Commentary: You are what you drive in Corona del Mar

It’s said that eyes are the windows to the soul, but for those not face to face, we can guess what lies within from the cars people drive. Owners of a car with tinted windows are like a person wearing sunglasses inside: they don’t want people to see into their souls.

In the early 2000s, when Lee and I first moved to Corona del Mar, Jaguars owned the roads. Jaguars seemed to say, “I’m the classic, conservative type — and I love luxury.”

BMWs replaced the Jaguar in popularity. BMWs say, “You don’t have to be the ultimate driver to own the ultimate driving machine.”

Next came all SUVs and — for a blessedly short while — the appalling “I have no soul” Hummer. Now there’s a personal statement! “I’m big and ready for war!”

For awhile, Bentleys replaced Hummers on the neighborhood popularity scale, saying, “I have class and subtlety, and I’m richer than you and all your friends.”

The Prius virtually emptied the streets of other cars. Prius drivers care about the environment and about how much they spend on gas. A Prius Plug-in says, “Yes, my car is funny-looking, but I can drive in the HOV lane.”

The Tesla is a Bentley mated with a Prius. Tesla says, “I care about the environment. And I’m richer than you and all your friends.”

I “shop” for my next car all the while I’m driving my present one. Lexus and Mercedes battle for the road, possibly because they have the nearest dealerships.

One model especially called to me, so I told the salesman that I wanted a used Mercedes C-300 with GPS.

“We might have one of those,” he replied. “We can’t keep them on the lot.”

So I bought their lone, white C-300 with GPS. I told Jeanne — who drives her trusty, old-chic BMW convertible and actually is the ultimate driver — “The reason they call it the C-300 is because every day, you see 300.”

Of the ubiquitous model, the ubiquitous-est is white. When I got mine home, I put “lipstick” on it to distinguish it amid the horde. That means bumper stickers.

The first was CodePink’s shiny fuchsia one: the nonprofit demonstrates for peace and protests against injustice toward women everywhere.

I like luxury cars, but my bumper-stickers tend to contradict what my cars say. My C-300 said, “I’m of the conservative crowd, at the low end of the luxury scale” while my bumper statements said, “I’m liberal. And tacky.”

My prior conservative, classic car screamed “flaming liberal” and accumulated two dozen stickers by the 2008 presidential election year.

My other little stickers have included the equal sign that denotes the NAACP, the rainbow for LGBT, and my all-time fave: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

Lots of people react to my bumper stickers. One man castigated me as being blasphemous because of a sticker asserting that the Lord would never carry a gun or vote Republican.

Sometimes I get a scrawled note insulting me. But sometimes I get a nice note.

Either way, the Gelson’s parking lot is an arena for expressing partisanship. A woman once stopped me to say she’d felt she was the only one in Orange County who thought like me.

When strangers speak to me of our common political beliefs, I always hug them. One woman said, “Come to think of it, you hugged me when you had your previous car too.”

I loved that C-300, but I’ve traded it for something sporty and red. It’s not particularly popular. I don’t always buy the most popular. I surely skipped Hummer season, and while my mind shouts “Yes!” my soul just won’t say “Prius.”

Red Riding’s bumper-statement collection has only begun, with its CodePink sticker.

Maybe by 2020, Tesla will be selling used Model 3s compatible with my budget.

I’ll buy one on Lee’s behalf. He had a General Motors EV-1 in mind in the 1980s but never had a chance to own one. So, honey, you’ll be able to tell your WWII buddies Up There that you were one of the first to want an electric car and, at last, your wifey has one.

Even without cars in heaven, they know you are a good soul.

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Author LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.