I'm curious about this, and maybe you and some other Seattle tattlers or Americans can chime in?We shop for cars totally differently. She didn’t take hardly anything into account that I do. No mention of safety, cost of ownership over the life of the car, maintenance needed and ease of mechanics. She does care about the history including the logo, hand stitching makes all the difference and small door pockets since she is European and doesn’t need to bring much with her....Do we think she leased or bought? Quick google days this car has an MSRP of over 80k. Also I have never heard of anyone put so many projections of themselves into a car. It’s a nod to her heritage, matches her style as a jewelry designer, more European influences than the average vehicle, etc etc etc, buying sweaters to match the car. Just bananas. I live in the Seattle area and she is totally right though, not a very common car here.
Where I'm from, a standard nice car is a Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Range Rover, Audi, and some of the lower end Teslas. A more luxurious car is a Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, or Bentley (all somewhat common). I've rarely seen Alfa Romeos and they're not really considered luxe here, so what's Elle talking about exactly?
Also I drive one of the aforementioned brands and it's a pain to have it serviced, even just for routine check ups. Unnecessarily expensive and if something needs to be replaced, I often have to wait for weeks and sometimes even months for the part to arrive from Europe. I wish I had gotten a more common car, like a Volvo or Subaru, which are both known to be safe and rarely have problems.