Pimp My Ride: Indian Style – Are Indian Car lovers ready for something of this sort?

“We heard you like books, so we put a library in your car, so you can read books while you drive”.

If you are MTV’s Pimp My Ride fan, you already know what I am talking about. It’s my take on the memes that gained popularity after Xzibit’s similar sentences on the closure of Pimp My Ride episodes. This tingling sensation of getting your car dressed by a celebrity, Xzibit was indeed a hit in 2009 and a fad for a regular teenage American Youth.

If you don’t know what I mean, I am talking one of MTV’s most popular shows, ‘Pimp My Ride’, which used to customize a car for someone absolutely free. The format goes like this: A car lover shows off his car and persuades the Pimp My Ride team to transform his/her car, the presenter or host (usually Xzibit) goes to the car owner’s house, has a look at the car, takes it to custom body shop, where the team generally rebuilds the interiors and exteriors from scratch; including engine in some cases.

 But how much do we Indians love our car? Do we care enough to customize our car to match our personality? And if we intend to, do we have any options around to make this dream come true?

 

 

My neighbor who is in his late twenties bought a car a few years ago and fell in love with it. He would say, “Some have cars, some have girlfriends and some have girlfriend because they have cars”. The way he took special efforts to polish dirt off of his car and as the seats were covered with plastic that they came with for months after the purchase, I concluded his car had taken the place of his girlfriend.

 Anyways, two days ago, standing in the window, I saw him driving. The car didn’t look like what it was years ago. As he drove, front left tire got in the pothole (they have taken over the city roads, as usual); the car struggled to get the part out, shook hard, and gave up. Finally, owner got down and asked for manual help. By this time, I was counting dents, making out shapes of scratches, looking at the brown under red paint peeking through. And, I declare, his car needed some serious pimping.

What I intend to imply by this narration is, the excitement that you feel for your new car, wears out with time and your car merely becomes just a mean to get you from one place to another, not something you would like to show off or spend time in.

If we had an Indian version of Pimp My Ride, I think it would definitely encourage people customize and maintain their ride. If you own a car, you know that buying a car is not difficult, with banks literally putting money in your hands. What you’ll find tricky is maintenance. It is expensive, with many unorganized, unrecognized service brands, and with increase in car sales, service sector is in demand. 

 On the show: Pimp My Ride, customizing a ride involved many changes made to car within 12 days, from new paint to accessories, such as race car seats, tires and internal electronics. In some cases, dryer (for a surfer dude), fish tanks and electronic fireplaces were installed as per owner’s need.

 Primarily speaking, Indian Audience would have concentrated more on Mileage and the Averages their Car has to offer and get a replacement of a new engine by an Indian Celebrity for Free on the show, which sounds like a bonus deal for Indian mentality but our survey showed that Indian’s, just like the American audience, have a liking for flames design pattern on their front bonnet along with Wings and nitro-oxide cylinder at the rear part of their cars. An Indian version not only will be popular, it may give a perspective to car-owners on how they can make their ride a cool place to hang out at.

 

(ref: wikepedia, mtv.com)