8 ms·
The long demise of the stretch limousine
- neonate 4y agohttps://archive.ph/AQvCW https://archive.ph/AQvCW http://web.archive.org/web/20230429165712/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/business/limo-service-decline.html http://web.archive.org/web/20230429165712/https://www.nytime...
- finnh 4y agoCrawling around inside a long, low-ceiling car. Not an experience i equate with luxury.
- smitty1110 4y agoThat’s what a stretch Hummer is for! All the luxury, twice the headroom.
- zamnos 4y agoDeluxe decked out Mercedes sprinter van. All of the headroom!
- mjevans 4y agoAt least American culture, driving used to directly equate to FREEDOM. However as more people tried to grasp that freedom, as the suburbs expanded and the roads bogged down, driving is increasingly associated with gridlock and traffic rule crackdowns. Gone are the days of fantasizing about driving a supercomputer AI car into a mobile truck base. Gone are the days of driving to some club or restaurant and the vehicle as a proxy of status. In today's world luxury comes to the rich. Personal chefs, international air freight anything, parties at their resort sized mansion mini-city. Short of a state level police motorcade for the politically connected, why go to some remote event at all? No, the limousine is seen as some high school prom or other pedestrian event and a thing for shows on TV.
- foobarian 4y agoYes, and gone are the days of unincorporated land free for the taking from indigenous peoples, where one wouldn't have any laws or governments to worry about /s
- civilitty 4y agoNever forget the great Trail of Tears on which the indigenous Americans were forcibly relocated, chased by asphalt rollers and angry lobbyists from the automotive industry. Wait, what?
- bluGill 4y agoThe stretch limo always included a driver so you could be seen getting of the backseat in front of someplace nice and not have to figure out how to park it.
- akoncius 4y agoyou just described any taxi driver or uber. uber even has separate category for more luxury :D of course it is a strech but still I think valid point
- bluGill 4y agoPretty much. The.costs are not much more than a taxi either, but since they are not a taxi different rules apply, one of which is they look much nicer.
- bediger4000 4y agoIf you're not going to senior prom, you're not the stretch limo demographic. Welcome to adulthood!
- cratermoon 4y agoI remember back in the early 2000s I worked for a company that "rewarded" developers with a ride around the city in a stretch limo to end up at a company party at a bowling alley. Seriously, this was the company's high school mindset. I was glad to get out of there after a short time.
- Zigurd 4y agoI recall a company "party" early in my career that had us crammed into a super-stretch limo with a hot tub where a trunk would have been. Hot tub didn't work. Smelled like Teen Spirit. Craptastic!
- hot_gril 4y agoWait, I want to do that!
- ravenstine 4y agoEven in high school that kind of thing was lame. I forget why, but there was a time where the school took a bunch of us on a limo ride ... to Hometown Buffet. We all thought it was dorky as hell, but we did it anyway because it got us out of class. No ody thought it was cool, though.
- uptime 4y agoYeah that is the only use case I would approve.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- flybrand 4y agoIs the drought blow back from the previous boom? There’s no mystique once you’ve done that awkward climb over your fellow passengers.
- hot_gril 4y agoThe idea is the one or two important people sit in the very back, and the less important people (if any) do the scooting/crawling.
- jccalhoun 4y agoTotally agree. I feel the same about private jets. Most of them are too small for a tall person like myself to stand up in.
- Multicomp 4y agoThese will be back at some point... And there will be flabbergasted news articles talking about how Gen z or Gen AA want to see them for their novelty and there will be gray beard Gen x and Gen y talking about how back in their day everyone used to stretch limos. But it will be a stretch limo cyber truck or a stretch limo SUV, there aren't very many land yacht style sedans left over yet, except for say the Lincoln Continental.
- doubled112 4y agoI wonder how much more difficult it is to extend a unibody chassis vs the old body on frame.
- CydeWeys 4y agoI mean, they won't be back if they can't easily be constructed by modifying existing production vehicles. The market for them is never again going to get big enough to support from-scratch production as a new model line.
- zamnos 4y agoNever mind the novelty of it, it's a bigger space inside, so instead of being limited to 4 or 6 of your friends (plus you as the driver), you can have 8+ people in a limo, plus (by the time gen AA or AB is ready for it) a robot for driver. The glory days will be back as soon as self-driving cars come around and people come to appreciate all the extra interior space, and are able to afford such a luxury.
- this_steve_j 4y agoI could see the stretch limo coming back into vogue as influencers on the whatever platform embrace 1990s prom culture as the new currency. It used to be the vehicle that unequivocally would declare your arrival, but I think that spot unfortunately has been claimed by the private jet.
- User23 4y agoThe stretch jet does have some interesting aerodynamics.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI would not step foot nor let my kids step foot in a limo type car ever since I found out they are completely unregulated (in the US). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_limousine_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_limousine_crash
- toast0 4y agoThat article lists lots of regulations that weren't followed; that not all operators follow the regulations, and that regulations aren't always enforced doesn't indicate the category is completely unregulated.
- Avshalom 4y agoNo hits for "ladder" or "frame" but an important though less direct cause is simply the difficulty of stretching modern cars.
