Jalopnik
Jaguars should be British Racing Green. Ferraris red. Subarus Subaru Rally Blue. Lamborghinis ought to be painted neon orange or invisible brown. Mercedes-Benz? Silver. BMW, silver. Audi, silver. Hyundai, silver. Lexus, silver. Nissan, silver, etc. Point is, there ain't as much color in the car world as there might be. This observation let reader UDMan to write:
After reading about the Cadillac CTS [here and here] I noticed that the cars color was up for ridicule. I noted that at least the car had color, given the choice of several shades of Gray they offer today, and maybe one blue and one red.
I remember when there was at least 12 colors to choose from when you looked at purchasing a vehicle. So I would like to know, would you like a greater choice in color offerings when it comes to purchasing a new car?The boy raises some good points. Though, for those us with eccentrically painted cars (hi mom!) part of the thrill is that we stand out. I enjoy driving one of the few fluorescent blue station wagons on the road. If everyone else did the same, I'd be sad. You?I realize that with today's manufacturing constraints that there has to be a top 6 or 7 when it comes to color choices, but please, can't we have choices that are not light gray, medium gray, dark gray, silver, black, white, red or blue? How about a green (or 2), what happened to Browns, Beige, Tan, or Gold? What about a cream, or a teal, or a plum, raspberry, lime, orange, peach, or even chocolate? Tobacco Brown, Kelly Green, Navy Blue, Sapphire, Azure, or even Ruby would all be great colors to offer. I even like the Vanilla that Chrysler now offers (kind of a yellow white). And what about multi tones? Yes that one really shows my age, but why not?
Comments
I agree, my car is a copper orange metallic that looks great in the sun. I worry a bit about it's resale appeal though.
Jaguar actually has some very neat colors that I see on the road once in a while.
More colors is good, wacky color names is bad.
Damn straight, I want Seafoam Green back.
In my head, the car brands have their own signature colors: Chevy is a darkish metallic red, Ford is a dark metallic blue, and Chrysler/Dodge is babypuke tan.
Toyota is gray. Or that maddening can't-match-it pearl white. Bah.
Nissan is rust.
Mazda is brilliant go-faster electric gecko green. Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know.
Rolls is rich oak-tanned leather brown.
Call me boring, but I prefer more sedate colors. I like a car to stand out on its own merits, instead of standing out because it burns your retinas.
Then again, I would choose a sleeper over a flashy car any day. Probably explains why I have a 300HP Ford LTD instead of a Mustang....
There is a frost blue Jag xkr by my office with a gray side vent that I kinda lust after... But Xks look good in any color. I will never buy a silver car
A new color is just a paint job away, so if you're not happy, just change it.
My problem is with car design, Jags that look like Fords that look like Hyundays that look like Beamers...
Apart from that, gleaming pimp white is my color of choice for any car.
Nothing will ever be as manly or cool as Panther Pink. I actually miss mulit-colour paint jobs the most, and car designs that incorparated them (Veyron excluded)
@B: What, you're not a fan of Catch Me If You Can Copper?
I'm still deciding between a Mini Clubman and a Volvo C30 to replace my current Audi and its POS electrics. If I get the Volvo, I'll probably stay loyal to blue, but that Clubman-exclusive Hot Chocolate is very tempting.
Absolutely! Bring back the multiple shades of orange and green offered for each model. Do I want forest green, avocado, or lime green? I'll take the latter. In metallic.
The problem I face as a new car buyer is this:
what hides dirt?
screw the dirt, what hides me from the fuzz?
Star-burst orange? or macadam grey? or toyota beige?
I vote British Leyland Applejack Green.
When I become supreme, and omnipotent ruler of the world I'm going to outlaw silver and white cars so fast those bimmer badges will spin.
Everybody knows gray is just another word for boring, therefore silver is just light boring.
Ever see a pic of a bright red or yellow Carrera GT? They look approximately 11,298,198.876 times better than the incessant blah gray ones they featured all over the place.
Oh and I don't want to hear any of that crap about designers know that silver shows off the curves best, that's complete crap.
Cars need more INTERIOR colours the way they did 15-20 years ago. Now all you can get is black, which often looks grim, cubicle grey, which is dismal and shows dirt, or beige, which gets filthy. Beige is a good colour for hiding dirt and hiding from the cops. Nothing is less visible than a beige four-door sedan.
