What’s Your State’s Unofficial Car?

There is a general belief that the type of car you drive; to an extent, determines your personality. There may be an element of truth in this, but what we are not aware of is that there is another factor which influences your choice of car to an even greater extent: where you live.

There is a tendency for many of us to buy more of a particular car if that car is the most popular in our locality. Relevant studies have succeeded in lending credibility to it.

In a recent 2014 report originally published by Popular Mechanics, Tom Libby, an auto analyst with IHS Automotive was commissioned to draw up demographics of car purchases in each US state to see if any regular pattern would emerge. He collected data from car dealers nationwide, and then compared state averages with the national average to determine which brands and models were more popular in each of the states.

In his own words, Libby narrates the exact steps he took to determine which cars were the “unofficial cars” for respective states: “I compared the share for each model in, for instance, Alabama with the share of the same of model in the United States and came up with a ratio,” says Libby. He goes on to explain that he ranked each state based on the ratios and compare the individual state demands on a national scale.

Results from the study (as seen in the map), show that there is indeed a tendency for car owners in each of the states to drive more of a particular model. In New York and Texas for instance, the Cadillac Escalade EXT is the most popular “unofficial state car”. The Volvo V60 Cross Country holds sway in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; while in Washington, it is the Nissan Leaf. eTags provides service in Florida, California, and Maryland. Our home states tend to lean toward the BMW 760s, Kia Souls, and Mini Clubmans respectively.

For a full list of the unofficial state car of each state of the federation, read the full report from Popular Mechanics here.