Don't laugh at my car

I have a question for you: How accurately do you think you can judge people's finances based on what kind of car they drive?

Today I met a friend in the parking garage at the college where we both work. He is going to sell a couple dozen books for me on Amazon and give me a percentage, and we needed to move the books from my trunk to his trunk.

He pulled his shiny SUV up next to my sh**box 1994 Japanese sedan. When he got out of his car, the first thing he said was,
"That looks like a poor person's car."

If I was snappy enough I would have said,
"And your car looks like an overspender's car".

When he's retirement age, I bet he'll wish he'd taken that extra 30 grand he spent on his SUV and invested it. Me, I'm going to drive this thing into the ground, and then I'm going to buy myself another oldie-but-goodie Japanese car.