My medium grey Camry and my wife's dark grey Subie wagon are making y'alls flashy-colored cars out there lookin' pretty good.
Has anyone else fallen for that shade of green that Aston Martin uses which is not quite British Racing Green, or even the Aston Martin Racing Green, but more metallic? Or is it just me...?
Who can forget the schizo's favourite car.. the VW Golf Harlequin.. [www.rossvw.com]
It's the whole frickin crayola box..
Either that.. or the depends on which way the light is coming from Mystic Cobra.. [www.dragtimes.com]
i'm with Savageatl.. we need more interior colours than grey, black, beige..
I do like names like Grigio Ingrid and Swaters Blue...but those would seem overly pretentious when spec'ing out a Camry.
I don't know if I desire more color choice for myself, since these days we are going basic black for non-Se7en cars. What I do have a problem with is the relative lack of interior combos based on your choice of exterior color.
Apparently, he has not seen the "Crave" CR-V commercials.
Personally I'll buy my cars in any colour... as long as that colour is black.
More colors and less metallics.
Cars should come in black, white, a few grays/silver (silver matallic is ok) a few reds, a few blues, a few greens and if it's a 'sporting' car, a few oranges, purples, and yellows.
Just my thought.
my crx is "celestial blue pearl" it isn't flashy but it is a shade you don't see so much on cars.
the era of 17 shades of beige and 12 of silver are wearing on me. whenever i see a car in an interesting shade it really makes me happy. by all means cars should have a wider array of colors.
I think they should give you a full pantone swatch book and you pick your own color. That would be fun.
I'm currently pimping a ridiculously-spoilered and questionably-scooped turbocharged Neon, so being the narcissist that I am, I chose black in an attempt to minimize visibility.
Recently, however, I've come to the realization that I have the automotive attention span of a ferret, and I have an unconquerable urge to drive something different every couple of years. Thus, my next vehicle will be leased, in which case I could give a shit less about the tribulations of reselling a white-on-burgundy 135i, or finding a buyer that thinks Hugger Orange is as silly-ass-sweet as I do. Just hand in the keys.
-Shit brown 1979 F250 4x4 Manual.
Where are all the new shit brown ford trucks?
Cars need more color on the INSIDE. Look at new cars today, and for the most part, you have the choice between black, gray, and beige. Sometimes there's some very desaturated brown, and occasionally (BMW and Saturn, I'm looking at you here), there's nice rich browns, and some sporty cars have colored trim.
But, in general, the choices are black, gray, and dirty gray, and that's just entirely lame if you ask me. It's as if interior designers have forgotten that such things as color palettes exist and can be applied to plastics/fabrics/leather, and instead they're just told to use more (usually fake) metal trim or (often fake) wood trim if it's a car for old people.
How about something creative and attractive that could make the inside of a car seem like a nice place to be, and letting people have some interesting actual choices to match their personality and tastes?
@Dr.Danger:
People would still pick PMS 286 all the time, though.
I've really enjoyed the black on warm tan two-tone interior of my current and last V-dub. Nothing outlandish or ritzy, but it doesn't look like an appliance, which can't be said for most cars on the road. I do take issue with the bi-polar selection of most exterior colors. If it isn't the shades of grey, silver, or champagne-beige, then you might get to choose "Pull-Me-Over" Red or the appalling Hard-Hat Yellows from more recent years. I've got nothing against red, what have you, but color doesn't have to sear the retinas. How about some rich tones in the middle ground of intensity for those of us who would rather pass on KitchenAid Vanilla and I'd-Rather-Die-In-Ball-of-Flames Red? Sophisticated taste in paint shouldn't be limited to the supercar set
Depends on the car. But yes, I'd love some real color choices. Not 4 shades of gray/silver, gold, white, black, "hello officer" red, and a medium blue.
I don't mind white, but very few cars look good in it. Beige should be outlawed. Not even Foci or Camrys should have beige inflicted on them.
@WheatKing: Why does that VW scream Fischer Price?
@SavageATL: You beat me to it. What happened to red and blue interiors? Especially blue interiors. I really miss that option.
Statutory Grape.
Just sayin'
The "staples" are always there... black, white, red, blue, gray/silver. It's like that with almost all consumer products, from MP3 players to guitars to automobiles.
There has actually been quite a lot of great colour happening lately. Beautiful "rootbeer metallic" and copper/orange on the Honda Element. The Camry and Escape hybrids coming in interesting shades of metallic green. Lots of copper/orange everywhere. Even Buick is doing a nice metallic brown on the Enclave.
