These Are Your Automotive Paint Ideas

How about colors in general?! There are so many makes and models where you can’t even GET color anymore. It’s just swatches of greys, blacks, and whites on a lot of car customizers, MAYBE an army green or a dark maroon if you are lucky, but come on! Give me reds and blues and greens and oranges of many shades! And lets stock these colors on the lots too.

How much of the bland color palate we see today attributed to the fact dealers only stock those lame colors to be “safe” and just perpetuates the colorless trend? MFGs see they are only selling lame colors so they in turn, pivot to only offer lame colors. I would say most people go to the dealers near them and buy whatever is on the lot, not many people have the patience or time to order a car with a color they want. I have had to do this, wanted a red Mazda3 but bought a grey one because it was all they had on the lot and I needed a car sooner rather than later.

This is why we should all be able to order our cars direct from the manufacturer, without dealer involvement. Plus, y’know, the million other benefits to that system.

Submitted by: jstump

Stripe packages!

Toyota was really on point with theirs.

Really, any decal package. Give us more nineties jazz cup cars.

Submitted by: Unacceptably Dry Scones

[Just a photo of a Harlequin Golf]

Entirely related, I promise, I finally got around to watching the Harley Quinn show on HBO Max. It’s good! I recommend it.

Submitted by: Fracan

More programs like VW’s Spektrum they did for the MKVII R

For too long, we have suffered under the tyranny of black/gray/white/silver/An Color as our factory options. But no longer! The people demand hues!

Submitted by: foolio

The answer is always British Racing Green, with mandatory saddle brown leather interior.

Yeah, okay, I know, that headline is tortured. Listen. It’s 4 p.m. on a Thursday, and it’s been a long week.

Submitted by: Something Something Sarcasm

None. Like pagers of the 90's, it’s time for some see-through acrylics. There’s no hiding from the “intimate encounters” between you and your partner on the highway when everyone can see your business from every angle...

Ignoring the clear kink in this comment for either voyeurism or exhibitionism, I do like the idea of a return to tinted-but-translucent objects. Give me a Mad Catz car.

Submitted by: paradsecar

Bring back two-tone trucks

I’ll do you one better: Three-tone trucks. How does that work? No idea. But you should try it.

Submitted by: klone121

Just like fashion, colors on cars should come back around again. I’d like to see the non-metallic and pastel colors come back. An Audi in a light olive green, Camry in pale yellow, a plum crazy Hornet, an E-Class in China Blue. Some of these are already available in paint to sample, but make them actual options for real people to buy at a dealer. Especially now when more cars are being ordered rather than bought off the lot.

The more Easter egg-colored cars I see in my daily life, the better. Bonus points for actual Easter-themed designs.

Submitted by: savethemanualsbmw335ix

To me, the biggest issue isn’t the exterior paint. It’s the interior color.

Look, I know I am smoking something to expect an inexpensive car to have Houndstooth or plaid today. But does it HAVE to be black.

Let’s bring back Taupe (grey/beige).

Dust colored so it doesn’t look dirty instantly. Put a bit of pattern in the fabric so that if you spill a soda, the stain doesn’t make people thing you butchered a pig on the passenger seat. And light enough that it doesn’t brand your butt-checks on a sunny day.

Sure, I get the appeal of seats that don’t burn your shorts-clad legs in summer. But, stains? Dirt? Bud, we gotta have a talk about your cleanliness habits.

Submitted by: hoser68

This is going to sound stupid to people who live in places with no snow, but I’d like to see automakers exploring colors that look good when covered in salt and road dirt. My outback is silver. Not because I love silver, not because I think silver is the best color but because silver is the color that hides dirt the best. I used to have a 1st gen Ford Taurus wagon in “Metallic Sandalwood” (aka metallic brown) and it was even better at hiding dirt. Give me colors that look good after a month of January driving in Wisconsin. Lets see more earth tones. Gimme salt camouflage. Gimme paint designed to be cleaned in a “no touch” car wash.

Rally cars always look best when they’re coated in mud. Your car, coated in ski-mountain salt, is no different. Buy a car where the salt stands out, rather than blending in, and show it off.

Submitted by: Buckfiddiousagain

It’s a lacquer and not paint, and maybe it wouldn’t work so well with fewer metal parts, but specraflame!

On the other hand, I’ve seen enough cars wrapped with a similar metallic effect that it might already be coming.

I actually had to Google Spectraflame, as I am a childe unacquainted with the magicks of early hot wheels. Any real-life car with this finish would go incredibly hard.

Submitted by: Maymar

The best answer for color is and always will be PURPLE! And I say this as a blue car owner. Both my cars are blue. But the moment my wife got her newest car back in late June (see photo below), and the attention the car & color gets, it’s simply the best & most fun color!

You know my thoughts on purple cars. Purple is the superior car color, all others are only fighting for second.

Submitted by: 05FordGT

Matte is tired. Pearlescent is back.

As for color shifting paint, Range Rover Constellation Blue is kind of nice. Saw it yesterday in the wild and it looked TuTone but it wasn’t. Just the angles for viewing changed its colors a bit. Quite nice. But pretty neutral, though. Also $4500 option.

That said, their website links here for color samples. Unsuccessful execution, imo.

C’mon, Land Rover, you can do better than this demo video. Give us a color-shifting paint worthy of the luxury badge.

Submitted by: fredschwartz

Bring back Mystichrome (and not just on someone’s one-off Ford GT). I’m sure it’s a pain to fix in an accident, but gosh, is it ever cool-looking.

Maybe we need to just own car repairs, in a kintsugi kind of way. If a panel is damaged, repaint it in a clearly different color-shift paint until it becomes a unique work of art.

Submitted by: Kyree

They will sell cars unpainted and you can drive any new car into a local paint/wrap shop that’s akin to a car wash and get whatever you want.

This, I think, is perfect. Manufacturers save money by only producing cars in primer gray, and buyers get to pick whatever color they want at the dealer. That’s the future I want to live in.

Submitted by: Idrinkyourmilkshakesluuurp