Make Wealth Extra Again

A Case for Bringing Back the Stretch Limo

A version of this article first appeared in Dough Magazine. Because it’s not available online, I’m reposting it here.

Source: Gregor Ravik

Have you noticed that nobody rides stretch limos anymore? It’s a subtle fact that you might not notice until someone writes a think-piece about it. But the numbers are in, and there’s no dispute: Whereas a little more than a decade ago, pre-2008, stretch limos made up more than 10% of total limo revenues, these days they make up less than 1%. Or, in the words of one limo driver, “they’re extinct.”

That’s according to an interview in The New York Times with the National Limousine Association, who apparently records such things. So, what happened?

In typical New York Times fashion, the decline of the stretch limo is chalked up to a highly sensible combination of technological and political factors. The Great Recession (2007-2009), we are told, knocked off the primary client base, while ridesharing services, like Uber and Lyft, stepped in to scoop up the balance. And then, in 2015 and 2018, after two deadly crashes, in which bodies were flung through the infinite corridor of the limo chamber, public opinion soured on the old chariot, which led to stiffer regulations. In other words, people had to actually wear their seatbelts (which is no fun).

What the New York Times doesn’t write about is a factor known to those who care as ‘taste.’ Yes, that old medusa of the zeitgeist, flopping around with its many heads. But before we get there, a riddle: what do Patagonia vests, caseless iPhones, and American drones have in common?

The answer has two parts. The first comes from a concept that’s received some attention in light of Succession: “stealth wealth.”

In contrast to the elaborate displays of wealth which defined the late 1990s and early 2000s (think: mint green hummers with tinted windows, Paris Hilton in a hot pink Bentley, grillz dripping with diamonds, and, yes, Gordon Gekko in a stretch limo), the latest expressions of extreme wealth, at least in America, involve finding ways to hide the drip beneath a veneer of the everyman, concealed “tastefully” in plain sight.

In other words, in the semiotics of modern American wealth, luxury is something to be expressed behind closed doors. On the street, you wear minimalist clothing that looks like something you could buy at Zara, but at home you live in a Park Ave multiplex with a Picasso on the wall. Ostentatiousness is simply low-brow.

That’s why, again, in Succession, the Roy’s look so business-typical yet walk around with no case on their iPhone(s): wealth is expressed in the dispensability of expensive things. It’s also why they drive in Range Rovers or mere Mercedes SUVs, and why Kendall wears a plain black hat that costs thousands of dollars: they’re items for people who want to blend in.

In some ways, the Patagonia vest—which, famously, is the go-to outfit of finance bros the world over—is the paragon of this minimalist functionalism. Even if you’re making $800k for dumping capital into startups that “revolutionize diaper delivery,” you wear clothing that expresses how, underneath it all, you’re super chill. Yes, you LOVE to hike.

One explanation for the shift is that, with the rise of social media, self-exposure and celebrity became an everyday facet of life for the ultra-wealthy, and not just something to be exhibited on the red carpet. In 2023, rich people get their attention-jollies at their own discretion, on their phone, without the need to show off for the paparazzi. So the rewards for being extra don’t pay off in the same way. No need to go Kony 2012 in order to blast your message on social media. Just do it from the safety of your doorman-ed, arch-digest friendly, bunker of a home.

But the explanation I like—and the one I’m sticking with—is that in a post-Trump world the patina of extreme wealth has changed because American empire is simply less confident about itself. It’s scared of letting the ugliness show—a contrast accentuated against the backdrop of the 90s when America emerged as the undisputed winner of the Cold War.

At the end of history, the triumph of capitalism over Russian communism signaled that “greed was good” and that consumerism, as a way of life, was to be celebrated. Philosophically, at least, it was seen as the basis of our success.

In such a context, which coincided with the rise of the famous person who is famous for being famous, it only made sense for displays of wealth to be exaggerated, elaborate, extra (and, in the case of stretch limos, elongated).

As America projected images of spectacular wealth to the rest of the world, it was also sending a message of triumph and power (we win, you lose, ha ha). In this sense, the stretch limo was more than just a symbol of skeezy delight. It was a symbol of American geopolitics.

But in a post 9/11; post-Iraq; post-2008; post-Trump world, the American elite seems to have lost their ju-ju. The Greatest Country in the World is now also the world leader in mass shooting events, incarcerated citizens per capita, defense spending, and earth-shattering financial fraud. And recently, it's been climbing the charts in pursuit of the top spot in economic inequality, up there with South Africa, Zambia, and Mozambique. In the shadow of all these failures, American exceptionalism doesn’t look so hot after all.

And that’s where drones come in. As Yale history professor Samuel Moyn argued in his 2021 book, Humane, the rise of American Empire has coincided with the rise of a new style of war — a more “humane” war, in which, despite an ever-expanding gyre of surveillance and foreign interference, there are fewer civilian casualties, and less torture, where lawyers help pick military targets and humanitarian groups focus on whether armies have followed the rules, not whether those wars should be fought in the first place.

“The attempt to make America’s military ways less obviously brutal has contributed decisively to making our wars more acceptable to many and difficult to see for others,” Moyn writes. In other words: hiding behind legal process and advanced machinery—making war less visible—has enabled a vast expansion of the system's underlying power. Just like America’s wealthy elite.

In this sense, the drone is the ultimate symbol of American empire from Obama onward: an army with no human footprint, save for dudes wiggling their little joysticks, controlling flying objects with guns that fire with crystalline precision. Call it “stealth power.”

So, in light of these developments, there is only one reasonable thing for our culture to do: Bring back the stretch limo.

For too long, America’s ultra-rich have been hiding in plain sight, hoarding toilet paper and longbows, while they sit in glittering castles that the public will never see, except on AD. To save American culture, we need to exorcize the garish displays of wealth from the fuck-you rich and put the “extra” back in extravagant. To fight an enemy, of course, you have to see it; and I suspect we can do this one lengthy limousine at a time.

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Update: In the time since this article was written, it’s become clear that, with the re-election of Donald Trump, the aesthetic trappings of 2002 have begun to return, especially among members of the triumphant MAGA Right. It might be hearsay, but in the last two months I’ve seen more stretch limos than I have in the previous five years. Par example: