The senior lot is filled with cars in shades of dark blue, red, gray, white, and black. Roberto, senior Lilah Santore’s fire orange Kia Forte, stands out among the crowd.
Her grandmother bought the car in 2024, and Santore herself has been driving it since she got her driver’s license that fall. She recalls the chaos of driving with a friend, senior Melanie Foca.
“The first time I ever drove it was with Melanie in the car,” Santore said. “We were driving up Providence road and I was really close to this one guy biking on the side, so Melanie turned around and goes, ‘Wow, we were so close to that man I could have touched him!’ I thought I was doing really good, too.”
As she became accustomed to the car, Santore customized the interior with bright decorations.
“I really like the little ornaments I have hanging up in my car,” she said. “I have two of them and got them from my work.”
The shiny blue and silver ornaments are fixed above the dashboard. Other customizations included a name for the Kia Forte, which was chosen decisively by Santore to be Roberto.
“He’s an orange car, so he has an old soul,” she said. “I felt like it just fit him.”
Though the color was originally Santore’s least favorite feature on Roberto, it’s useful and a favorite of her grandmother.
“She said, ‘I feel like I should have a color car that I actually love,’” Santore said. “I really like it now because I can always find it in parking lots, and it’s just unique. You don’t really see a lot of people with an orange car.”
The rarity of orange cars is a fact, and so is their value. According to an article by iSeeCars, a platform that provides data on the car market on CBS 42 news, cars with rare paint colors retain more value on the market compared to the average vehicle.
