Question: I live in Sweden and am about to buy my first Taylor guitar. My choices are between the 314ce, 414ce and 514ce, but my question concerns your (and everyone’s) hard case. Considering that you spend a lot of effort spreading the word on what high temperatures and lack of/too much humidity can do to a guitar, how come all your hard cases are black? Being a colour that eats sunshine and heat, to me it sounds like the least likely colour to use. I would really love a hard case in some warm brown colour or tan beige. I guess you bought into old Henry Ford’s credo: Choose any colour, as long as it’s black. Cheers and thanks for all the good work and vision.
Micael

Answer: Yeah, Micael, blame it on Henry! Actually, the color won’t really make that much difference in the heat build-up, I can assure you, because you’re not supposed to be putting your guitar in the direct, hot sun in the first place. Once there, it doesn’t matter, they’ll both be hot; the lighter one will just take five more minutes to get there. In other warm places, like in the trunk of your car on a hot summer day, they react identically. A black case won’t be hotter than a white case, because it’s not in direct sunlight where the color matters. On the other hand, lighter colors show more dirt, and customers don’t like the look of dirt.

Ed. Note: Taylor cases for the acoustic 5/500 Series and up are brown.