What your CEO drives says a lot

— -- Cars often are big attention grabbers. That's especially true when it comes to what the CEO drives.

How the boss gets to work might seem a relatively innocuous thing. But people pay close attention to what their CEO drives. Only 10% of nearly 3,000 people asked didn't know what their chief drives, according to a survey by TheLadders.com, a job-search site for those making $100,000-plus. While that might not represent the typical employee, it shows that there is a keen interest in what kind of wheels the person at the helm of the company has.

A car can say a lot about the person in the corner office. "Of all the products in the world, cars are the most reliable representation of an individual's personality," says Golden Gate University psychology chair Kit Yarrow.

What CEOs drive offers a look into their personal engine blocks. Some drive hybrids to be green. Others favor older cars to show they can milk the most from available resources. Then, there are those who want expensive and fast because they're at the top and won't settle for less.

BMW was the most popular make driven by the C-level executives on the survey TheLadders.com conducted for USA TODAY. Yet BMWs accounted for only 13% of the total, followed by Ford at 7% and Lexus at 5%. A separate USA TODAY survey of 90 CEOs found 13% drive a BMW, 12% a Mercedes and 10% a Toyota.