Supreme symbol of swagger

From Wikipedia

...this was in the days, quite thirteen years ago, when automobilists made their wills and took food supplies...


Now even today, when the very cabman drives his automobile, a man who buys a motor cannot say to a friend: "I've bought a motor. Come for a spin," in the same self-unconscious accents as he would say: "I've bought a boat. Come for a sail," or "I've bought a house. Come and look at it." Even today and in the centre of London there is still something about a motor - well something... 


Everybody who has bought a motor, and everybody who has dreamed of buying a motor, will comprehend me. Useless to feign that a motor is the most banal thing imaginable. It is not. It remains the supreme symbol of swagger.


Arnold Bennett - The Card - published 1910