Although it’s been the “in thing” for the past decade or so, the popularity of grayscale shades has largely eliminated the choice of actual shades of color when it comes to new cars from most automotive brands. Even many “colors” offered by automakers today are rather bland and drab in comparison to previous decades.
Not that there’s anything wrong with a silver, gray, black, or white car. For certain types of cars, more subdued hues are fitting and actually look better. It’s also beneficial for those who want to blend in.
But there was once a time when you could still get these grays in addition to seemingly every color under the rainbow. Bright shades like this 1998 Plymouth Breeze’s Alpine Green Pearl might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who want a bit more expression, there are relatively few choices left in exterior color today. Do you miss having the option for color on new cars, or are you fine blending in?
You can still get most every compact and subcompact car and CUV in a wide variety of eye-popping colors. Electric Spice Fiesta, anyone?
Absolutely. Especially cars (CUVs included) in the A- and B-segment are available in a wide range of colors. Often in two-tone.
I don’t see a Benz S-Class come in a factory color scheme like this.
Maybe the two-toning is more common in Europe? But you’re right that it’s more common on small cars. I’d like to see it expand to larger ones!
Mazda is a case in point. Their smallest CUV, the CX-3, is available in an appealing shade of medium blue. Its bigger brother, the CX-5, does not offer this color and is only available in very muted tones other than one bright metallic red.
The CX-3 is a nice car, and that bright blue with black rims is just fine !
It looks like this Renault Captur (a CUV based on the B-segment Clio hatchback) shade of blue. In two-tone (three-tone ?), quite common on this highly successful Renault model.
The last generation of the Lancia Delta was available in 24 colors, a whole range of two-tone combinations included.
It is interesting you mention Mazda. On the now departed (at least on from the shores of the USA) Mazda2, you could get it in bright green or bright red.
Indeed… My Wife’s Lancer for example….
Agreed! I have a 2014 Fiesta in Green Envy. I get positive comments all the time.
But if you go to a car dealer you will not see many brightly colored compact/subcompact/CUV cars on the lot, even though the colors are available.
You’re right about dealer stock. One of the reasons we bought our Forte Koup where we did was the presence of a Corsa Blue one on the lot, there were no others locally. Still happy with our decision.
I really miss the option of having a lot of colour choices. There are too many black, grey and white cars on the roads today
Not only do I miss exterior colors but I really miss interior colors. At least GM is offering a few neat exterior shades of green and blue on there new Malibu, Cruze, Impala and truck line as is Ram, Dodge and a few others. And it’s very refreshing to see some interior colors being offered on the new Camaro, Mustang and Vette even if its only the seats. Too bad this isn’t the case with most other cars, trucks and SUV/CUV’s today. Looking at vehicles from most any manufacturer you will see black as the predominate interior shade on display followed by dark shades of gray and maybe even brown. Even tan/brown seems to be slowly fading away and often made the interior feel more airy and spacious. Why does everything have to be so somber, moody and dark these days? Is everybody depressed or something?
The new Lincoln Continental will offer a full color-coordinated blue interior. Let’s hope it proves popular and they extend the treatment to red and green too.
On the Chrysler 200, Theres black, a rich brown or even blue.
Bring back the colors! One of the things I like best about my wife’s car (2012 Kia Forte Koup EX on which I wrote a recent COAL article) is the brilliant “Corsa Blue” color. The same color was available on the Optima SX. However, it seems to have sadly been eliminated with the redesign of both cars. There are several other rich blues to be found (Subaru and Ford both offer them on some models) but colors like the turquoise you posted, golds, and almost any shade of green seem to be sadly absent lately. There are some outliers, especially among smaller cars–there seem to be some interesting hues on the Chevy Spark, for example–but I wish the brighter colors would return across the board.
And while we’re at it, let’s bring back inteiror colors too! It’s an unfortunate trend to see only black available (I hate black interiors) but let’s move beyond gray, tan, and the very occasional brown, and bring back blue, if nothing else.
Isn’t it ironic that when we’re supposed to be ‘green’ in caring for the environment, you can’t actually buy a car painted green.
Oh wait – there’s always Rolls-Royce.
I looked at the Rolls website a while back. It was pretty much showing me a color spectrum and being told to tickle my fancy. I liked that.
Seriously, have there ever been any (factory) green Prii or Teslas? Actually, I think a Tesla in a deep shade of green would look really, really nice.
Green Prii? Of course! More of a pastel shade.
Yes, kind of a “tea” green metallic that actually looks pretty good. That was very popular on the first generation Pirus. The green I see today around here is a solid bright green respray on Bell taxi cab Prii.
