When you’re ready to start breaking necks and taking scalps, nothing says “oh there’s a rich guy” like seeing some Town Car parked outside a fancy restaurant or dildo shop. And the richest 1% have figured this out, too! That’s why the latest trend for the world’s kleptocrats is not some ostentatious European sports car, but a humble van that actually hides a luxury vehicle interior.
Via Boing Boing and William Gibson — haha , because reality has finally caught up with dystopian sci-fi — here’s the New York Times with a “The way we hide from the 99% now” update:
As the economy limps along and more attention is paid to the so-called 1 percent, some of the richest New Yorkers have taken to driving around in vehicles that ooze neither wealth nor privilege. But on the inside, the vans may be as lavishly decorated as the private railroad cars owned by turn-of-the-century industrialists.
But don’t worry, the custom vans can cost up to $500,000 and are still very obnoxious. For one thing, they’re gigantic, so they take multiple parking places and often don’t fit in any legal parking spot, so the chauffeurs idle in a red zone or whatever until the parking cop comes along and then realizes it’s a rich person van and then, surely, speeds away without issuing a ticket. [New York Times]
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Idling in the red zone needs moar pepper spray.
until the parking cop comes along and then realizes it’s a rich person van
and then, surely, speeds away without issuing a ticket.and then, surely, runs off to fetch the 1 percenter some champagne and caviar.
~
… and then clubs a few protestors to work off the stress.
For their sake, I hope those vans are armored and Molotov-cocktail proof.
The "If this Van is a Rockin', Your Low Wages I'm Mockin'" bumper sticker might give them away though.
You win one free intarwebs.
If this van is rocking, don't bother knocking your shitty job, loser!
"until the parking cop comes along and then…" – Fellates all occupants except the driver.
Having seen some of the women working that job, I'd have to pass, I think.
Who said anything about women?
The thick-thighed/hipped cop who pepper sprayed unarmed, sitting students at UC Davis full-on in the face imagines administrating a different facial. . .
One can easily discern a proud-feeling motherfucker even at a distance, can't one?
I would imagine that the vans have no windows, much like the ones favored by pedophiles and serial killers.
South Africa leads the world in customizing vehicles for the 1%. Options include 50,000 volt door handles and rocker-panel-mounted flamethrowers.
South Africa also happens to lead the world in terms of income inequality*. The US is trying to catch up, envious of the RSA's perennial balanced budgets.
*and, probably, car jackings.
I don't get it – is that for frying carjackers or streetwalkers?
…can it be both?
Yes.
Wow. My vehicle looks 'normal' on the outside, too!
That was you?
Time to cash in on this craze, folks… Here it is – for those rich enough to afford the best – people so discriminating that a private bus just isn't enough. Here's the ultimate luxury cruiser – custom decorated with fine interiors, chef's kitchen, granite counters, hot tub, lap pool, etc…. Plus you ride high about the 99% – actually you'll ride high above the 99.9% in this baby:
http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/pix/trucks/andy…
And if your commute is Dulles-Dulles, you won't have to pay delivery charges!
Outside looks one way and interior is totally 1%? Is that a van or the Republican Party?
How brave.
Hey, it costs a lot of money to turn that 1981 Ford Econoline van into a custom setup with brown shag carpeting on the walls, waterbed, mirrors on the ceiling and quadrophonic stereo…
Don't forget the 8-Track.
…and "Love Machine" airbrushed on the side.
Mmmm… Portable Passion Pit… the good old days…
My Dad called them "daughter rapers."
Shaggin' Wagons.
After you dropped a few burning roaches, you learned that brown carpeting was best.
And here comes a van with no windows and a bed in the back. Must be Madison's play date!
The orbitting space debris of flunkeys, anus lickers and other assorted toadies tends to give the game away. Kind of like pretending not to notice the super-massive black hole at galactic core. The sheer wealth attraction tends to distort and finally rip apart the moral fabric of humanity,empathy and social conscience, before they disappear up their own backside with a final burst of lethal self-publicity….
Sorry, got a bit carried away with the analogy there…..
It's OK.
You had me at "anus licker."
Mermaids airbrushed on the sides and everything?
Yosemite Sam "Back Off!" mudflaps?
And trucknutz?
If you actually need more proof that the NYTimes is now just pretty much a lifestyle pamphlet for the overcompensated,there's also this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/fashion/muffie-…
I refuse to believe anyone would admit to being named "Muffie." This has to be a parody.
And apparently she named her kids "Ashleigh and Bracie". First, learn to fucking spell; second, that's probably child abuse.
Child abuse is naming your daughter "Quintana Roo."
Depends. Is the family a member of the furry fandom?
They intended the article to be a parody of The Onion but ended up publishing it as a straight piece. Hilarious.
I read that and nearly puked. How fucking out of touch can you be, I am somewhat of a clothes-horse/ shoe-fetishist myself, but Jesus H. Christ.
"When I came home on Wednesday afternoon after the United Nations World Hunger Luncheon, I found that Ashleigh and Bracie had spraypainted graffiti over the new granite tiles in their bathroom. So I promptly began clubbing the little urchins with granddad's finely varnished shillelagh."
Hmph. According to Paul Fussell, the very fact that "Muffie" has to laboriously detail her wardrobe choices for every. single. waking. moment indicates that she will never ever EVER be truly "upper class."
This is a joke, right?
Wtf is a "Birkin"?
In a shagin' wagon? What are these rich people teenage creeps from the '70s?
[rolling out of van] "Dude… huh huh… I am soooo wasted!"
All it needs is some spinners and a pair of gold plated Trucknutz.
It will be awesome in 20 years when I can get a used one and park it out back to store fencing supplies in. No more bumping my head ! Plus, cupholders galore, I'm thinkin' !
