Sifter

Rembember when you were a teenager how popular the first guy in the neighborhood with a car was because neither you or your loser friends had much chance of owning wheels in any reasonable stretch of time? We live in a new auto age. Results from a national telephone survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation show that today three out of four kids ages 16 to 22 have their own cars. Of those, 82 percent were bought used and most cost less than $10,000.

• 51% were paid for in full by the child’s parent or parents

• 23% shared the cost with their children

• 72% of the parents did not have cars purchased for them when they were their children’s age

Factors parents said are extremely/very important when purchasing a car for their child:

• safety and reliability 90%

• price 79%

• fuel efficiency 68%

• age and mileage 67%

• make/model 42%

• style/coolness 24%

• car’s color 13%

Factors parents thought were extremely/very important to their kids when making that purchase:

• style/coolness 66%

• safety/reliability 61%

• age/mileage 53%

• make/model 53%

• price 52%

• fuel efficiency 50%

• color 37%