Wait, now that you mention it, I do remember the pastel green on the Prius from mostly about 2006-8 or so. Too bad they wouldn’t do a shade like the darker one I’ve been seeing on a few new Corollas and Tacomas.
One of the biggest issues with the drab shades are how easily they blend in with road surfaces.
Very true. Maybe the road safety lobby should ‘encourage’ the manufacturers to produce hi-vis cars.
+1 Mercedes Benz actually did research into this in the 1960s and came up with a colour they used for their test cars. It was found to be the highest visibility colour on the road.
Agreed. Any time there is thick fog or a lot of rain, I immediately curse the popularity of silver cars because they will be invisible well after you would have been able to see a car of any other color.
I’m all for bringing back colors, both inside and out. When I ordered my 2010 Camaro in February 2009, I chose Aqua Blue Metallic, because it was so different from the drab colors everyone seemed to want. Mine was one of the first delivered in central Ohio, so attracted a lot of attention just because it was a rare sight at that point. After more Camaros began filling the roads, it seemed they all were silver, black, white, or gray, with a few yellow or red ones thrown into the mix. Aqua blue was discontinued early in production so, it ended up being a rather rare color. Oddly enough, not many people ordered Aqua Blue but even 6 years later, everyone still makes comments on what a beautiful color my car is and how they’ve never seen one that color. So, is it fear of being different that keeps everyone buying the bland, boring, safe colors, even though they like bright colors? It’s a mystery to me!
That was my favorite Camaro color. Apparently we’re both in the minority.
What’s even more disturbing is that more and more automakers are charging extra for colors that go beyond the drab. I think makers could come up with more creative names for their boring colors. How about Autumn Smogmist?
I hate the extra cost charges for more interesting colors–the German luxury brands are particularly bad offenders.
LOL-That color name made me all most choke on my chow mien. how about ‘old man silver hair mange’ ?
I think the problem is more with the bland 50-shades-of- grey interiors. I miss the beautiful colour-coordinated upholstery/carpeting/instrument panels etc. of yesteryear.
We had a 98 Plymouth Grand Voyager in that exact color. Green was actually the most popular car color through the 90s, so neither this car nor our van would have stood out at all.
We replaced it with a 10 Honda Odyssey. The color was ostensibly slate green, but the green was so subtle as to be unnoticeable, sort of a homepathic color if you will.
We were just musing about a purple Breeze in for inspection at work yesterday. 59K original miles!
We also put a serpentine belt on a Neon (to cure inop power steering) on Saturday that was the specific “periwinkle” color that seemed to flake even worse than white from those cars. Not to mention the prevalence of dark metallic green in the 90s that has definitely nearly disappeared.
Other notable purple finishes I remember were Oldsmobile’s purple on the Intrigue and Alero and Hyundai’s surprising ’06 Azera option, which was much darker and called – IIRC – eggplant.
Ford had some overused minty green colors not too different from the above Breeze, and the pearl effect light bronze on the MN12s, Aspire, Windstar, and possibly others.
GM dallied with some interesting colors – notably pearl effect dark green/blue and pearl effect dark bronze – on the last-gen Grand Prix. The bronze on that car was lovingly referred to me as “pearlized poop.”
And the Ford mint green often came with a darker green interior!
I think that was often willow green, which is the interior color of my ’97 Crown Vic. Unless there was an even darker shade, which is certainly possible. Ford fully embraced colorful interiors in the early-mid 90’s, only to completely retreat by 2000 or so.
Daily driver, used in all weather, often full of kids; I’ll have my interior dark and wipe-clean, please.
Weekend summer car, subject to a little pampering; bright interior. Like this:
OK, what is it? Sorry to be an ignorant American.
The plaid picnic blanket in the back is a nice period touch. In fact, except for the child car seat this would be pretty hard to date, for me at least.
Looks like a Nissan Pao. Al should have a good story about how he got hold of one.
There’s a CC about the Nissan Pao:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-1989-nissan-pao-retro-done-right/
–and I’d love to hear the story of this one.
Sorry, not a very interesting tale to tell. I’d wanted one since reading about them in 1989, but it wasn’t until last year that I had the space to have a third car in the household. I think the resemblance to the Citroen 2CV around the rear side window and the nod to the pre 1960 ripple bonnet in the corrugated sides and bonnet is what did it. There always seemed to be a couple for sale in the UK whenever I felt inclined to look, with prices ranging from GBP 3500 to about 5500. One day an internet search threw up one for sale at a JDM importer in Middlesbrough, 50 miles away. So I went to see it and after a little haggling, it was mine. The importer did all the paperwork, so it was just a case of taxing it and driving away.
