Art history time! Quick, go find yourself a Wellesley grad. Actually, after checking out today's post on supercars painted in minimalist tones, we were immediately reminded of the famous "black paintings" that Ad Reinhardt created in the '50s and '60s—paintings that probed the very meaning of darkness on canvas (see example, at left), much as Jalopnik's commenters plumbed the significance of drab monochromatics on exotic rides. The Ad Man would have been pleased.
It was Morphine who supplied the most comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of the charry realms of the visible spectrum:
On an expensive supercar suede looks disingenuous. Flat black was the look for guys who sunk every dime they had into the engine, to Hell with the way the car looked. Some things always look better in Cheap, but half a million dollars worth of Porsche is not one of those things. Half of the other cars look like they were smeared with soot, or had fire damage.
A T-Bucket Ford Hemi-rod will aways look good in flat black. A '71 Nova will always look good in gray primer. A Carrera GT cannot pretend to be a shit-box or a sleeper. A flat black stripe on an otherwise gorgeous paint job, maybe. Otherwise, every fucking car in this article is decidedly UN hot-rod.
And so, COTD! As well as an eloquent declaration of ethics.