You don't buy a Caddy because it drives like a Porsche.

Sting-rays may not have been fast or responsive (although you got good traction in snow: kind of like a 911) but the cool-, tough-, wicked-, sick-factor was off the charts compared to anything else. Not to mention the comparative ease of popping wheelies on a stingray.

You never looked as good (or imagined so) as you did cruising along your sun-dappled, tree-lined suburban cul-de-sac past the neighborhood kids staring enviously as you, arrogance personified, reclining against your four-foot-long chrome-plated backrest tube, attempted to hock a loogie in their general direction (although, like most healthy ten-year-olds, you couldn't spit like your old man, needing at least 2 decades and many thousand cigarettes to build up the necessary body and fullness). Even if your mostly foam offering missed the mark, the message was unmistakable: he who rides a Sting-ray rules, and is entitled to respect from his inferiors.