Mine’s the 3 speed auto (by far the most common), which translates to leisurely performance coincidentally on a par with a healthy 2CV. The drive home down the A1 was interesting, using the slipstream of trucks, and hoping that the slingshot would help the car break their bow wave. On the two occasions I got to 112kmh, which I think is the Japanese national speed limit, a little warning chimed to remind me to slow down. Charming, I think.
The day after purchase, we took it to a car show. The stewards marshalled us to the Japanese car section of the display area, and I must say it looked pretty funny amidst a sea of Imprezas, Supras and Evos. It received a great deal of attention, all positive, though.
Last month, my 2 year old son was rummaging around whilst I was cleaning the interior and found a Polaroid of what I think is a former owner of the car. A Japanese girl, about 30 I guess, smiling warmly even though she’s outside in a very snowy theme park. I like to imagine that part of her is thinking happily about the good natured, characterful car with the great heater that’s waiting in the car park to take her home.
Yes! More colours please. I love this website: http://www.autocolorlibrary.com
Colours in the 1940s were somber, but awesome. 1950s a bit more garish. I’m disappointed by the 50 shades of grey these days, rather depressing. Brands want to play it safe, as a lot of consumers like to fit it. It seems only small fun cars like Fiat 500 can flirt with bright and odd colours, and that’s great. I just wish high-end brands would take a bit more of a chance. Even red seems to be frowned upon these days by BMW and Mercedes.
Apologies for the Canadian spelling of colour.
No apologies needed; Aussie here!
“Playing it safe” and “50 shades of gray” aren’t phrases usually seen next to each other….
I think that the trend towards neutral/bland is really amplified by the fact that so few people order cars now; they’re always bought off the lot. Dealer wants to minimize the time on the lot so they buy only the most popular colors. Even if 10% of us would buy a colorful car, the dealer has an incentive to serve only the other 90% not because colorful won’t sell at all, but because it wont necessarily sell as fast.
We’ve never bought off the lot. If we’re going to be paying that much for something, we want it to be just right for us.
Having said that, our ’89 Mitsubishi Magna was Jade Green, not a commonly-seen colour. Actually a Ford colour. The salesman tried to get us to take a red one off the lot, and spun us all sorts of stories, so we went to another dealer and they ordered it, no problem. Just took something like eight weeks for it to get built. But what’s that compared to eleven years of ownership?
Our ’00 Mitsubishi Verada/Diamante is Riversand. A bit bland, maybe, but much prettier than the alternatives. And, as the dealer pointed out, it doesn’t show the dust from the roads up our way. Once again we had to wait, but we got what we wanted.
I agree. When I went to order my Charger R/T in 2013 I wanted the stunning red metallic exterior they offered. My eyes popped at the $800 adder and it was a no go. Deep metallic blue was a no cost selection but they couldn’t find one so silver it was. Blah black interior only with this choice. My 2009 G8 was Panther Black exterior and looked sharp with red waffle inserts in the black seats (cloth, no less!).
I also bemoan the lack of taste full chrome bits on new cars. My Charger has nothing but black surrounding the side window area and the stunning full width tail lamp setup. Only the grill sports chrome. G8 had it around the side windows plus a neat spear.
+1 on more chrome. I know there was a backlash years ago of the barges with chrome from stem to stern; but they have went too far with the mono-chrome cars now with nary any chrome save for the wheels and grill; if that. A tasteful amount of brightwork would look good among all the same color porpoises swimming in the stream.
+1 chrome looked tasteful on mainstream cars for way more years than it was tacky – which I’d say occurred in 57-60 and again in 74-80(which was mostly the fault of the 5mph bumper law). In the 80s it went to satin black (because Europe) and in the 90s it went seamless body color, which is where we are still.
Problem that constantly keeps chrome unfashionable though are horrid aftermarket accessories, especially wheels. Whenever I say to someone I’d like to see chrome bumpers come back they give me a look like I’m crazy, like I’m desiring the stereotypical 300c with chrome B pillars and twenty fo’s.
