When it comes to cars, geography is destiny. What we drive is largely determined by where we drive. Sometimes local preferences can become laughably stereotypical, like Subarus in Vermont and pickup trucks in Montana. Electric cars are favored in left-leaning enclaves, Jeep Wranglers excel in parts of Arizona, and Sprinter vans rank high in resort areas. The hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai, sold only in California, ranks first among all vehicles in both Los Angeles County and Orange County.
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• See where in America your car is most popular
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But dig deeper into the database of 1.7 million car listings and all sorts of geographic quirks emerge. For example, Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. But in and around the state capital, Jackson, where per capita income is higher than the national average, five out of the 10 most popular cars are Mercedes-Benz. And up and down the California coast, far-flung counties with little else in common, such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Clara, Alameda and Marin, have only foreign cars at the top. -10 list.
Next is the issue of hometown advantage. It turns out that for the most part, Americans love the cars they helped build. In Rutherford County, Tennessee, the nearby Nissan factory produces 2,500 cars per day, and four out of the 10 most popular cars are Nissans. In Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford is headquartered, 5 out of 10 of your favorite cars are Fords. (And none of them are foreign.) Sometimes just the name is enough. In Wexford County, Michigan, centered around the town of Cadillac, the Cadillac DeVille ranks #6.
However, there are some exceptions to the corporate city rule. In Spartanburg, South Carolina, nine out of the 10 most popular cars are foreign, but none are BMWs, which employ 100,000 people at a nearby factory. And in Alameda County, California, where most of the country’s Teslas are made at the state’s Fremont factory, not one of your 10 favorite cars is a Tesla. What is the top EV in Elon Musk’s EV manufacturing county? Toyota Prius and VW e-Golf.
My neighbor’s favorite car
Text by Mark Healy, founder of Flipturn Creative Studios. Data from Andrew Thompson, creator of the cultural research project Components. Graphics by designer Dan DeLorenzo and data graphics fellow Kim Nguyen. Photographic research by Isabel Fernández Puyol.
