Maybe it's because they were nearly ubiquitous in the middle-class part of suburban Houston I grew up in, but even though lots of people hard cars, I somehow didn't really associate any status with them. Someone always had a car, and if you didn't, someone would pick you up. Nobody except rich kids owned their own cars, so you weren't driving anything particularly interesting anyway, just your mom's station wagon. As long as one person in your circle of friends had use of a car for the day/evening, they could pick everyone up, and it served the utilitarian purpose of covering the long-ass distances between stuff, which were impractical to bike or walk (and of course there was no public transport).