Yes the 20+inch add-on wheels have stopped a lot of designers from working on chrome I suspect (as well as a few old guys hearts). Here is an article about chrome and it’s chance at coming back from 3 years ago; not very long; maybe someone on CC could do an up-date?:
http://www.carstuffshow.com/blog/are-chrome-bumpers-making-a-comeback/
I believe you’re correct, many folks over did it with the chrome wheels, so much so that when I went purchase my new Grand Am GT in 2002 I thought the “Chrome Tech” wheels were tacky. I grew to really like them. To bad the only exterior colors offered were Black and Liquid Silver, fell back to that with the Charger. I wished for Atomic Orange then and Copperhead Pearl on the Charger in 2013 but they dropped the color!!
I’ll just leave this picture of my Charger interior here!… 🙂
My first car’s interior, ca. 1985.
Stunning. Blue looks so good. I’ll be doing my 67 LeSabre in a similar color with a cloth/leather combo.Funny how VW copied this seat pattern in the CC some years back
Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche as well as other manufacturers in German market offer the chrome or aluminium trim options, especially for the sportier versions.
I love that color. It reminds me of the Brittany Blue Metallic on the 1991 Honda Accord SE, a car that I have a particular fondness for (My aunt and uncle had one, replaced by a 1988 560SEL that is now mine). Other colors I was fond of was the Barbados Yellow of the 1988 Honda Prelude, which was my first car.
My first new car was a Prelude as well, and I almost got the Barbados Yellow, which I thought looked great on the car. But they had a Phoenix Red Si with 5-speed in stock, and I didn’t want to wait for them to get the yellow. But it was an awesome color!
theres some neat colors out there today, its just that the cars that are painted in them are boring.
Im using a Nissan red to paint my ’77 Grand Prix and I used a Ford green to paint my 68 Coronet a couple of years ago. Dodge has a hand-buffed red available on the Chargers and Challengers that’s very pretty as well.
Yes please, more colours! (Canadian, eh?)
Can’t get me a brown manual diesel wagon if they don’t make them in brown!
But seriously, I have 2 silver vehicles in my driveway right now. Not because I wanted that colour but simply because I didn’t want black. Would much rather have red, green or blue.
For some reason, Toyota USA offers more & brighter colors for the Prius C [10] than the Prius liftback [7].
http://www.toyota.com/priusc
I’ve noticed a lot of cars will have some nice vibrant colors upon release of the new model, but after all the press photos and autoshow circuits are said and done, they slowly get dropped from the options list throughout the generation. Real People just don’t buy colorful cars, so dealerships don’t stock them, and manufacturers produce so few of the colorful ones that it becomes uneconomical to offer them. Which is how you end up with three shades of gray on a late-run Kia Optima (seriously?)
People have weird and often dumb reasons for choosing generic colors. When I was helping my friend buy a new Camry a couple years ago, I really wanted her to get the bright red one. (If you’re going to get a dull generic sedan, why not at least have some fun with the color?) She said “that is very pretty, but red cars get pulled over more”. I scoffed and pointed out how ridiculous that was…. it’s a CAMRY, not a Mustang, and she drives like a grandma. There was no reason she’d get pulled over more in a red Camry than a white one – she was 25 and had never even gotten a ticket. But she absolutely refused to even consider it. She wouldn’t go for the blue one either because it reminded her of the junky Taurus she was trading in. Black “showed too much dirt” and the seafoam green was “too weird”. What did she chose? Silver. Blech! She spent $23,000 on her first new car, had the choice of any color on the lot, and she chose SILVER. I had to really hold my tongue when we left the dealership that day.
It’s self fulfilling prophesy, that whole red car thing. There was a period of time where red was THE sporty car color, early 90 Miatas, Mustangs, Camaros, Celicas, Supras, Vettes, 3000GT, Vipers, RX7s ect. I struggle to even think of those cars in other colors, and yeah they probably got pulled over more, because they’re sports cars driven sportily!
I’ve also noticed that about the press, and I’d include marketing departments too. Auto show cars and preproduction renders are often colorful, but by the time they’re advertised, printed in brochures, put on the website gallery they’re presented in neutral shades with stunning colorful backgrounds with perfect lighting and no bad shadows. Everyone then goes “I want that!”. Beautiful pictures and cinematography is all those should be taken for, but, myself included admittedly, you see one in a cool scenario and that’s the one you want, to the last detail. If I were to buy a Challenger today it would probably be white, because Vanishing Point, despite a relatively wide color pallet available.
“If I were to buy a Challenger today it would probably be white, because Vanishing Point, despite a relatively wide color pallet available.”
I have a soft spot for white Challys for that very reason. I looked at a solid white R/T about 8 months ago. Here in Oregon, the tags follow the vehicle when you sell it and these read “KWLSKI”. The prev owner was a fellow fan. But I also noticed the rear bumper was a bit askew and there was a slight ding in the rear fender. No go.
