Remember the excitement
of buying your first car? Maybe you longed for a Matador Red 1968 Camaro, but
instead you got a dark brown 1979 Ford Pinto with an orange racing stripe (for
some unknown reason) from your grandpa. Perhaps you've grown up a bit and
are out of the muscle car phase, but maybe not. Now it’s your money and not
grandpa’s hand-me-down, and
Mount Airy Toyota has a
wide selection of both new and used vehicles—and in lots of colors to choose
from! From
Winston-Salem to Galax, Boone to Statesville, drivers from across the region
come to Mount Airy Toyota to find the service and selection they need.
Toyota offers a wide
range of vehicles, both practical and fun to drive. With the sporty RAV4,
the workhorse Tundra, the clean lines of the Camry, or the racy fun coming with
the 2020 GR Supra, Toyota has the ride for you!
The all-new 2019 RAV4,
for example, comes in a variety of colors, including: Blue Flame, Ruby Red
Pearl, and Lunar Rock. These aren't your grandpa's blue, red and gray, but fun
twists on popular colors to give you choices you will enjoy. We know buying a
vehicle is a major investment and we want you to leave our lot happy and
looking good! Gone are the days when you had to settle for what was on the lot,
today you can order your own choices, from the inside- out, to suit your
needs.
Paint color options have
changed over the years, as tastes have changed. Currently, the three most
popular colors are: Silver
- 23%, White - 15%, and Black - 12%. Popular colors for
SUV/Minivans/Light Trucks, SUVs, Minivans, and Light Trucks, which make up
50.9% of the new vehicle market, are unique from all other categories in that
white is the preferred color for these vehicles. This has been the case for more
than 10 years. Silver and black round out the top three color-choices with medium/dark
gray advancing in popularity.
Available
paint colors in Toyota’s lineup include: Blue Crush Metallic, Barcelona Red
Metallic, Celestite Gray Metallic, and
Quicksand. And yes, we have Silver (Silver Sky Metallic), White (Super White),
and Black (Midnight Black Metallic)! Toyota’s team aims to have a variety of options
to please most shoppers, and we carefully select colors that best enhance the
model’s features.
Color choices today are
a far cry from when Henry Ford first began making the Ford Model T. While he
did start out with the colors of grey, green, blue, and red, he quickly
discovered that it would reduce costs and increase durability by using only
black paint, and in 1914, assembly lines revolutionized transportation—one
black Model T at a time!
A visit to The Henry
Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan is an educational and fun way to get a great
look at a variety of vehicles through time. Stories of innovation are around
each corner and there is even an opportunity to assemble a Model T in the
museum, or take a ride in one in neighboring Greenfield Village.
If you want to see a
Toyota Camry getting made, you are in luck! Our plant in Georgetown, Kentucky
manufactures the Camry and the Avalon. This is America's first and the world's
biggest Toyota manufacturing facility and is near Lexington. You can request a
free tour in advance and see for yourself what makes these cars so great! The
tours are on weekdays only and last about an hour. More than 2,000 cars are
produced here every day and you can learn more about the history of Toyota and
the facility, and even see the first car to come off their production line—a
1998 Camry! Fun for all ages. www.toyotaky.com
Just as cars have
evolved from the Model T, so has the way they are painted. Early paint was
derived from natural products and today's paints are synthetic. Paint used to
be hand applied (with a brush) and is now fully automated using robotic
methods. Early models (circa 1900) had paint that faded quickly and how was
this fixed? You guessed it! You bought
some black paint and some paint brushes and dedicated your Sunday afternoon to
the task.
It got better when DuPont
developed a lacquer paint system in the 1920s that could be applied with spray
guns, greatly speeding up the assembly process. However, this paint was prone
to wear, and spills from gasoline damaged the finish easily. Many vehicles
sported missing paint around the gas cap area. Moving into the 1930s, enamel
paints became the durable option and were sprayed on and baked. These finishes,
however, oxidized quickly in sunlight.
The 1970s gave us disco
and a new way of finishing cars: using a colored enamel basecoat followed by a
super hard clear finish. Only expensive models had this at first, but like
disco, it was hard to resist and by the late 1980s, this method of painting
cars was common.
Today, you can expect a
long life from your Toyota factory paint job. If you have an accident, turn to
Toyota Certified Collision Centers to get your ride back to looking like new,
right down to the factory paint color applied by qualified technicians.
Whether you are in the
market for an SUV or a sedan, stop by Mount Airy Toyota and we’ll help you find
just the right vehicle, in the right color, to light up your days!
*Kelley Blue Book
Written by Mary Casey-Sturk - CCP Web Design