Champagne glass holders, surely.
Living in a van down by the river = 1%.
Welcome to the future
The liberal 1% get the hybrid version.
Hyde Ryan, a designer who worked with a wealthy New York family on decorating the interior of their Mercedes Sprinter van, said that the family wanted gold-plated fittings for every button that would be pushed.
This was the one for the kiddies to play in. (Because nothing shines right up again like gold.) And these oblivious fuckers wonder why the pitchforks and torches are coming out?
I wonder if these vans have the oil-slick generator, hidden machine guns, revolving license plate, ejection seat, and wheel spinner hubs that extend out to fuck up the paint job on your Prius?
What can Brown do for youBrown libel.
Well, serial rapists seem to enjoy the van as a means of transportation. This story makes sense, is what I'm saying.
"Yes sir… it is pretty handy in running down protesters."
"Onward then, Filmore."
Oh, Jeeves; Jeeves. Yes; fetch me my peasant wagon, por favor. Take me to Washington Heights so that I may poke the poorz through the window with be bejeweled cane as I'm wont to do. If I'm feeling particularly randy, I may pay a few of them to fight each other for my entertainment. How drole.
You do that well. A little too well, if you ask me. You must be a one-percenter. Get 'im boys!
Anyone for a little "buggery'…?
That's after you've bought your coke, of course.
Amazing how people who are rich get to do whatever they want and not have to pay for it. Just ask Paul Allen about how many times he's defaulted on Portland's Rose Garden Arena and socialized that risk on the City of Portland taxpayers.
He learned his lesson, though. When it was time to give his Seattle Seahawks a decent stadium, he had the taxpayers finance it.
That would be what's known as "not learning his lesson."
OCCUPY WALL STREET. OCCUPY HISTORY. PLEASE PASS IT ON. THANKS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb4XPBHH6oo
But are they vantastic?
Anything they can do to avoid having to spend time in the presence of real people, they will. I wouldn't be surprised if the super-rich started adding walls and moat to their mansions again.
Doesn't the guy with the hat and uniform in the driver's seat kind of give it away, though?
♫ Gonna exploit her in my Chevy van
and that's alright with me ♪
Ok 99%,it's time to print some "Free Candy" stickers and unobtrusively sidle up to these BulgeMobiles and slap them on. Then make the call about a PedoBear in the neighborhood.
Didn't Marie Antoinette try escaping in a peasant cart? Didn't work then and won't work now.
But those $100 bills blowing out whenever the doors are opened are a dead giveaway.
Male announcer: [later] The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone.
Female announcer: No, the white zone is for loading of passengers and there is no stopping in a RED zone.
Male announcer: The red zone has always been for loading and unloading of passengers. There's never stopping in a white zone.
Female announcer: Don't you tell me which zone is for loading, and which zone is for stopping!
Male announcer: Listen Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again.
Later…. Female announcer: Oh really, Vernon? Why pretend, we both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.
SNL did this as a fake commercial about 20 years ago (the "Chameleon XLE"). It was a luxury car on the inside but a rusty mess on the outside. I can't find the video for it, but it was spot-on.
I found it here, though the rest of the site is a bit odd…
Shit, the rich really are morbidly obese, or Jabba-the-Hutt is secretly visiting Earth…
Please, make yourself a clear, helpful target for our dirty salt-encrusted snowballs as you spin-out in the apocalypse snowfalls NYC is predicted to have this season.
nothing says “oh there’s a rich guy” like seeing some Town Car
You know what's a super-cheap used car? Lincoln Town Car with about 110k on the ododmeter. You can pick 'em up for $2 grand on any big city Craiglsist site. And most of them have been driven gently by olds, so they're in really good shape. I was actually shopping for one for my 16 year old who just got her learner's permit, but my inlaws gave their ancient Honda, instead.
In Oklahoma, some American-built-in-Oklahoma-City Malibus with tinted windows fresh off the Dollar-Thrifty fleet can be had cheap in great shape. Mine didn't even have a dent or a scratch on it until that record-breaking hailstorm gave it a few hundred speed dimples…
You could paint it orange…
i find it ironic that an obsession for privacy includes an inability to get through the day without being observed by a chauffer while farting sideways inside a luxury leather and gold appointed mobile enclave.
And of course one simply can't get dressed by oneself can one?
Occupy the vans.
In Brazil, the rich just hop from roof to roof in helicopters. Brazil is also running a sale on poors and drug dealers leading up to the Olympics; buy them by the hundred and they'll throw in the shipping containers for free.
Back in the '20s, the 1% would have worker uniforms in their offices in case the revolution came and they had to sneak out ahead of the baying mobs. This is the same thing.
Unless it has one of these, they're really getting ripped off.
suv-with-pop-up-machine-gun
This wasn't offered with my Prius- but maybe it is because I bought Prius I and not Prius V?
Time to start carrying a box of nails. And a banana.
The sprinters are old news, the smart ones are going with up-armored versions now. Complete with run-flat tires and gunports. Still won't do you much good when it gets doused in gasoline and fuel oil and set alight.
From which the classier ones, like Rockefeller, throw dimes.
Actually, with no windows, they're more cut off from the rest of society, just as they want to be! How did they never think of this before?!?
Or they could save the money and just not behave like douchebags. I'll run this idea past the Stonecutters and see what they say.
Nothing says success, like being a huge douche ! I wish I could afford to vote Republican.
Just looked at that heading again. They hide in 200K vans and probably wear 200K Vans. RIP James Van Doren.
Valet parking is the giveaway.
The way the 99% spotted this Van was when the chauffeur asked them for some Grey P'upon.
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