Well, if I bought a new Challenger it’d be white on black and I’d delete the stripes so I could put bumblebee ones around the tail. Cause Mopar. 🙂
Also I actually like grey, and if you like grey, you *would* want a selection of greys to pick from. But it really is out of hand these days, everything’s either a neutral color or bright red, (In part cause local football team colors) ….I’d be bored. 🙂
Maybe it was driven hard cross-country from east coast to the west.
I had one red car, a ’75 Rabbit. And I did seem to get pulled over more. I drove it the same (sometimes a little too fast) as my other more subdued colored cars. But I had a bright texas yellow sport bug, and never got pulled over in it. Always got a lot of bees splattered on the windshield and front end, and more than once they flew inside while driving. It also got hit 3 times in 2 years, completely stopped all 3 times. Couldn’t of been from being hard to see!
I have a metallic copper Titan, when cloudy it looks brown, but it looks nice when the sun is shining. Which is isn’t all that often in the pnw. It has a brown, beige and grey interior which is less depressing then black. The Jetta is a gold color, called polar silver for some reason. It has a 2 tone brown velour interior which combined with decent size windows also makes the interior bright and airy.
They both stick out in the sea of grey that fills parking lots these days.
On the flip side, I think sometimes a manufacturer will add a bright color to an older car in the hopes of making it more interesting. I had an ’06 Ranger in Screaming Yellow, which was a “limited edition” color. They offered it in “Grabber Orange” in ’08 or so, too.
I miss that truck. It was easy to find in parking lots, but also got me pulled over all the time. I now have a black SUV, which is invisible.
Kind of along the same lines: Ford has made one color available on the F-150 only in the first MY of any new generation. In 1997, it was Light Denim Blue (which was also available on the Crown Vic, T-Bird, Taurus, and Explorer).
In 2004, it was Blazing Yellow (which might have been the same shade as the Ranger’s Screaming Yellow).
In 2009, it was Amber Gold Metallic (possibly the most controversial color choice ever).
And the 2015-only color was Guard Metallic, which is kind of a gray-teal that looks different in certain light conditions. For 2016, its place in the lineup was taken by the less-dramatic Lithium Gray.
I always thought of the bright yellow as sort of a cyclical color, because there were quite a few cars offering it in the early 2000s. My kids used to play a game that involved spotting bright yellow cars, and there always seemed to be at least one in every parking lot. Then there was cobalt blue, then metallic orange, and more recently electric blue. There always seems to be one interesting “fad” color out. I think we are in a phase of seeing what the next one will be.
I ordered my car specifically in blue, because the green color I wanted was the only shade not imported. I actually preferred Dolomite Brown but not the $995 worth it cost
It’s an odd color, it ranges from bright blue to black depending on specific lighting.
I always had a fondness for ‘That 90’s Teal’… so much so, that I bought a ’97 Grand Prix GTP in that color….
I’m horrible in terms of leading by example on this, as my car is white, I bought it because it was white, and I often lust over certain cars in white. But ‘Certain’ Is the key word there, I feel some designs look best in certain colors, and as design has become ever fussier leaving the only available pallets the universal three neutrals, plus a DARK color or two(so dark they may as well be charcoal), really seems like wasted potential.
I can’t blame automakers for this though, people are just fickle trend followers for the most part, and the pressure of resale, despite the ever more common practice of keeping a car around for 5+ years, just kills the fun spirit of making something your own in fear that green or red will cost you down the road.
This! I love colors and yet my car is two-tone gray on dark gray. With a gray interior. To be fair, I wasn’t a “car person” when I got it.
Not to mention the lack of interior color choices.
That’s equally as disappointing, I can’t possibly think of a more dull combination than silver exterior with grey interior. Silver can look absolutely stunning with a red or blue interior, and many examples existed back in the day too.
Yeah……no one has ever explained why the choices have narrowed so. Some high-end and sports models offer some colorful materials, but they are limited to the seats and door trim.
The Cadillac ATS offers a red leather interior. The CTS does not, but red trim is available with black leather.
I guess the Big 3 tried to learn a lesson from the Japanese automakers about streamlining their assembly lines, maybe? All I know is you used to be able to get an F-150 in red, blue, or dark green interior along with gray and tan. Now it’s just gray, tan, and black. Well, and brown on the top trim levels, but that’s a little out of my price range.
