Study: Men Want Luxury Cars, Women Want Crossovers
If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, the Martians drive high-end European sports cars — and their counterparts like the high perch of a crossover SUV. So says a survey from iSeeCars.com, a classified-ads site in Woburn, Mass.
Survey: Men Prefer Red, Women Prefer Silver
If you’re familiar with popular stereotypes then it’s likely little surprise that women prefer crossovers (67 percent more likely than men to prefer), while men prefer luxury sports cars (four times more likely than women to prefer).
The study by iSeeCars.com, which partners with Cars.com, looked at more than 30 million used-car listings and coded by names from “hundreds of thousands of requests” from interested shoppers, ignoring genderless names like Sandy or Tracy.
You’d think crossovers’ higher driving positions would appeal to women, who are, on average, 5.5 inches shorter than men. But iSeeCars.com also said men are three times more likely than women to prefer pickup trucks — which excel in utility and capability, to be sure, but also rank among the highest-riding cars you can buy.
Interestingly, the poster car for soccer moms — the minivan — rated equally among men and women. Why? Editor-in-Chief Patrick Olsen once framed the debate, which suggests that some men are less style conscious and just want the utility.
Still, that doesn’t translate to other categories. Men like older cars; they’re 26 percent more likely than women to choose 1999 or older models, iSeeCars.com found. Men also like Cadillac (twice as likely as women to prefer), Jaguar (2.1 times more likely), now-defunct Hummer (2.8 times), Porsche (4.6 times) and Maserati (10 times) — all pricey luxury brands. Women, meanwhile, prefer Volkswagen (56 percent more likely as men to prefer), Scion (58 percent), now-defunct Saturn (63 percent), Hyundai (67 percent) and Kia (twice as likely).
Oh, and women are 30 percent more likely than men to prefer station wagons and 40 percent more likely to prefer four-cylinder engines, iSeeCars.com said. Tell that to Cars.com Managing Editor David Thomas, who’s on his second four-cylinder Subaru Outback. Maybe Thomas’ wife held sway in that decision.
Read the full survey here.
