Obviously, if all you care about is getting from point A to point B somehow then you're probably don't care much.
However, different cars have different characteristics, such as safety ratings (how likely you're to stay alive if you crash is important factor for some people), instrument clusters (my personal pet peeve - most cars have very poor UI/UX), rear window and mirror usefulness (in some you can get a clear view, in some you can barely see if someone's directly behind you or not), and all sorts of "luxuries" such as additional convex mirrors, backup camera or smartphone integration (CarPlay/Android Auto).
All those things - save for safety ratings - are quite subjective, so while some folks may just shrug and wonder how those matter, they make a lot of difference for others. The difference between a car that can drive and a car than you can drive pleasantly (or confidently) is probably significant.
Many of those are dependent also on trim level, not just make and model; which makes the original point moot, no?
But maybe I've also been spoiled by German car rental places — literally every single car I got here in the past ~5 years has had CarPlay, backup cameras, etc.
And I'd care about all of the above if I were to _buy_ a car, but for a week (or two) long trip, I genuinely can't imagine caring.
(Though, I guess, I am quite opinionated when it comes to picking my computers and phones, etc; and if I had to use a loaner Windows PC for a week I'd probably be mad too. I guess people can have that kind of preferences in cars?)j
Obviously, if all you care about is getting from point A to point B somehow then you're probably don't care much.
However, different cars have different characteristics, such as safety ratings (how likely you're to stay alive if you crash is important factor for some people), instrument clusters (my personal pet peeve - most cars have very poor UI/UX), rear window and mirror usefulness (in some you can get a clear view, in some you can barely see if someone's directly behind you or not), and all sorts of "luxuries" such as additional convex mirrors, backup camera or smartphone integration (CarPlay/Android Auto).
All those things - save for safety ratings - are quite subjective, so while some folks may just shrug and wonder how those matter, they make a lot of difference for others. The difference between a car that can drive and a car than you can drive pleasantly (or confidently) is probably significant.