- hot_gril 4y agoModern stretch limos seem to all be SUVs. I guess cause they're body-on-frame. The old ones were body-on-frame sedans like the LTC, which are no longer made.
- ComputerGuru 4y agoUnibody has been taking over the SUV world too, of late.
- hot_gril 4y agoWell the "U" tends to mean "unibody" instead of "utility" in those cases ;)
- sammalloy 4y agoDuring the height of the Great Recession, you could get your hands on used stretch limousines for fairly cheap. There was even a time when homeless people were buying them to live in, and it wasn’t uncommon to see them parked on the side of the road.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoI see one in a trailer park I drive by sometimes
- User23 4y agoI saw one that the new owner lifted.
- hot_gril 4y agoAnd the non-stretch limos (Lincoln Town Car etc) went from sorta expensive to cheapo.
- jeffbee 4y agoShoot, that was true long before any given recession. A stretch limo is a rapidly depleted asset that nobody wants after its a few years old. When I lived in Oklahoma City many years ago, I bought a limo off Doc Severinsen, who owned a nightclub there. It was built from a 1983 Grand Marquis, basically an extra-long police car. Didn't cost me a dollar, I just had to get it off their lot (it didn't run, until I fixed it).
- debian3 4y agoHow was the fuel economy? What happened to it?
- ComputerGuru 4y agoFuel economy won’t be as bad some might think. Length (as if something were extruded longer) doesn’t really impact aerodynamics much - it’s just the additional weight (body and furnishings) that screws things up.
- kazinator 4y ago> “When a stretch pulls over, everybody turns around to see who’s getting in or getting out,” Mr. Rose said. These days his clients prefer the discretion of a black sedan or S.U.V. Ah, because these days, everybody turns around to see who's getting in and out, and a good portion of those everybodys can be expected to take videos and pics, immediately posting them online.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThe most carsick I can ever recall being was while riding in a stretch limo. Never again, good riddance.
- xeromal 4y agoI never really considered it until this article, but I think socially stretch limos are kind of a "poor people thing" now. The article kind of mentions it but once it became to accessible, it lost its allure. I think a bentley is a better indicator of wealth now if we're talking about cars.
- GreedClarifies 4y ago"indicator of wealth" Maybe. I think it is an indicator of multiple things, one being wealth. Another thing that comes to mind is of someone that needs to signal, badly, that they have wealth. Some people may be interested in those signals, but I hope/guess not too many. PS: I'm all for people having wealth and spending it on things that make their lives better, but conspicuous consumption/Veblen goods/positional goods seem like some kind of ancient software in humans that hopefully will pass in time.
- xeromal 4y agoI'm with you on your PS but I don't think it will pass. I feel like humans are inherently comparative beings. We weigh and measure all humans we come in contact with and most are weighed by looks for a first impression. Some people are always going to measure by perceived wealth.
- gnarbarian 4y agoyou're 100% right. people will readily jockey, compete, and gloat over the most artificial relative measures of heirarchy. think parking spots or badges in a video game.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThere is conspicuous consumption, but it is not in the form of cars. Who cares if a car is a limo or a Bentley? The comfort and quality and safety is relatively all the same, whether it is a $50k car or a $500k car. You are going to sit in it looking at your phone all the same. But the higher bar to achieve is real estate, time, and professional network. Where you live, where and how you spend your time, and who you work with are all easy ways to determine socioeconomic status, so there is no reason to waste money on cars/jewelry/etc if you get no extra utility from them.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoI've managed to convince limo drivers at the airport to match uber's rate plus 20$ a few times. Pretty fun but I think it's an indication of how they're probably not getting a lot of business
- wolverine876 4y agoIs there any way a stretch limo is more comfortable than an SUV or a minivan? I always suspected that the limo was an artifact of the days when everyone drove sedans. Doesn't the President of the United States still ride in a stretch limousine? What about other heads of state?
- antognini 4y agoThe presidential limo was designed to resemble a Cadillac Escalade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_state_car_(United_States)#Current_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_state_car_(United...
- NoZebra120vClip 4y agoWow, that is sort of flabbergasting, including the history of the thing. To think that the car has been armored and protected like a tank for so long, yet all it took for JFK was an open convertible top.
- listenallyall 4y ago> more comfortable than an SUV A limousine's seats aren't all facing forward, making it easy to have a party or conversation among many people. The seats tend to be more like couches, which can accommodate some horizontal activities.
- donohoe 4y agoStretched limos are tacky. That is the reason. As soon as they were rented by regular folk for special occasions, that became apparent. The facade was broken, and that was the end of that. It is that simple.
- electroly 4y agoDid they become tacky because regular folk started renting them?
- jraines 4y agoOne time I had to take a ride in a stretch limo for a long ride to an airport because it was the only thing the car service had on short notice. I know they’re not meant for highway travel, but it was easily the worst ride I’ve ever experienced; it’s good that I don’t get seasick.
- ileight2 4y agoHave to add this channel’s video, entertaining and informative: https://youtu.be/pjL3kjFKjIY https://youtu.be/pjL3kjFKjIY