Sports cars may be seen as more of a male thing, but women over 60 are now buying pricey convertibles, according to the Daily Telegraph.
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Gone are the days when older women traded image and horsepower for reliability and pragmatism, the paper said, citing research based on the UK Automobile Association’s one million car insurance customers.
Researchers reportedly say that the baby boom generation is celebrating its freedom from the school run and child care responsibilities by walking into showrooms and picking cars with pizazz rather than boot space.
In America, where the trend is even more marked, industry analysts refer to older women buying “me-mobiles” to reward themselves for their hard work as wives, mothers and grandmothers, the Daily Telegraph said.
The report, by the paper’s social affairs correspondent noted that, since last summer, 54% more British women in their sixties and 40% more women in their early seventies own a convertible.
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By GlobalDataThe number of what are rather disparagingly referred to in the study as “open-top OAPs” is also increasing among men, but at a slower rate, the Telegraph said, adding that, in contrast, the number of younger people driving a convertible car has fallen, especially among women in their late twenties and men in their early thirties.
According to the report, the AA research showed that the biggest increases in soft-top cars insured since last year were in the North East, Scotland and North Western areas of the UK while there was a “marked decline” in the South East [an area that includes London].
Kevin Sinclair, of AA Insurance, told the Daily Telegraph that fine weather meant “you’re increasingly as likely to get a slick silver surfer enjoying an open-top convertible as you are a boy racer”.