I think part of it – for both interior and exterior – is the fact that it used to be pretty common to custom-order cars, but nowdays almost all of them are bought from off the lot. So dealers want a bunch of cars that will be acceptable to everyone, instead of bright colors that some people will love and others will hate. The yellow Ranger I mentioned above was a leftover, it had a July 05 build date and I bought it in July 06, so it had been sitting for a while. It was also the only middle-level trim one left at the dealership – everything else was a stripper or loaded.
I’m sure wanting to keep down the number of interior parts that need to be produced, stocked, and kept straight doesn’t hurt. It’s easier to build cars if they all have grey interiors than if you have to look at the build sheet to figure out what color interior goes in.
Dodge Magnums look amazing in silver. Something about the lines of that car…it just pops. But it also needs a healthy dose of black to set it off.
There WAS a time when silver cars weren’t every other one on the road and they actually looked sharp. I dated a girl in college who had a ’95 TransAm in silver. It had crosslace BBS style wheels with black centers/machined lips, dark tint and T-tops. That was one looker of a car.
Silver with green is cool too.
There’s still hope! Honda offers a Fit in yellow. Both my 86 Chevy Celebrity and 91 Toyota Corolla had blue interiors and I kind of miss that color for interiors. I think Honda did a blue interior for the Civic Hybrid for a while.
I believe the Fit comes in a lovely shade of chartreuse, which has been a fashionable color lately.
Yeah, but it took the THIRD generation to finally offer yellow, a color this car just screams for! And why not a bright green, or orange?? Honda’s color palette has always been limited; currently, the new HR-V only comes in FOUR shades: white, gray, black, olive green! 🙂
American Honda has been one of the worst offenders. The Fit has never been produced in a US factory and has always had an ok choice of colors. Mine is Blue Sensation Pearl. Even so, most Fit owners I know have white or black. When I was shopping Honda in 2010, Civic colors were limited to only three choices per trim level and one interior color.
The first-gen came in some very nice colours, like this yellow pearl. Maybe Honda US didn’t order any?
I laud the companies like VW and FIAT who come out with nifty pastels, like light blues, greens and naples yellows. European builders don’t seem so afraid of playful colors. They remind me of some of the best colors used in the ’40s and early ’50s. The bright but garish tones offered in the second half of the ’50s are probably wrapped up in all kinds of sociological issues dealing with the psychology of being an adult born in a depression who lived through a world war and raised a family under the specter of the H-Bomb. Small cars can and should be clothed in these colors now, because the fun factor is enhanced. Maybe it’s a non starter idea, given the fact that cars are seldom custom ordered any more… what manufacturer wants to go out on such a limb with an unsold vehicle?
I wouldn’t be surprised if, even in the ’50s, actual production figures favored sober colors, despite the hurdy gurdy tones in the sales brochures. Our memory might be skewed by the survival rate of novelty combos that were bought as toys and not used up. My Dad’s cars were always conservatively colored, though never gray. The number of gray metallics they shove at us now is truly disturbing.
My eyes may not be too good, but thank God I can still see colour. To me, the crap colour choices on modern cars subconsciously give the idea that they’re just another appliance. Bland, boring, easily overlooked. They look about as exciting/interesting as an electric kettle. Who gets excited about that? Maybe that’s why we see so much weird styling these days – stylists are denied the ability to use colour, so they’re left to having to contort the plastic and metal into ever more strange shapes to get our attention.
I could get much more enthusiastic about a colourful car, even if I had to pay extra for it. But then there’s still the issue of drab interiors. No new car for me until they rediscover colour, both inside and out.
I think Fiat does the best job in offering something for everyone. Even with their interiors. Black, brown, red, ivory…
Yeah, and I wonder how Fiat’s wide color palette has done for 500 sales. Being a ‘chic’ style car, I would assume it’s worked well for Fiatsler.
In strong agreement with all the comments here. Even a slightly broader palette of interior and exterior colors would go a long way toward making the roads and the buying choices far more interesting. Just check out a color chart for almost any make from the 1970s or early ’80s and imagine if we could even have half that much choice now…
Whilst I completely and utterly maintain that wild colours are preferable on cars, the reason the car manufacturers aren’t really offering them is because the consumers aren’t really asking for them.
Ford had this highlighter yellow Mondeo in the 90’s as one of their standard colors.
I like going through the “build & configure” part of carmakers’ websites. My preferred color, metallic red, is almost always about a $395~$500 upcharge for many cars like the Ford Focus, Chevy Malibu, Cruze and Toyota Camry…is it because of the low take rate? There is usually no charge for metallic blue and I can’t imagine it would cost more to formulate red metallic paint.
