What made them do it?

[Cavcraft]

Does anyone else ever wonder what goes through some people's minds when they buy a new car?I always used to look at Volvo 340s in dull colours with dull spec and wonder what made someone think it was a good idea to buy it new?Did they just wake up one day, decide their old car was knackered and they wanted a new one? Did they then think, hmm, I hear Volvos are good cars I'll buy one of them then run to the nearest main dealer with the contents of their underbed biscuit tin money box and sign on the dotted line?Did they just drop in to buy a genuine valve cap for their 244 and got sideswiped by some cheesy turd in a suit?Or did they read an advert in Autocar whilst at their eye clinic and catch sight of some dashing forty something bloke with a tweed jacket and deerstalker leaning jauntily against his 340GL?I don't want this turning in to a (manfacturer) are shit thing, just wondered what other motors you can't believe someone bought new and the reasons you think are behind it.*Good on the people that did buy all that shite years ago of course, as it's given us the chance to own them 17th hand for like 50p or something and marvel at the minge-iness of them!

[Pete-M]

My mum had a Peugeot 104 ZR (JJP744V) that was about a month old when she got it. It'd been ordered by a Vicar or someone similar who'd been sent off somewhere a bit remote and he'd only done about 200 miles in it and returned it to the original dealership.Dad bought it very cheaply on account of it being beige. mum was happy as she's one of those weirdos who likes beige cars.Her car before that was a metallic green Fiesta 1.1S (DNX68T) which had had a similar thing happen to it when new. I remember that only had 170 miles or so on the clock but mum was the second owner.I know this doesn't answer the question, but it shows that there are lunatics out there who'll buy a brand new car and keep it for a fortnight. If they'll do that, then picking a lousy colour is the least of their issues.When I worked for Nissan we used to actively persuade people away from picking OAP colours for their cars. Primeras and Almeras were available in some truly awful shades. I did, however, sell a fully specced up £22,000 Primera SE with all the toys that the bloke insisted had to be 'that nice metallic brown'. Even when we tried to persuade him that it was a special order (it wasn't, but you had to be special to order it) he said he'd be more than happy to wait.

[Nervy Si]

Does anyone else ever wonder what goes through some people's minds when they buy a new car?

Yep When I worked in Cambridge a few years ago (about 2001-2003) somebody used to park a beige E28 BMW 520i near the gate. Not beige as in metallic beigey-gold, but gloss hearing aid beige. Beige paint, dark brown cloth seats, no sunroof, no rear spoiler, steelies, and I swear it didn't even have tinted glass, can't recall seeing another E28 so basic. Incredible. The 520i was a pricey car when new (something like 13 or 14 grand I think?), why specify one with the aesthetic appeal of a Curver stackable box? Whoever shelled out for that baby thinking they would look really flash in their new Beemer was, I would humbly suggest, mistaken.

[ChinaTom]

I ask the very same question, usually to Mrs CT as there's no-one else in the car. She annoyingly finds plenty of reasons - usually examples of reasons that most blokes just wouldn't think of. Mrs CT made me choose the Kia Carnival over the more normally accepted Buick GL8 as the front door pockets were big enough for litre bottles of water and the seat adjustment controls were better designed to operate on the move etc etc. Totally brilliant reasons that have nothing to do with image, price, engine, perceived quality of the brand etc. Annoying!The most recent victims of this question this morning were:Mitsubishi Space Star. Just... well, why?Audi A5 4 door - didn't even know this existed - what's the A6 for then?

[Tayne]

.

[Rod/b]

Pete - I reckon the dealer was spinning your folks a line about the vicar moving to remote climes, and just flogging on the demos or pre-registered motors!Call me a cynic, but this is car dealers we're talking about.The one i'm most surprised about was my brother-in-law's dad who, despite knowing a thing or two about cars, went and bought a brand new, base spec 1.3 Sierra on a Y plate, when they were new out. He than proceeded to complain about how underpowered it was for the 15 years or so he kept it.

[strangehighways]

Although far too young to be around when new Ford Capri 1.3's were being sold new, I cannot understand why someone would buy a coupe with such a feeble engine.

[Rocket88]

There was a bit in last week's Autocar that brown is making a comeback [seriously!] I don't mind beige, but I've never understood who went into BL showroom in the seventies, and ordered a Russett brown Stag [or MGB for that matter......]

[ChinaTom]

O yeah, just remembered another one. Saw a Hyundai Sonata 3.3V6 on the Dartford Bridge a month back. I can't think of a single reason why this car was bought new - not exactly mega-power from that old lump and low 20's mpg only to be out-dragged by just about any reasonably engined Mondeo or Audi. They don't even sound that good.

[ashmicro]

There's an old boy who's lived round here for donkeys years who buys nice cars in oddball colours. I walked past his nice house every day going to and from school. This is a really nice (big) bungalow, with a beautiful 3/4 garden. The house was (and still is) painted battleship grey.Over the past 25 or so years he's went up the German prestige ladder in a variety of peculiar colours. Some of the ones I remember:316 - Hearing aid beige or HEB323 - HEB323i - a weird, washed out looking Kermit greenFast forward to 2009, he now has a new HEB 911 CarreraNutter

[whitevanman]

Suzuki X90..............why

wide track 4x4 with slicks and 2 seats ?????

