The 1985 movie The Breakfast Club opens with parents dropping off students at a high school. My question was, hey, these kids are obviously in their late 20s, why aren't they driving themselves? It became clear that this was Saturday detention, and these five were all in trouble, so the parents wanted to make sure they actually attended. What I didn't realize at the time was that the scene was an introduction to the backgrounds of these detainees. What car their parents drove says a lot about their home life. Bender, who came from an abusive home, walked to the school. The others arrived in cars that were meant to broadcast a stereotype.
The Autopian describes the implied stereotypes associated with each vehicle and what they are supposed to tell us about the family. Since the movie is almost 40 years old, you might not familiar with those stereotypes. They only disagree with one, which can be forgiven, because John Hughs and the crew associated with The Breakfast Club were outside of that stereotype. My parents were firmly in that world, and were driving old Toyotas in 1985, after 20 years of Volkswagens. The article at The Autopian clues us in on the cars of 1985 and the tricks of storytelling in film as well.