Too much choice…

30th August 2010

By Anthony Peacock

It struck me the other day, when I was helping some friends buy their new car, that the whole experience has become alarmingly similar to buying coffee from Starbucks. The car that they wanted was a Ford Fiesta.

The Fiesta has sharp looks, handles nicely and is cheap to run. Furthermore, it’s even going to become a World Rally Car. What is there not to like?

With a first child due imminently, the Fiesta was going to be urban transport for the new baby and all its associated paraphernalia. Judging by the proposed itinerary of visits to relatives, clinics, and even baby swimming classes, the chauffeuring requirements of this baby were clearly going to exceed those of the chief executive of Glaxo Smith Kline.

So the proud parents were understandably keen to delve into Ford’s options list, to make sure that they specified any extra equipment available to help keep the baby safe. Although living where they do, the only guarantee of this would be if Ford offered the Fiesta with the option of bonnet-mounted sidewinder missiles, armour plating and an ejector seat. But they don’t. Instead you can have a perimeter alarm, soft feel gear knob, electronic automatic temperature control, parking sensors and capless refuelling system – among many other things – if you so choose.

That was before we even got onto the colour. Luckily our car buyers were quite clear about this: blue. But blue is a relative concept, as any manic-depressive will tell you. There are in fact three options of blue available on the base Fiesta alone, only one of which contains the word ‘blue’. Take, as an example, one of Aston Martin’s factory colours, called ‘Hardly Green’. True enough, as it’s not green at all. But where’s it all going to end? Will we end up having to choose between shades called: “Possibly Turquoise” and “Definitely Not Cerise”?

Let’s be fair: I’m not singling out Ford or Aston for criticism here.  We should be grateful that they were not buying a MINI or a Fiat 500 – each of which, when all the possible options and engine sizes are taken into account, is available in more than 500,000 different configurations. In fact, MINI estimates that no two cars are entirely identical.

Choice, of course, is one of the things that define the civilised world – but does there really have to be so much of it? Go back 30 years, when the Fiesta was first introduced, and there was a selection of three models: L, S and Ghia. The L was basic, the S had a few extra luxury items (such as headrests!) and the Ghia had everything – including some hideous fake wood and even a cigar lighter.

Contemplating the whole philosophical freedom of choice question, I decided to take myself for a restorative coffee. “I’d like a coffee,” I eventually said, not unreasonably for a man who had just walked into a coffee shop.

“Certainly Sir,” chirped the girl who was serving enthusiastically. “Would that be a latte, cappuccino, skinny cappuccino, espresso, frappe, caffe misto, cafe au lait, decaf? Ready for you fresh at the collection point! ”

And with that, a man approached a machine and conspicuously ‘made’ the coffee by pushing various knobs and buttons for the best part of five minutes, before finally presenting it on a plinth with the smugly virtuoso air of someone who had just mastered Widor’s Toccata and Fugue on the Notre Dame Cathedral organ.

Forget cars; buying coffee is officially the most irritating and self-indulgent experience in the world. I’m still lying down in a darkened room with a wet towel over my eyes now.