A peek into the garages of the world's billionaires reveals... a 13-year-old Volvo?

Nate Chapnick over at ForbesAuto.com is either terribly resourceful or amazingly persistent, as he's gone to the trouble of ringing up DMVs around the U.S. in order to find out what car keys America's billionaires secret in their suit pockets.

Judging by a list that includes far more prosaic iron than one might think, perhaps being a plain-ol' millionaire is somehow a more liberating existence. Okay, so perhaps the aformentioned Volvo, a 1993 240 GL owned by Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad makes some sense. But c'mon: Paul Allen of Microsoft's got nothing better to trundle about in than a 1988 Mazda B-Series? Somehow we doubt he'd even let his maid roll curbside to snag the day's Wall Street Journal, let alone use the aging pickup as his daily driver.

Mind you, even though we're all for being thrifty and not throwing our billions on chrome-plated Lamborghinis (you'd never suspect that Autoblog editors command ten-figure salaries from a peek into our garages), we still can't wrap our heads around fellow Microsoftian Steven Ballmer's 1998 Lincoln Continental.

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