Here in the UK if you said you were going to buy a car, most people would instantly assume you mean second hand. There's not much of a culture of buying or leasing new cars here, and even less of leasing cars that you really can't afford (outside of petrolheads anyway)
Americans also spend a lot of time in their cars, I went from a short commute to a long commute (1 hour each way), and found I got almost exponentially more critical of my car the longer the commute.
Suddenly the practical vehicle I didn't mind driving 15 minutes, was an eyesore to look at after an hour, and the NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) wears on you exponentially with time.
I started browsing cars to buy that would have been borderline financial suicide for how much I made, just because of how important the comfort and aesthetics became to me.
Couple this with their tendency towards financing things, and how cheap automotive related expenses are in the US, and it's the perfect storm.
I ended up changing jobs to one 10 minutes from my house, and it's downtown so parking is just done at various pay lots a few blocks from my office so nobody ever sees what I drive, and suddenly what I drive is irrelevant again, I was back to being content with my 15 year old Camry.
I found out after test driving BMWs and Audis I don't see much difference between those cars and the Fit other than some bogus identity around it. It's just driving. I've taken many 6-12 hour long non-stop trips in the Fit (e.g. SF to Seattle where I only left the car once to pump gas, the 2nd time I had to get gas was in Oregon; many trips to Eastern Sierras from SF, etc.) and I think it's fine.
So while I agree if someone says they are buying a “new car” it just could mean “new to them” I do think a lot of people do lease. I see a lot of young people with new BMWs etc, probably paying with money that they will regret not having put into their pension in years to come. Or maybe I should have lived a little bit more at their age.
Mainly because I've never seen a lease where the dealer doesn't ask you if you want to buy it.
The issue seems to be in previous generations cars were more of a status symbol for many (as well as being generally more affordable), so lots of people were raised with that expectation. So they buy/lease flashy overpriced German maintenance money-pits and scoff at used Toyotas because they're boring.
That or they're just trying to put on a veneer of financial success as part of their "hustle".
A little while after I bought it, prices actually went up over what I purchased it for, and I was getting letters from Toyota dealerships offering to buy it back from me above my cost.
It's declined in value since then, but still runs well (knock on wood).
This isn't saying used cars aren't worth it -- they definitely are -- but for certain scenarios I think the choice is maybe more complicated than I thought for a long time.
I doubt the same would happen now with an economy halted.
They're living at their means instead of within their means, let alone beneath their means. So the moment any financial difficulty comes their way they're screwed. It's especially irrational if it's just for extra enjoyment beyond necessary comfort. Someone who takes out a personal loan to buy all the blu-rays he wants would be called financially irresponsible, yet it seems perfectly reasonable to some to pay hundreds of dollars a month extra for that BMW or Range Rover.
My father enjoyed driving his Mercedes, so I figured I ought to enjoy a German luxury car as well. I expected to pay a certain premium on parts, and obviously for premium fuel and synthetic oil, but that I'd get a much more solid feeling car in return.
The problem is, the Mercedes he drove were from the 80s and 90s, so parts markup aside, they were basically Toyota reliable.
The German car I bought was from the mid-2000s, and nowhere near as well built or reliable as a 90s Mercedes, even in present day.
I'd even owned a 1986 Mercedes that was still reliable in 2010, I'd also owned a 1992 Mercedes that was also reliable, and continued to be so after I sold it to a friend who drove it for all of university (2010-2015).
But it was the 7 year old one that basically fell apart despite me buying one with full dealership service history, then sinking endless money in making sure all the repairs were done properly with OEM parts, on top of my religious maintenance as I'd believed German cars were only problematic due to neglectful owners.
So, it went about as poorly as you'd expect.
This is true in America as well. I think wealthy Americans forget that regular Americans often live their whole lives while never owning a "new" car.
(This is even true of car loans in the US -- the majority of those are for used vehicles).
That’s quite different to somewhere like New Zealand, where the average age is twice that and almost nobody buys a brand new car - instead most cars are imported second hand from overseas.
I guess part of it is that it's a very car oriented culture, but the other part is that people value owning a new shiny thing over financial cautiousness.
Frankly, as an American, the UK's car market seems nuts to me. The kinds of cars that folks get as "company cars" is laughable.
The rule of thumb in the UK is a car gets about 10k miles per year and "modern" cars tend to last about 150-200k miles before they're not worth the repair costs.
For example, my car is a 2005 Focus which I recognise is older than most cars on the road, but costs me a couple hundred quid in maintenance each year and I have no intention in upgrading until it becomes uneconomical