Ok, I have had my scooby for over 6 months now and I work in accounts. For somereason people in the company I work for think I am a chav and its clear they struggle to take me seriously.

I go into work most days with a suit on, no trainers hats or any that. I am now told the only reason they think this is due to my car, which is rubbish.

This almost makes me laugh as I cannot take my car to site visits as it portrays the wrong impression. Wrong impression!!! Fair enough its not sales rep car i.e vectra, a4 etc, but the car you drive has nothing to do with how good you are at your job.

It is a very stange world we live in. The car you drive does not make you a chav or unprofessional does it?

Chavs sit on corners with cider. I don't know who invented the word chav but they need shooting.

 

you wanna try being vetted, i had 40 mins on the topic of my car and my motorbike !!!

 

I see so many council type impreza's now, speeding/driving like idiots/ full black tints treatment etc... and god only knows how many are insured. Trouble is you can buy a wrx wagon now for as little as £1200, a shed i know. The council chavs dont care about that, they just want to, GIVE IT LARGE IN THE SOOOBS. I really hate that council chav scumbag word they use, SOOOBS.

 

There are a couple of us at work with scoobies and it hasn't affected how we're treated. However, we're just a few fish in a pond of several hundred so nobody really worries about what you're driving, just so long as you're professional in your position of employment.

It seems to me your colleagues are rather narrow minded - that in itself can't be very professional can it!? If your colleagues insist on judging you then it should be on your performance in the workplace not by what car you drive and if what you drive is important to the company image, they should be providing a company pool car for site visits. What a bunch of tw@ts!

 

My company are pretty cool with it but I did get a right ear-full from a colleague on a night out. apparently i'm a c%#t because i drive an impreza

it didn't offend me because I know the guy knew nothing about cars. i just a felt a sorry for him. being that judgmental is gonna byte him in **** so many times in his life.

IMO if anyone is going to make a judgement about me because of the type of car I drive, they're not someone I want to know anyway.

 

My STI is used for work a bit too and I work in pre-sales for a software developer. Nobody calls me a chav, if anything they like it. Particularly the guy with the 996 which keeps breaking down

 

I don't like driving mine to my customers, but not because I feel like a chav. A few of them have commented 'that's a nice sports car' but they are probably thinking 'no wonder he charges this much'.

Anders

 

i also wear a suit to work, but the guys in my office know im an enthusiast, dont rag my car and look after it whatever the cost, unlike the usual chavs that drive them.

 

Unfortunately these people are all too commonplace. Everyone judges on first impressions, or listen to and believe others trash talk.
Few bother to figure out whether that assessment was the correct one.

If you work for a company full of morons, and you feel strongly about it and the remuneration is nothing special, then try and find somewhere else.

Either that or go and buy a hatch shape Impreza :-)
Or a repmobile.

 

They never talked about cars when I was vetted

Anyway, op, if your fussed, just go buy a big car like a vauxhall omega and use your scoob as a second car (the later omega's can be picked up for nothing now and are very good for what they were ) so they cant look at you in a different light then

Tony

 

I think it's a common occurance with narrow small minded stereotyping. I too am classified as a 'professional' and go to work smartly dressed and know that if/when I visit clients or indeed even my colleagues already have an impression of me, unfortunately my car interests are such that all the cars I own have the predetermined 'chav' stigma attached.

If people want to assume that because I own an Impreza/RS or other that I am some sort of 'chav' idiot who drives like a tool and races about the Maccy D's car park on a Friday, then so be it. It doesnt affect my ability to do my job......especially as most people you meet either 4x4's (yet dont offroad), vengabuses or a rep mobile...........all of which have their own stereotypes

 

I get the odd comment but don't get treated any differently.

Just ignore them and be good at your job .. that or insult their car .. works for me

 

Thank you for all your comments. The car will be staying, no way on earth I am trading for a boring rep car.

