We’ve been in the age of options packages for decades now, but it’s starting to feel like things have gone too far.

Some automotive paint hues are timeless—red or black, for example, never go out of style—while others become immediately emblematic of their era. Let’s just say we find it weird there are very few burnt orange Mercedes-Benz sedans with matching hubcaps anymore. But today, let’s talk about this retro Panther, and…

Recently I was on the hunt for a nice 997 for a client I came across a listing for a reasonably priced Turbo cabriolet... only to see a sea of crimson. I’m sorry but red interiors just ruin it for me.

The 2019 Aston Martin Vantage made the rounds in the media in a wonderfully eye-searing shade of highlighter green/highlighter yellow possibly named after a cleaning product. That’s fine. Bright colors are good. Do you know what’s also good on this car? This black.

The 2019 Aston Martin Vantage came into this world decked out in a fantastic eye-searing highlighter green, looking every bit like the expensive super tuner car from the future it should. And only now am I finding out the official name for this color and I don’t know exactly what Aston was going for.

One of the biggest appeals of a show like this week’s New York Auto Show is you get to see, touch and sit in supercars you otherwise might not get a chance to experience, like the Ford GT. It just sucks if the cars are painted black.

The New York Auto Show was pretty boring, but one shining beacon of hope from the industry came from the German automakers, who decided to show up with a surprisingly diverse and exciting spectrum of car colors this year.

Hello readers, I know you see my name and think “Oh goody, Tom is here to drop some car buying wisdom on me.” And you would be right—while you should pay attention to all that math stuff I keep harping about, my most important tip is that your next car should be green.

Teal is one of the few colors that is bright and cheerful but calming at the same time. Stare into the blue-green side of the Porsche Panamericana concept, and let the chill need to do something extreme wash over you like the rad burbling rapids it evokes. It’s a shade that reaffirms you. Pumps you up. Makes you cool.…

Being born in the late ‘80s, I watched as colors washed out of new car lots, fading from reds and forest greens into an endless parade of silvers and grays. This may be why I get excited about even the most mundane new tones on cars today, like this slate blue.

You know how I’m always complaining about the lack of color for cars? How sick I am of living in a drab, monochrome, colorless automotive world? Well, I sure as hell can’t complain about what Volkswagen is doing for the Golf R, because, color-wise, they are bringing it. Well, in Canada at least.

The configurator for the 2018 BMW M5 is live and available for your use, which includes, of course, selecting your colors. Like so many cars today, “colors” is code for mostly grays, whites, blacks, and maybe one or two actual colors. In BMW’s case, both are blue. I think we can do better.

For a lot of people who are car shopping, the color is often just as important as the features. Of course, you want a car that fits your aesthetic tastes, but how much more would you be willing to spend to get the right color on your next ride?

Look, “great things take time” and all. That’s what all of the people who take a long time to do things say, at least. So, in the time it would take some people to pay off a mortgage, Lexus made some paint. The company calls the paint “much more than simply a new choice on a colour chart.” Rock on, then, Lexus.

My beloved daily driver was hit while parked on my street, so I’ve spent the past three weeks with a Buick Envision rental car instead. It had all the bells and whistles, only it was silver, and I kept losing it among all the other silver crossovers out there. What happened to painting your car a real color?

Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know. The ones you don’t want to not know. The ones that are ideal for you to be cognizant of, in detail, this morning. The news, auto news, that is.

Look, I have a thing for Plasti Dip. Something about watching the colors get mixed, thinking about that rubberization, oh yeah, I want to lick this chameleon-coloring right off the haunches of this Audi RS7. But seriously, get a load of the color-shift people are pulling off with peelable paint now!

You probably know (or could have guessed) that white, black and silver/gray are perennially the most popular colors for cars. But do tastes change when you go from one vehicle to another? What does your history of car ownership look like in colors?

1st Gear: So Many New Cars And Trucks

I’m not sure how much money you have to make to care about perfect, numbers-matching parts and paint on your car, but it seems to be a lot and it seems to prove that money cannot buy you happiness because the people who care about these things always strike me as deeply unhappy.