Here’s your story.
So you save some pennies and borrow some dimes and maybe sell a kidney to buy a brand new GLi. You opt for white. You keep it clean and pamper it like your firstborn. You pour the best lubricants in it, you maintain it from the dealership, and you keep it away from cats and kids. You make a thread on PakWheels forums titled “Mah pride, Mah beast” where you force every believer and non-believer to say “MashaAllah.” Your Facebook timeline starts to get populated with photos of pre and post detailing sessions and videos recording the 0-40 times of your new car. You engage in heated online bouts and block your only logical friend when he disagrees with your notion of Toyota Corolla GLi being better than a Mercedes W213. You trash Civics and Cities on every forum and every portal relevant or irrelevant just to justify your purchase.
It may not be a beast, but it definitely is your pride.
Then you travel all the way to Islamabad to attend a wedding. You silently praise the quietness of its cabin, its effortlessness on the Motorway Salt Range climb, and its fuel gauge which seems to have moved only slightly since you started your journey. You enter the venue and park it specifically where everyone can see it. You wave to your friends with pride as you approach them after securely locking it. After a few plates of free biryani and roasted chicken and topping it with half a kilo custard, conversations start to flow freely. That’s when one of your pindiwaal friends casually asks out of the blue,
Adnan, Toeta na rent kinna chalna uss?
(What’s the current daily rent of Toyota?)
Your heart sinks; why did he ask that?
You spend the rest of the evening justifying that it is your own car. He smirks and nods, but it isn’t convincing. You travel your way back to Lahore quietly, winning hypothetical arguments in your head until you are stopped and frisked at Ravi Toll Plaza because the Police suspects it’s a rental without original documents and they may earn some “chaye paani.” You wonder what gave them the impression? Was it you? Was it the fake Ray Ban on the dashboard? Wait…was it the color of your car?
Let’s be honest; white is a brilliant color.
White is the easiest color to maintain when it comes to cars. Most white cars appear clean even when they are covered with a pile of dust. The imperfections in paint or bodywork are camouflaged into the look unless you get up close and personal. A simple wipe with a damp cloth makes it appear as if the car has been thoroughly detailed. And it looks absolutely gorgeous with the tiniest of tasteful modifications – from honeycomb grills to strategically placed DRLs to lip spoilers…not to mention what a good set of 6 spoke white wheels on a white car could do to us men.
And then there is the heat – white is a color which reflects more of it and absorbs less. There must be a scientific factsheet on google somewhere, but we already know it’s logical because we have all been force-taught science subjects till 10th grade, even if some of us wanted to grow up to be a ballerina (yes, you there, the dude wearing friendship bracelet, I’m talking about you, cupcake).
The bottom-line is that white cars are easy to match, easy to maintain, easy to live with and look nonchalantly refreshing. But most rentals Corollas are white. And you may be perceived as driving one if you drive a white Toyota Corolla.
So how do you tell a pet cat from a stray cat? This post will briefly address the steps you may take to domesticate your car and avoid that “rental” impression.
Let us start with wheels.
They say wheels are the shoes of a car, and shoes are the most intricate piece of wearable in any man’s wardrobe. You can dress up a pair of dark jeans with Monkstraps and attend a corporate hi-tea, and you can dress down the same pair of jeans with sneakers and rock a family BBQ in the mountains. However, you can put on Crocs with the exact same pair of jeans and bring disgrace to your name, your family, your caste, your country, your gender and your race while unintentionally coming out of the closet at the same time.
Same is the case with wheels. Classy Vossens or Sporty Volks, Works or BBS, they all speak of taste acquired over time. Rental cars, on the other hand, come with bare minimum; wheel caps, or the first off-the-shelf shiny Chinese rims with black accents. Taxis don’t roam with TE37s, so if you drive a white Toyota Corolla with nice wheels, it will not be mistaken for a rent-a-car. My advice – go that extra mile and get a nice set of branded wheels.
The second most peculiar thing about rental cars is their raised ride height.
When they are handing over their 2-Million-rupee asset to a total stranger, the rental companies tend to secure their end in numerous ways. Insuring the car, limiting speed electronically, and installing spacers are few of the key precautionary measures practiced in the local market. They raise the car to prevent underbody damage by jokers who’ll take it to an exclusive SUV track with seven people on board just because “paraaya maal – ya Hussain.”
Hence raised cars are generally perceived as taxis/rental cars. You can avoid being mistaken for driving one by keeping the car at stock height…or if you prefer, and afford, lower it a tad.
The third instant giveaway for a rental vehicle is an interesting piece of cloth; a thin strip of black fabric hanging from the front or rear bumper, silencer or at times with the rear-view mirror. It started off as a religious (read cultural) concept, but soon developed into the unofficial trademark of all rent-a-cars. So, unless you have religious reasons, or believe that a piece of tiny harmless black cloth will save you from mishaps, accidents, theft, challans, bad fuel economy and a lonely life, I suggest you lose it.
Then there are the tiny interior accents which imply that the car is, well, a rental – fancy car freshener bottle stuck with double-sided adhesive in the dead center of the dashboard, Tissue box inside a maroon velvet case, Type-R floor mats and fluffy heart-shaped cushions on the rear speaker board. Don’t do those, not just to avoid being perceived as a rental, but merely for the fact that human civilization evolved over centuries and millenniums, fought wars and traveled interstellar, all that to reach a point where everyone unanimously agrees that cushions are to be placed on couches and beds, not on speaker-boards.
Stains – either from paan or puke, inside on the upholstery or outside on the body, doors or footboards are another indication for the car being not your own. You simply wouldn’t spit on your kitchen floor, or your dining table, or on your 4-year-old son, will you? Similarly, normal people don’t stain their cars. Keep your cars clean, stainless, shiny to avoid being perceived as a rental. As the Urdu saying goes, cleanliness is 50% faith…and 50% resale.
Last but not least, driving like a moron. No one drives a car bought from his sweat and blood over sidewalks and hard shoulders, splashing through puddles and running over rocks and bricks and homeless drug addicts with desi dance songs about the redundancy of good ol’ gentlemanly door knock, playing at full volume. Anyone doing that is classified as “rent di gaddi” or “haraam da maal.”
White is the prettiest of colors; it complements the cuts, curves, and design of a vehicle. It is subtle yet fresh. It is easy to live with and is totally timeless. And just because most, if not all, the rental Toyota Corollas in Pakistan happen to be white, you should not deprive yourself of all the perks owning a white car.
Just domesticate it.
*Disclaimer*
- This is an opinion piece.
- The names and characters used in this article are fictitious. The writer may not have any friend named Adnan with a white Corolla.
