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Trivia on the Bayers Blue shade on Indian cars and scooters

25th May 2021, 13:18 by Chirag Moro

It was new, eye catching and an instant hit with buyers. Seen in the Maruti showrooms and very soon on the roads, the Bayers Blue shade became a darling for all eyes.

BHPian anjan_c2007 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

By 1989, Maruti had unvieled this new shade of blue for the M800, Gypsy as well as the van. It was new, eye catching and an instant hit with buyers. Seen in the Maruti showrooms and very soon on the roads, the Bayers Blue shade became a darling for all eyes, when in a "Wagle Ki Duniya" TV serial episode featured a young, dashing and arrogant Shahrukh Khan mildly knocking Wagle (Anjan Shrivastava) on a Mumbai street. Other than Doordarshan, there were no other TV channels then and its viewership was in the crores.

Very soon by 1989, a slew of automakers including Premier Automobiles (for the Premier Padmini and 118 NE), Mahindra (for the Commander (incl 650 DI) and the 540 DP), Hindustan Motors (for the Ambassador and Contessa), Bajaj Auto (for the Super and Chetak), LML Vespa (for the Vespa NV 150) and may be some more, immediately started offering the similar Bayers Blue shade. These too were instant hits with the respective buyers. Perhaps, Mahindra would have thought then that this God send shade was a true successor for their uniquitous "grey" shade, that they were tagged with since the 1940s till the late 1970s.

Not to be outdone, those with older cars and scooters also while repainting chose this shade for the job. The Indian streets had the "Bayers Blue Bug" infection growing on a large scale from the early till the mid 1990s. Seen below are a 1954 Landmaster BYJ 18 from Nagpur (then), repainted in the early 1990s and a 1972 Premier President from Kolkata, also in the same shade.

Here's what BHPian arjab had to say on the matter:

Blue, somehow, was never a very popular colour amongst Indian car buyers.
Most manufacturers dabbled with blue but poor sales of "blue" made the OEM's see blue (pun intended), so much so that they usually pulled the plug on the blue shade. The latest victim being the facelifted Tiago, whose vivid blue shade has been dropped as of 2021 April.
Some of the more successful blue offerings, as far as I remember were:
The "Powder Blue" of the first generation Maruti 800 (SS-80), and the Maruti Van duo (high roof and flat roof vans)
The Ionian Blue in the Maruti 1000. The Bayer Blue of the SB-308 Maruti 800 was also popular. Briefly a shade called "Racing Blue" had also made a fleeting appearance in the SB-308.
Recently, the "Nexa Blue" in the Ciaz / Baleno / S-Cross / Ignis / XL6 seems popular.
Hyundai had a deep blue for their first generation Accent which again didn't sell much. The Skoda Octavia RSs blue looked a million dollars and found quite a few admirers to take it home.
Tata had a "Noble Blue" for their Indica Vista which never sold. However the new Safari's blue seems to have caught the fancy of buyers.
Volkswagen India had lovely shades of blue for their Vento and Polo. One was a dark, midnight blue and the other a sort of teal blue. Neither did well.
Ford's EcoSport had a Kinetic Blue version. The global Fiesta also had a similar offering. Neither sold many copies in that shade.
It seems, blue, for some unexplained reason doesn't appeal that much to Indian car buyers compared to other shades.