 

my boss is on the dark side (evo 10). we always slagin each other off all in good fun though lol.

as for the one's that like to type cast us as CHAV's well they got small ******!!!!!

 

Wow,

I cant believe the way some of you are treated just because of your cars

I have a 97 wrx sti, Which I travelled to Holland a few months ago for a service call on a Luxury Yacht.
Now this boat is probably worth in excess of 150million euros. I turned up in my rather loud car dressed in Jeans and a T-shirt (T-shirt was branded with Companies logo)

I was treated with the upmost curtosy and professionalism too.

The way I look at it, If people want to judge you based on your car then f*&k them they are not worth knowing.

 

I work for a company that manufacture F1 components, WRC transmissions, GT transaxles and limited production bespoke transmissions including the McLaren f1, XJ220, Ford GT and Bugatti Veron to name but a few.

Funny enough, everyone from the MD to the cleaner has spoke to me about my car, one of the directors even gave me some information on a track day club.

Its all about the nature of the business your in I guess

 

I work for a major high street Fashion retailer in the stock department everyone at work knows Im Im a massive motorsport fan.

I live in the city centre in quite a respectful posh area and and due to my accent and clothing I get branded a chav to which Im not that bothered about!
I have had quite a few cars over my 31 years on the plannet 18 to be exact although I have had my licence for 6 years, I have no points on my licence either.
For me the best part of owning a sports car and modifying it on a budget but seeing the transformation go from a wreck to a concourse example is what gives me my biggest thrill just as much as driving it!


For me I really dont care how people lable me or pigeon hole me thats their problem,I get up everymorning respecting myself for being a good citizen of my community looking after my disabled mother and looking out for my neighbours I always try and show respect for people who I feel deserve it and shy away from people who dont!
I believe a man is judged by his actions not what he cares to drive or wear.

In short people who judge me are not worth worrying about the only person I fear answering to is god, and based on this analogy I worry not!

Just because I drive an impreza does not mean Im anything other than a impreza driver!

 

My ex-boss couldn't believe it when I bought my STI back in 2002, at the time he had a v6 Vectra !

One of my current bosses asked if I'd made it myself from "bits".... I replyed that Subaru made them like this, she didn't understand.

I too feel that I may have to move on soon, as bug-eyes are sliding down towards "chavdom".....

dunx

 

Hawker front end conversion

 

i'm in the worst position here as i'm 21 and have a classic wrx, stright away i am a chav in peoples eyes as my neighbour told me the other day. but i brought my classic as i have been hooked on rallying since i was seven years old and my parents have always had scoobs since i can remember.
mine has completley standard looks and a hayward and scott exhaust system, and gets driven around like miss daisy most of the time yet i still get labelled as a chav.
i also hate the stigma people have a bout the impreza as i told a man in his porsche the other day when he said anyone who has one is just a boy racer, i told him that all porsche drivers are middle aged balding men who usually drive really slow around town eyeing up young women they wish they could get again.

 

depends what you do, I work in recruitment sales and tend to borrow the girlfriends car (seat leon) if I go out on client visits, if I was to turn up in a loud fast scooby I will just be a 'typical recruitment consultant' to most of them LOL so go for the safer, more 'corporate' image rather than the turbo madness!

Also depends on what your car looks like, if its a standard wrx, low level spoiler etc shouldn't be too much of a problem but if you have mahoosive spoilers, bodykits and a blitz nur spec then the non belivers will tend to put you in the 'chav' pen on first sight !

IMO

 

I work in a German office and have had the pi55 take out of me every day for nearly 10 years about my Impreza, rice cooker, Jap crap etc. However when I let one of my colleagues drive it back from Munich to Stuttgart I couldn't get him out of it. Apparently it is an ugly crap car but he liked the power.

Most of them drive mediocre German cars in silver so what can I say.

 

Think I may have openned a can of worms here.

My car is not standard by any means but that should still not make a difference to you as a person. I have loved fast cars every since I was five and my dad's friend took me in his Ferarri 355. There a lot a nicer cars out there but the 355 still remains my favourite.

