me and @periIously were talking about what cars cql characters would drive if they were middle-to-upper-middle-class people in our metro area; here are our findings. mara is responsible for most of the funny things in this thread.

meng yao has a 2003 honda civic. it took him ages to finance & he does his own maintenance via youtube tutorials to keep it alive w/o having to take it to the shop. got a good credit rating out of it tho. he hates to be seen in it so he drives nmj's suv whenever he can.

nmj has a beloved toyota 4runner. all the fixings, leather everything, every possible type of sporting rack attached. imagine, like, gorgeous specialty body finish with like metallic flecks in the paint.

he's constantly dumping money into touch-ups b/c he DOES actually take it off-roading, like a SPORTS UTILITY VEHICLE is SUPPOSED to be used. he's extremely contemptuous of guys who buy trucks but only drive them in the city. "just buy a sports car"

lxc has a lexus ES; a hybrid that's classy and signals your environmentally friendliness while still letting you know the driver has a lot of fucking money. pretend the one in the picture has a tasteful ice blue paint job and you get the picture.

lwj also had a luxury car before he had a kid to ferry around, after which he settled for a modest brand-new-and-gleaming white prius. it goes w/o saying that he has a flawless driving record and his cars last forever.

wwx, on the other hand, has a woebegone jeep wrangler with 300kms+. other people can't drive it b/c they don't know the precise angle to twist the key in the ignition to get the engine to start, but it refuses to die.

it's got a ton of cosmetic damage b/c he's constantly dinging it but would never go to the body shop for something that doesn't impact performance. always talking about replacing it but never will. the lil apple of cars.

jiang cheng hates it when wwx parks in his driveway b/c he's afraid of what the neighbors will think. jc is one of those dads who has an suv b/c he doesn't want to be seen driving a minivan but his kid still has a lot of sports gear. he bought an escalade in a fit of insecurity.

gets competitive when socializing with other dads, like, okay but MY suv has the MOST features; nmj looks slightly askance at jc's ride like "hm. do a lot of off-roading in that?". jc loses sleep for a week until he goes to MEC, drops $5k, and decides to get serious about hiking.

he was already insecure about this b/c while jc was losing his mind over his uni apps wwx took a gap year backpacking around the world on a $1k and a roll of ducttape. next time he sees nmj he's like "[pointedly casual] i bagged [whatever] summit yesterday" nmj: huh? cool i guess

nhs has a subaru impreza. he was obstinate about learning to drive, not b/c he didn't want to but b/c nmj was breathing down his neck in the passenger's seat 24/7 like a nightmare. he does pass his road test on the 3rd try but has had at least 2 minor accidents.

no one got hurt but nmj went fully ballistic from stress while jgy and lxc gave him soothing shoulder rubs like "da-ge it's okay it was just a fender-bender..."

nmj bought him the car; nhs complained about the model b/c it's not very cool but nmj was adamant he have something user-friendly & awd b/c "i won't have you being one of those idiots using two-wheel-drive in the snow." [it snows once or twice a year.]

nmj was so neurotic that jgy gave nhs most of his useful driving instruction. when he made good, he of course upgraded to a gold bmw like the rest of the jins. thankfully for the public, he doesn't rev it obnoxiously while driving around the suburbs like jin zixun does.

med student wen qing drives a mazda 3; nothing flashy or in-your-face but sleek and gets the job done. she has it set up in the back so she can take naps in it on campus. no one would suspect how many fast food wrappers are on the floor out of sight. look, a girl's gotta eat.

yanli has a cute little vw golf. she's such a responsible driver she could teach lessons; however, both jc and wwx will volunteer to drive instead if they're carpooling & in a hurry b/c she won't speed or run yellows and sometimes you've got PLACES to BE

oh, and su she has a tesla, because he needs to out-lan the lans in the department of obnoxious electric vehicle status symbols. his dark secret? it's pre-owned.