What Cars Do Women Want?

Many people agree that women can be complex creatures, but when it comes to car preferences, maybe women aren’t so mysterious after all. If you are a woman looking to buy a car, or are looking to buy a car for a woman, you might be interested in the following results from various studies regarding the different car preferences between men and women.

Body Styles

According to a recent iSeeCars study, women have a 67% higher chance of purchasing a crossover than men, while men are four times more likely to buy a luxury sedan. However, men and women equally prefer minivans and hatchbacks. Men are also 41% more likely than women to buy a sports car, and women are 30% more likely than men to buy a wagon.

As far as non-luxury sedan makes and models, women are 21% more likely than men to purchase these types of vehicles. So from what the study shows so far, women like crossovers, sedans, and wagons, and generally stay away from high-powered sports cars and luxury vehicles.

Price Range

It turns out that women are 5% more likely than men to stay under $15K when purchasing a new car, while men are 2 times more likely than women to buy a car that costs $30K-$45K and 4 times more likely to buy a car $45K or more. So, this also speaks volumes about what types of vehicles women prefer to buy. Generally, they like affordable, modest vehicles that probably don’t have all the bells and whistles that a luxury car might have, but will get them from Point A to Point B safely.

Brands Names

When purchasing a car, women also have a few brands that they prefer statistically more than men. Women are two times more likely to buy a Kia than men, and also have a 67% higher preference for Hyundai than men. Men are 10 times more likely to buy a Maserati and 4.6 times more likely to buy a Porsche than women.

Year & Country Built

Yes, women also seem have a preference as to where and when a car was built. They tend to buy cars in the 2000-2011 model year range, while men prefer either classic cars or cars from very recent model years. Additionally, women are 20% more likely than men to buy a car made in Korea.

Where Lines are Drawn

The study by iSeeCars concludes that women might be more practical in their preferences for cars than men, and would rather buy a less flashy car that is affordable and ranks highly in reliability.

However, another study done by TrueCar.com finds some commonalities between the preferences of women and men. Both women and men say that these four criteria are important when shopping for a new car: exterior styling, value, experience with the brand, and performance.

Where men and women differ, though, is in how they rank certain features of a car. For example, women tend to value fuel economy and safety more than men, while men pay more attention to style and performance than women. Women also have a preference for smaller vehicles, such as Scion or Saturn.