Differentiating Cars

Cars all look alike. I can't tell the difference between the Swift and not-so-swift, a car with an Accent, and one without, one that plays Polo or one that plays Golf, or the car that provides you with Esteem, or just drives you around the City. I used to think Corolla is a part of a flower (as the movie Chupke Chupke told us through its Botany professor character), until one appeared with four wheels on the road!

Similarly, Tavera sounds like a second cousin of the revolutionary Che Guevara, but is not. Alto sounds like 'facebookese' for altitude, like congo is facebookese for congratulations. Ritz, glitz and glamour is actually right for the fashion world,and not the world of the automobile. A Safari is supposed to be had in a jungle, but takes you through the concrete jungle today.

Infiniti is something that most kids are scared of in their Maths class, and elders, in old age. Micra sounds like a bikini for men, but is also a name of one and an anagram for my car (spelt mi car). Figo is definitely a four letter world in Italian. Or at least, a challenge to someone who remains unilluminated about some unfolding mystery, as in 'go figo'.

Marketing experts will of course, vehemently deny all these attempts at breaking down their defences and will swear by some irrelevant excuses to charge more, like "this car has 22mm of extra luggage space or 45 microns of extra leg space", or "we have a windshield wiper that goes from 0 to 60 metres per hour in 3.7 seconds flat". But don't let that fool you. All of them have 4 wheels and a steering, as a wag said(actually, Ricardo Semler said it), and have had them since 1857, or whenever the car was invented). And in the Mumbai traffic (or in Bangalore, or elsewhere for that matter), you can't go at more than 20 kmph anyways!

6 comments:

Shobha Nargundkar said...

Hilarious!Seriously,i agree, also i can't understand the prices of cars... from a few lakhs to a few crores...what's the big deal..i think!they all have 4 wheels and they all take you where you want to go at 20kmph!

Rajendra said...

it's high time we reinvented the pushpak vimaan which our mythological stories had!

Paddy said...

You are getting burnt out ? How can 'you' commoditise a high involvement personal possession like cars as just any 4-wheeler? Extending the same argument...all cellphones are only for talking.. why so many models ? But at a fundmamental level - both consumerism and marketing are a rip-off on consumers !

Rajendra said...

ha, ha, Paddy, I am (like all of us) on a slow-burn. Just want to fly instead of drive-is a personal flying craft too much to ask for in my lifetime? Bond did it many years ago.

Unknown said...

This is really wonderful. What one should really appreciate is that being an eminent Professor of Marketing, Dr. Nargundkar himself takes a dig at the profession. Not all of us can really do that!
He who laughs lasts!!!!!!!!!!

Rajendra said...

Thanks, TOM.

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