The charge is likely due to those particular colors being a base coat / tinted coat / clear finish vs. the more typical base coat / clear finish.
Got it…thanks!
I think it’s more like they thought they could make boring cars funky with …actually pretty awful shades that were already out of style, even if you wanted purple, took a loss on it, and have been gunshy ever since: I think they were more like what often happens, men saying, “Women will love this! Let’s focus-group it till it looks like discount Tupperware!”
Maybe not so much. 🙂
The cars/trucks I go for are generally performance models as well as Jeeps and trucks. So usually the colors available aren’t your usual boring blah dreck. Dark grey, maroon, and beige are just fine for midsize sedans and other appliance cars…but I cringe when I see a Mustang in that champagne color that is basically ‘Buick beige’.
Ma Mopar has done a pretty good job of offering a decent color pallet on the Challenger. But infuriatingly, theres just not a good blue now, or any orange at all. B5 is too bright, and Jazz is near black. Blue Streak and Deep Water blue were both great hues…nearly the proper cobalt ‘Mopar Blue’. And WHY isn’t the classic Hemi Orange available on the Challenger, Charger, and Ram? Toxic orange was nice, but the classic look is just so right. FWIW, I hated ‘Header Orange’…reminds me of Primus cheese.
The only reason I bought a leftover 2010 Challenger R/T Classic in 2011 was because it was Hemi Orange.
The only reason I haven’t traded it on a Challenger Hellcat is that they haven’t offered Hemi Orange on it yet.
We need a QOTD, if it hasn’t been done already: What color is your current daily driver? It would be interesting to tabulate the responses from CC readers.
Black Diamond. No longer available.
2010 Challenger: Hemi Orange with black RT side stripes.
1992 Mazda B2600i – Sunrise Red
Sonic Blue (2012 Focus). If they had a deep green shade, I would have gone for that first.
The colors are bad enough; but it’s the sameness of the cars that get ya. A friend of mine gave me a ride in his silver 2013 Corolla; to a big box and said he would park in front when we were done and meet him at the car…do you know how many cars look like a silver 2013 Corolla? I swear 1/3 of the cars in the last 10 years are close and that parking lot was awash in a sea of the silver porpoise things. If he hadn’t come up and honked 10 feet from me I would still be standing there. lol
Guess what? Cars from the same era tend to look alike.
I’m sorry; didn’t know you designed them; only reason I can see for your touchyness. It was meant to be funny. Chill out dude.
Touchy is right. tmt was relating something many of us have experienced and found humour in.
All the more reason to buy something in a unique colour if possible!
I don’t design them, I just study their designs quite extensively as a hobby and have found that cars today have the same amount of variance as cars from other eras. Sorry if my reply sounded snippy.
no problemo. I can get into a complaining mode about new cars; but I like some of the newer ones; they just are out of my price range; Jaguar; the wheels are too big; but that body…
I know they don’t make it but they should:
I blend in painfully. I drive a Galaxy Gray 2006 Honda Civic EX 4-door. Blending in is putting it lightly.
My theories on why cars have no colour offerings include:
1) cars are so aggressively ugly that a greyscale conceals some of that;
2) automakers cheap out.
I am such a colour maven that I simply won’t compromise on buying a car in a shade I can’t abide. A sample:
Medium Amethyst Frost Metallic (Ford) ((parchment leather interior))
Dark Garnet Red Pearl (Chrysler) ((dark grey with that 90s Chrysler rainbow flecked pattern))
Light Stellar Blue Metallic and Olympic White (GM) ((dark blue cloth interior))
Wedgewood Blue (Ford) ((white leather))
Cinnamon Metallic (Ford) ((charcoal cloth. It’s the sig. other’s; sue me))
Dark Maple Metallic (GM) ((maroon cloth interior))
The only appropriate response to theory #1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c
It’s completely subjective.
The Dude abides on the silver screen, but on Curbside I say the automakers go out of their way to make cars “distinctive” but instead end up with a hot mess. If any lines flow, it’s by accident.
I reckon that’s because stylists are denied the ability to use colour. That means they have to rely on shock value to make you notice their silver mid-size among all the other silver mid-sizes.
This ’98 Plymouth’s color is pretty close to that of my ’62 Dodge (←that’s a link).
I still go with the majority that say get the interior colours back! we spend most of our time inside looking out, so to me that’s where I want some sparkle.
one of my favourite cars colourwise was my 76 4dr hardtop Chrysler Newport. black outside with a red interior with a patterned seat material. I know there was a proper name for it but I always called it my indian blanket seats. people used to actually gasp when they walked up to the car and the interior jumped out at them.
it’s sad when I think that the last car I owned that I could say I really liked the interior was my 93 tempo( red and silver outside, ALL red interior) about 10 years ago.