What I do find funny is that a fool who works in my office drives a Skodia Fabia 1.4 (not having a dig a skoda drivers here, just him). Every day when I leave work he persists in tail gating me and trys to race off at lights, To this day I have never once risen to the occasion.

I have spoken to him at work but not in a harsh way at all, just in a laughing kind of way. His response was I do not drive fast enough for him (legal speed limit) so he takes action to get past me and I should not have a fast car if I cannot drive it. I almost p*-*-*sed myself laughing mainly because when we leave it is rush hour and cars are crawling for about 3 miles. So where he exactly wants me to "drive" to I have no idea. He thinks it is acceptable to move from lane to lane dramitcally cutting people up.

But yet I am apparently a chav for having a well maintained car who doesnot drive like I have stole it, unless it's on a track.

He is just a narrowminded bad driver to which I am not loosing my license for racing him. I might ask him if he would like to go on a track event with his Skoda. lol

 

I'm also a professional and drive the Impreza to client meetings if circumstances dictate (client is 150 miles away lol)

chances are they rarely see the car in the flesh as my meetings are indoors and we dont cross paths in the car park
however they have seen pictures of the Impreza on my laptop (is my desktop picture) and they seem quite surprised that I drive a high performance car,
probably cos I'm a 5'1" female

it usually starts off some interesting small talk. They know me well enough to understand that I'm not a chav.

what does annoy me is when folk in my office, that I dont really like, assume that it is the ONLY thing that I like and spend ages going on about it

anyway, in response to the OP,
folk that think you are a chav dont know anything about imprezas and are more than likely jealous that your motor has a turbo and theirs doesnt

 

that guy sounds like a total tit. why is it people in low powered cars always seem to have to drive them as fast and stupidily as possible??

 

Probably because they wish it was a Ferrari. Little do they know, high performance cars are generally better on fuel because they don't need redlined to get speed out of them.

Think the guy has issues anyway. Even when I take my girlfriends car he is weaving in and out of trafic like a fool.

 

Chav and spoiler go hand in hand together down that merry little 80's and 90's era known as the rally car, i guess if you where to park up an iconic metro 6r4 in the works car park today you would be laughed at by most of the staff (idiots) working there , i'm trying to think of another car with such a bad stigma attached to it and for the life of me i cant , these cars only make sence when you drive them so from a visual point of view we look like idiots form the outside , i gotta say when people ask me what car i have now i really can't be assed telling them . Didnt mitsubishi scrap the evo 6 look because they where loosing sales from would be middle management who would feel daft driving it, hence the smooth cars that followed? I guess love it or hate it, as far as i can see the new hatch has NO stigma attached to it so subaru has left its old image behind to be polished and loved by those that wont to keep it alive

 

thing to remember is that people like that will nearly always drive like that!!

What he also doesn't realise is that from a standing start on a dual carriageway you could lose him easily without having to break the speed limit!!

 

The only thing I don't miss about my Scoob is the chav stigma attached to it. When I did have it, I'd get comments all the time when out and about. But for everyone on the street who I know (and even many I didn't), when they saw me putting 8-10 hours a day in on a weekly basis detailing it, they appreciated it was my pride and joy.

Having the 205 now is basically a nostalgia trip for anyone over 25. "Not seen one of those for ages mate" is common, same as "is it the proper 1.9 one guy?" etc etc. Get the same amount of attention as I did in the Scoob so my fragile ego is massaged well

Still want rid and another Scoob though, they're in my blood.

 

I've always said drive the car and not the image

Some people will undoubtedly act like **** when encountering a scooby, as it's hardly a discreet looking car and will prove provocative to those with something to prove

You get that with any well known performance car.

However, if you notice someone driving like a tit, you should not necessarily assume the behaviour is precipitated by your car; some people just drive like **** full stop!

FWIW: I'm a Psychologist and most people get a shock when they find out what I drive!