Color choice

The recent trend in the developed countries, has been to concentrate on making cars in varying dark shades of metallic paint.  Whilst this may be the fashion in the cooler, temperate climates, they are not ideal in many of the tropical countries to which your work may take you.  The reasons for this are :

• Cars in transit are often subject to minor damage.  Metallic paints are more difficult to match and repair overseas.
• Dark colored cars absorb and retain heat from the sun much more than light colored ones. Try standing between one of each in a sunny car park in your home town, then place one hand on the light roof and one on the dark.  A light colored car with a pale shade of trim will also enable your airconditioning (if fitted) to cool the car to a comfortable temperature more quickly.
• Whilst on the subject of color; for hot climates it is also worth equiping your vehicle with tinted windows to reflect the sunlight.  If you can buy one or more sunshades that can be stuck on the inside of the windows (without affecting visibility) this will help too, particularly on long journeys.
• The most common color of car shipped to tropical countries is white.  Whilst this offers the obvious advantage of the highest heat reflection it is also one of the colors prefered by thieves. This is because white vehicles are so numerous and therefore more difficult to trace.

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