Despite the fact I’ve been a motoring writer most of their lives, my kids are still either ambivalent or blase about the vehicles I test.
While my son Henry shows interest when I have an expensive car in the driveway, the only thing his sister Grace cares about is being taxied around Auckland in my test cars.
She doesn’t know the difference between Maserati or Mazda while a motoring colleague’s 4-year-old daughter recognises and can name every car badge.
I often wonder if an interest in vehicles is nurture or nature. I remember being stopped at lights in a Jaguar F-Type convertible and a toddler in his carseat was squirming in his seat so he could get a good look at the sports car.
Another time a tot nearly fell out of his stroller so he could take a third look at the BMW I was driving while other times I see parents pointing out the car I’m in to their offspring. But it seems that no matter what you drive, some kids just don’t care.
At the recent Lamborghini Aventador SV launch in Barcelona, I was seated next to the company’s charismatic CEO Stephan Winkelmann at dinner.
I told him how Grace used to be picky about vehicles I dropped her off to school in, once refusing to get out of a Korean hatchback at her college gates because it was yellow, or another time making sure a large crowd walked past when she exited a Range Rover.
Winkelmann went one better than me. He said his 15-year-old son refuses to be picked up from school in one of his dad’s Lamborghinis.
You really can’t please some kids.
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