My very first ride was a Suzuki shoebox on wheels, with three hardworking Hamamatsu hamsters under the bonnet. Its paintwork was silver. More accurately, it was Mercury Silver Metallic. I chose it over Dark Classic Jade Pearl (too Crystal Jade), Radiant Red Mica (too Lunar New Year), Scuba Blue (too nautical, and I can’t swim anyway), and Superior White (a bit of a colonial hangover). If Suzuki had Inferior Yellow, this Chinese dude might have considered it back then.
Silver, in my opinion, was the most suitable colour for my basic runabout because it was equally unadorned and unpretentious. Said colour was virtually a non-colour and therefore a non-event on the road, which was how I liked my car to be. I preferred to go fast, rather than look fast. Unfortunately, my little Suzuki only had a three-hamster engine and a two-bit driver, so we looked slow and went even slower. It was definitely no silver arrow.
Too bad I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
