Blip: Standards Of Luxury

When I was a kid, our big family car—other than our ‘68 semi-automatic Beetle—was a 1973 Ford Country Squire wagon, complete with wood paneling. The up-market Mercury version, the Grand Marquis, informed my larval brain about what “luxury” was because I could compare it directly to our old Country Squire.

Here’s what I learned:

• Marquis rank higher than Squires

• Wood paneling was classy if it had fake plank lines and a thin chrome border instead of a thick, fake light wood border

• Headlights were mildly shameful, and rich people sought to hide them, for modesty

• The more plastic sections your taillights were divided into, the classier you were

• Luxury is mostly stick-on shit