Like people, cars and places also have personalities that make them attractive or repulsive. We all know that some people are slick and stylish while others are rough and tough. Sexy people are drawn to sexy cars but the personalities of different places also attract cars with kindred personalities. Holiday destinations like Bangkok, Goa and Simla are usually fun places attracting fun people who want to drive fun cars. Industrial towns like Mumbai, Detroit or Frankfurt attract industrious people who mostly want practical cars while most capital cities are full of stuffy bureaucrats and boring cars. New York, Hong Kong, London and Paris are great cities but they have completely different personalities. The very word Paris immediately suggests elegant cafés, high fashion and heady perfumes.
Model for model the cars of the three German giants Audi, BMW and Mercedes are pretty much the same in terms of performance, reliability and solid value. They all offer a range of sleek and sturdy cars but their personalities are very different. The name Mercedes suggests that the owner is rich and important while BMW suggests that the occupants are rich too but more sporty while the Audi appeals to buyers who want to project a technologically smart image. Personalities also change with time. Mercedes used to be the sedan of choice among important international bankers until the next generation wanted younger cars to reflect their personalities and Mercedes had to invest heavily in freshening up its image to get out of a ‘grandfather’s car’ image.
They all make great sports cars but none of these have the image of truly sporty marques like Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche or Aston Martin. Actually all sports cars are wildly impractical but people buy them for their personalities than for actual use on the road. They have often been called expensive mobile sculptures. No one can say that a Rolls-Royce is worth ten times as much as a very competent Toyota Corolla but people buy it and super car rivals like the Bentley because they have huge ‘snob value’.
Mercedes Benz spent a fortune building a super car called Maybach but it failed to click because it offered
everything except an evocative brand personality.
Closer to home Tata Motors spent a great deal of money, time and effort to make the little Nano. It was actually a great little car with such good inner space and fuel efficiency that should have been a great success but it had unfortunately been positioned as a ‘poor man’s car’ and the upwardly mobile young buyers did not want a car that did not match their social aspirations. It might have been much more successful if it had been positioned as a ‘fun car’ or a ‘cute car’. Though production has now stopped we see many Nano’s running in fun towns like Goa, Simla or Darjeeling because of such cute and fun qualities in addition to its practical economy. It’s main technical failing had been its inability to be comfortably driven at over 80 KMPH but this is no handicap in small towns with narrow twisty roads.
Holiday destinations also have their own personalities. The proportion of Jeeps, SUV’s and Royal Enfield bikes is much higher in Ladakh and Goa than in any normal urban town. And as many women also want to drive there are also many more scooters. A rugged four wheel drive Jeep like the Thar would make good sense for a driver in the sands of Rajasthan or for the snows of the Himalayas but in an urban environment it is mainly bought because of its ‘Macho’ personality.
Murad Ali Baig
Senior automobile analyst