Stepford cars

I feel safest of all

This is a photo I took this morning from my balcony. I wanted to capture the scene because it was a perfect example of something I noticed soon after arriving in Turkey— most cars here are white. I have no idea why.

In the above photo, there are 37 motor vehicles. It’s a little bit difficult to see details with my crappy cameraphone, so to clarify I’ve put dots on the vehicles that are not white. The dots number 12 in total, and the remaining 25 vehicles are white.

This means that according to my survey, 68% of cars in Turkey are white. That’s more than two-thirds. It seems a bit excessive to me. And I have no clue what the big deal about white is. Perhaps one of you knows and can fill me in.

Incidentally, of the 12 non-white cars, 7 were silver (which is the white of metallic colours), two were black, two were green, and one car was burgundy. There were also two cars out of frame, further down the street near point A. Both were white.

This has been a public service announcement.

7 Comments

  1. 29 January 2007
    Reply

    Well coming from a family that for the last 2 decades has only purchased or leased white cars, and many cars in the town on Long Island where I grew up are white, I can tell you that white cars cost less with insurance than red or black cars.

    In fact most of the cars where I grew up were white or silver.

    Before my parents went white they owned a tan 1976 Ford LTD and before that was a blue Ford Pinto and before that was a green Ford Falcon.

    My first bicycle was a red Schwinn. Red has always been and always be my favorite color. At the moment I own a black second hand Kildmoes City Calibri. If I ever own a car it will be red. It’s a good thing I’m over 25 years of age. Insurance premiums!

  2. 29 January 2007
    Reply

    Well coming from a family that for the last 2 decades has only purchased or leased white cars, and many cars in the town on Long Island where I grew up are white, I can tell you that white cars cost less with insurance than red or black cars.

    In fact most of the cars where I grew up were white or silver.

    Before my parents went white they owned a tan 1976 Ford LTD and before that was a blue Ford Pinto and before that was a green Ford Falcon.

    My first bicycle was a red Schwinn. Red has always been and always be my favorite color. At the moment I own a black second hand Kildmoes City Calibri. If I ever own a car it will be red. It’s a good thing I’m over 25 years of age. Insurance premiums!

  3. 30 January 2007
    Reply

    Yeah, but this isn’t an issue in Turkey- my friend Michaela just renewed her insurance on her red Opel Tigra… $28 for a year. Insurance here costs almost nothing, especially when you consider the cost of cars. Vehicles that cost $25000 in the US are priced at nearly $70000 here. So basically, if you can afford to buy a car, then insurance is the least of your worries.

    Have you never owned a car? Really? Well, I guess you don’t need them in NY.

  4. 30 January 2007
    Reply

    Yeah, but this isn’t an issue in Turkey- my friend Michaela just renewed her insurance on her red Opel Tigra… $28 for a year. Insurance here costs almost nothing, especially when you consider the cost of cars. Vehicles that cost $25000 in the US are priced at nearly $70000 here. So basically, if you can afford to buy a car, then insurance is the least of your worries.

    Have you never owned a car? Really? Well, I guess you don’t need them in NY.

  5. 31 January 2007
    Reply

    Are you trying to find new ways to satisfy your OCD? :-*

    BTW, there is a metallic white (oft-called pearlescent white), so metallic silver can’t be counted as the vanilla of the metal flakes.

  6. 31 January 2007
    Reply

    Are you trying to find new ways to satisfy your OCD? :-*

    BTW, there is a metallic white (oft-called pearlescent white), so metallic silver can’t be counted as the vanilla of the metal flakes.

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