But what it comes down to is buyer preference. People are conservative. And they want to keep the resale value high by sticking with colours with mass appeal. (This also applies to rental and lease fleets, which need to preserve high residual values.)
So i think the colours are out there... they're just not being ticked off on the option sheet as much, so we see parking lots that are a sea of shades of gray.
When the RX-8 first came out, I was seriously torn between the dark teal green with the gold metallic flake and the red with the gold metallic flake. Both were pretty outrageous colors for any car, but looked right at home on the RX-8. Nordic Green (as it was named) is no longer offered but I believe the red is still available and used on other Mazdas.
...and then I ended up choosing non-metallic black. BUT because the red and black leather interior went well with it.
As soon as I have enough bank, I'm going to make myself a Harleqinn out of the most inappropriate VAG product possible. Maybe an RS4, or a S8.
It does seem that 80% of a certain model are always a certain color. A few examples of older ones:
late 80's early 90s Honda Accord, Dark blue
Honda del sol, green
early 90's Geo Prizm/Toyota Corrola, dark green
Infinity Q45 (1st gen) white
ANY Mercedes (in the last 10 years), silver
Maybe that is just because I have know people with some of these cars and think I see them on the road, get closer and realize it isn't them.
@jonnylieberman: how about khmer rouge?
Q:Do cars need more color?
A: No, but maybe color needs to find more cars, otherwise you end up with colors desperate to find a home, living in shelters or worse...
Me? I'm waiting for the recently discovered fourth primary color, squant, to make it onto cars.
i'm all for more choice, but i'd still pick graphite. it was a sad time in the 90s when all i could get was silver, but now that everyone has gone *super* boring, i have all the grays i could ever want. if it weren't for boring sheetmetal, this would be a fantastic time for me to be alive. maybe next year i'll pick up that galactic gray mx-5 i've been making humping moves at.
as for the interior: get a grenade, pull the pin, stick it in a can of black paint, shut the door, hold your ears, scrape the windows clean and you're done. i want to feel like i'm in a hole. i want to bump into the armrest because i can't see it. i want driving "submarine commander" to mean something again.
Definitely, more color! BMW Laguna Seca Blue, The matte tan/khaki Honda Element. Porsche in the early 70's, there's also a great dark purple Mazda I've seen around.Those always get my attention, and one day, they'll be classics. How about more NON METALIC colors I would buy any car in a non metallic blue, metallic is just a cop out, since it reflects so much color. The same goes for appliances! Why is everything stainless!? Wait a minute, what website is this? Where can I rant about that?
Worst colors-
M3 blue on an Excalade (spelling intentional)
Green Del-Sols
02 Canary Yellow WRXs
03 Salsa Yellow WRXs (Vomit colored)
Mexi-Chrome anything
mormon-white
Good colors-
Ferrai Fly (P-Magnet) Yellow
Blood Red
Black obsidian pearl
Mazdaspeed Protoge Salmon-(it was daring, ugly, but different)
What ever happened to brown and orange racing stripes?
What happened to 2-tone paint?
I want a yellow S4 Avant. Nothing beats a yellow station wagon. I read that Audi only imported 1 yellow S4 Avant of the most recent model. That is going to take forever for me to find on the used market.
Yellow, Orange, and Neon Green need to see more road time.
Audi TT in Crayola Grey pls.
@tentacles: Veyron?
I like the various Lotus Elise colors. I think I'd have to get one in a bright color so other drivers don't run over the car.
I'm sure it's been said, but in general cars tend look their best as a grey/silver. That's why so much advertising uses it. Other colors are more difficult to render in ad quality.
Also, I prefer the simple classic colors for cars...Black. Not to mention, I've been jaded by the awful colors of the 80's such as some metallic pink and turquoise colors.
Im also for the interior colors. The SKA-TASTIC plaid GTI interior kicks ass. Makes me wanna skank my pickle
The tomato red Monte-Carlos of the 90's were another low.
Hey, the Sultan's F1 in Black and Spaz isn't too boring. [img162.imageshack.us]
I'm OK with more colors, as long as there are more blacks. I only light black cars, unless there is some outstanding color for a sports car. I really would like to have the metallic black used on the Saturn Outlook, it's purrdy when it's clean.
@pride156: in the interest of streamlining, if you take the "tomato red" out of that sentence, it is still just as true.