ taste in holiday destinations and leisure activities. There are only two exceptions to the no-sticker rule, and these are virtuous animal-charity stickers and smugly safety-conscious ‘Baby on Board’ notices, which you will see on the rear windscreens of both lower-middle and middle-middle cars – although the middle-middle notices are less likely to sport the logo of a nappy-manufacturer. (A few borderline upper-middles may also display ‘Baby on Board’ signs, but they are sneered at by the majority of upper-middles, particularly the intelligentsia.)