[Guest]

Does anyone else ever wonder what goes through some people's minds when they buy a new car?

Yep

 

When I worked in Cambridge a few years ago (about 2001-2003) somebody used to park a beige E28 BMW 520i near the gate. Not beige as in metallic beigey-gold, but gloss hearing aid beige. Beige paint, dark brown cloth seats, no sunroof, no rear spoiler, steelies, and I swear it didn't even have tinted glass, can't recall seeing another E28 so basic.

 

Incredible. The 520i was a pricey car when new (something like 13 or 14 grand I think?), why specify one with the aesthetic appeal of a Curver stackable box? Whoever shelled out for that baby thinking they would look really flash in their new Beemer was, I would humbly suggest, mistaken.

I think there must have been a small batch of Duesseldorf taxis that accidentally got built in RHD. I still see this one out'n'about now and again

 

EDIT. And as for brown MGs... (shame they didn't appear to come in Allegro 2 Beige)

[Richard]

I think that Allegro brown colour looks quite good, in a brown sort of way.

[warren t claim]

Did Rover P6's ever come in any other colours other than brown or beige?

[Pete-M]

Pete - I reckon the dealer was spinning your folks a line about the vicar moving to remote climes, and just flogging on the demos or pre-registered motors!Call me a cynic, but this is car dealers we're talking about.

You're a cynic :PIt was registered to a chap of a holy denomination, and my dad was a motor trader who ended up running a Peugeot main agent for the chap the 104 came from, so I suspect the Vicar story to be true.As for brown cars. I rather like 'em. Mk4 Cortina Ghias look rather good in brown, and I quite like Range Rover Classics in that metallic brown as well.Beige, on the other hand, is vile.

[Guest]

What's wrong with beige cars? Or brown ones? Or Sonata V6s? You lot are mad.

[Pete-M]

Brown I like. Beige isn't my colour of choice, although I've owned a couple of 'Smoke Silver' Mercs - and they're damn close to beige.

[shite_meister]

Does anyone else ever wonder what goes through some people's minds when they buy a new car?

Yep

 

When I worked in Cambridge a few years ago (about 2001-2003) somebody used to park a beige E28 BMW 520i near the gate. Not beige as in metallic beigey-gold, but gloss hearing aid beige. Beige paint, dark brown cloth seats, no sunroof, no rear spoiler, steelies, and I swear it didn't even have tinted glass, can't recall seeing another E28 so basic.

 

Incredible. The 520i was a pricey car when new (something like 13 or 14 grand I think?), why specify one with the aesthetic appeal of a Curver stackable box? Whoever shelled out for that baby thinking they would look really flash in their new Beemer was, I would humbly suggest, mistaken.

Funnily enough I let a beige E28 out of a side exit today and thought the very same thing, why when you had a whole gamut of colours would you choose Beige or Brown? now we see them as slightly ironic, a two fingered salute to the boring silver that seems to be the default choice in car colour but even so if I were buying a new car let alone a premium car like a BMW I would've chosen a million other colours first.

 

Craig, it wasn't this one because I'm sure it was a 518/520i and for certain it had the even older smaller metal hub-caps that just fit over the very centre of the wheel unlike these caps, and it had a centre brake light fitted.

[Tayne]

.

[Justin Case]

Beige has the advantage of being a similar colour to dust, so it possible to extend the intervals between cleaning the car. This sems to be sufficient reason for choosing a beige car as against, say, black. Nothing much wrong with brown either. Mrs A's Almera is in Silica, which is actually quite a tasteful shade of bronze and sets the car off rather better than the almost universal silver.

[Richard]

There was a time when the best survivors of any kind of car were brown, simply because the kind of people who would choose brown for new car tended to be the kind of people who looked after it.

[RedSparrow]

I just like the brown on cars you wouldn't expect, like the MGBs and Roller posted on here.

 

I don't quite understand the thinking behind buying a shiny new sports car and then choosing brown...

 

but I like it!

[Tayne]

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[shite_meister]

Isn't that Macademia more of a metallic bronze colour though as opposed to a flat turd brown? a Metallic bronze can look stunning on the right car.My first car was a beige Rover 213, also had a Rover P6 in brown as mentioned earlier P6s were notorious for coming in staid colours. Just sold my brasil-brown BMW E21

[Milford Cubicle]

Odd colours are great, it makes a nice change from the silver/black/white washout we have today.

[peter9000uk]

I used to work with a bloke that bought a brown Porsche 924 Auto! It was shite of epic proportions

[Tayne]

.

[Pete-M]

I suppose I should own up to one of the best brown cars I ever owned.

 

[Tayne]

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[Pete-M]

I'm a seriously crap photographist.