That was pretty much the question. And the answer was not that obvious.
I always wondered why people were finding it so difficult to choose the color of their car. I had it figured that its so easy. You buy a Ferrari, its got to be Red. You dont want people to know its a Ferrari, you get a black. You get a lambo, its got to be Yellow. If you are F*lambo*yant, then its got to be an Orange.
The SLE variant of the Scorpio comes in 4 basic colors.
WHITE
I think this color is the favorite amongst our glorious civilization when it comes to buying new cars. White is supposed to symbolise purity, godliness, cleanliness, and what not. It is also supposed to symbolise power in the Indian context. No wonder the political and government class go gaga over this color. And no wonder our infatuation for fair *white* skin. Thank god for Bipasha Basu.
My mom was quite adamant about this color, since she saw the Scorpio ad, and Mahindra vehemently advertises its new Refresh with only this color everywhere. Its almost akin to bludgeoning the image into your brain. I was not very keen on the white at all, but heck - all of us are mama's boys. Mama wants something, she gets it.
BLACK
This color is the absolute opposite to the White. Though it symbolises power in the western world (all of the political class travel in black SUV's/Limo's), in India, its the color of the devil (guess all TBHPians who drive black cars are devils eitherways). The SLE Black came with Silver cladding. I did not like that. Was quite flashy.
So this color, according to my mum was out. Totally. Absolutely out.
ROCKY BEIGE
Honestly, I did not care for the color. When I did see some Scorpio's running around with this color, I did not turn around. No heads turning need not be such a bad thing - as I come to think about later.
SILVER
I had not seen a Silver. The Silver in the Refresh comes with the cladding in Silver as well.
Since we had only gotten to see a White Scorpio in all its splendor thanks to M&M's generous prime time ad spend, I went ahead and placed an order for a White 8 seater.
I chose the 8 seater because I could play around with the seat configuration more. The last bench could be removed and slotted in a jiffy (couple of jiffies as I came to realise later), and the middle bench could be reclined well behind. One part of the rear seat can be reclined individually, which I found to be a boon on my just concluded mysore trip, since my little cousin was throwing up and wanted to sleep, whilst her mom and mine wanted to sit up straight. The Scorpio considered her little wish done!
6 days prior to promised delivery, I get a call from a sales guy in Sireesh - a guy whom I had never heard of before. He said, there's a white scorpio with the 8 seater configuration - would you like it?
Hell yeah!
So why didnt you tell me earlier? Or why wasnt I getting mine delivered in the first lot as promised? Or is someone not able to fork out the cash? Lot of questions. The guy came over to my office with a VLX Mhawk so that we could drive to the stockyard and check for ourselves. I cut the cheque for the entire car right in front of him, and he knew I meant business.
I drove the Mhawk all the way there. Amazingly, I had never test driven the Mhawk beyond 2 kms before making my decision. This time, I decided to have fun. I red lined the thing until I got tired of the turbo whistle. That should say it all. Though the engine check light was on all the way, and the clutch was absolutely shattered.
We drove into the stockyard and I could see a whole bunch of gleaming Scorp's hanging around for their new families to take them in. It almost felt like walking into an adoption agency.
I see one White SLE, one Silver SLE and one R-Beige SLE. All standing next to each other.
The White was a 7 seater. And it came with JK tyres. She looked gorgeous from the front. I mean it. Straight out of a transformers movie as one member here out it. But she looked way to flashy. Way to hot. She looked like one of those high maintenance chicks who will only drink absolut vodka at the already horribly over priced bar. And I could seriously hear this ringing in my head:
Guy sitting in a small puny korean/jap car at a signal remarking "Look at this guy sitting in this new white scorpio. Must definitely be a real estate reddy garu guy who has minted money by selling land near the new international airport and this is his latest toy".
Jeez, I did not want this color.
I walked over and saw the Silver. Now the Silver looked good. I mean, the cladding was also silver - and the new cladding really adds more substance to the car and makes horrible colors look more complete.
What put me off though was that Silver is too boring. Too executive. Too accountant'ish. A friend I dialled in was all out for the Silver though.
I walked over to the poor beige who was not getting much attention. She was a 8 seater from the get go. The sales guy walked over to me. I was already sweating profusely, standing on an open ground with metres of metal for company, the sun's heat bouncing off all of us. He said he could shift over the middle and last bench from the 8 seater beige to the 7 seater white. I had specifically asked for this operation to be done in front of me and he agreed.
I was still feeling forced to get the White, and I checked her tyres out, and it was JK! Me no like JK! Me want BStone! The Beige has BStones! I wanted to the tires shifted too. I raised a hue and cry right there and jumped up and down for real. They relented and gave in. But I had still not made my decision on the color.
I liked the Beige for some odd reason. She was neither green, nor grey. Neither here nor there. Very subtle. Very low maintenance. The lines of the car flowed ever more smoother. She looked a lot more rounded and understated. Much more rough and tough than either the black or the white. Both the Black and white looked like urban assault vehicles. The beige looked for expedition, and that is what I wanted to do.
That word - expedition - sealed it.
I sealed the order and walked out the door. But not without some more drama which I again created hell for and made the sales guy sweat so profusely, he must have had a severe case of dehydration.