I’m just grateful furniture manufacturers never took up the same trend!
I wonder if the more limited color chart for most medium size and price vehicles and up is related to the length of time that people are more likely to own cars these days. The age of an average non commercial light passenger vehicle in the United States has jumped from 5.1 years in 1969 to 11.4 years in 2014.
When you think about some popular colors in the past – Pinks in the ’50s, Golds in the ’60, Greens in the ’70s, etc., most of those cars were off the road by the time the colors seemed dated. Pick a funky shade of green now, and you might be seeing it in your garage a dozen years from now.
This government table on the U.S. fleet might be of interest……..
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_26.html_mfd
Factory paint’s a lot more durable than it once was, too. As late as the early ’80s it was common in the northeast to repaint every 3 years or so.
The articles on the 1965 Impala brought to mind probably the peak of exterior and interior color choices of all time. 15 solids and nine two-tone paint combinations. Ours was Mist Blue. No less than 15 interiors were also available for the Impala series alone, fawn, aqua, red, blue, green, saddle and black cloth or vinyl (wagons and convertible) plus an another black vinyl for sport coupe and sedan.
Excellent. Even the Biscayne came in a dozen colors.
I looked up info on the 66 Plymouth Fury line and pretty much the same thing, with 17 solid exterior colors and 6 interior colors offered.
I sure do and since moving to the Willamette Valley my dislike for Greyscale vehicles has increased and even other dark colors I do not much care for. The weather is often some shade of Greyscale, why would I want more Greyscale in my life? White is more tolerable than Black, but neither hold a candle to actual colors. I am torn on Tan and Gold though, I kind of like those.
When my folks bought a 1995 Voyager from Buhler one reason I suspect it had been on the lot for a year was because it was Poppy Red.
I think the same way about the popularity of white cars here in Saskatchewan.
What is white reminiscent of? (No, not cocaine).
Snow!
In 1995 to 1997 that green was very popular in Brazil, Accent, Colt, Taurus, Windstar, the VW Polo sized Gol and Chevrolet Corsa were the most chosen, anyway after that time it seems everybody get used of this. VW still tried this color in the refreshed “Gol G3”, but it was pretty rare, after that people returned to the traditional black, silver, gray and red.
Aesthetically 94-96′ Chrysler Cirrus has the best nose and the Breeze the best rear lights,
I bought a used 2000 Silverado some years back in a unique shade of orange, can’t remember the name but I seem to recall something odd about it being a 2001-only color used primarily on Corvettes (my truck was a late 2000 build). Never saw another one the same color as mine, never had trouble finding it in a parking lot, and a later benefit was that it hid the inevitable rear wheel arch rust well.
It looks like the same shade of red used by Volkswagen in Brazil in the same period.
Both Gol and Santana use to be available in this color, VW never used it again either.
Yes I miss all those colors that cars used to be able to be ordered in.
I bought a 2009 Pontiac Vibe that was a “special limited” color called mystic Blue Metallic. In reality it was a pretty shade of teal that seemed to glow in certain light.
I then got a 2012 Fiesta in lime green. I wanted a car that would stand out and one that i would be able to find in a parking lot. (of course little did I know most folks seemed to opt for the same color Fiesta as there were tons of them running around my area)
The place I get a lot of my cars from has a 1993 Chevy Cheyenne pickup truck that is used as a shop truck and it is in that turquoise color that GM offered on a lot of their cars in the late 1980’s to about 1997.
It seems the smaller cars havehe better paint options.
Though didn’t Ford offer a lime green Escape for a year or 2?
Late here, but I agree with everyone. It used to be that you could change the whole look and personality of a car with color and trim choices. Much harder to do now.
I am all about black cars…solid or metallic, either is fine. I like black interiors, but prefer medium gray carpet like BMW did in the 80s, because black carpet shows EVERY speck of dirt and the gray doesn’t.
My wife is car shopping this week, and LOVED the brilliant silver Nissan Rogue with charcoal cloth. I tried to steer her to a black one, to no avail.
Honda had a greenish gray on 2014 Accords, I thought it almost looked like olive green, and that was one color that would have gotten me away from black…that got vetoed, and we would up with a metallic black Accord.
Let me add an asterisk to the color discussion…I have been in the funeral and cemetery trade for 30 years and black vehicles just look “right” to me. I do miss the brighter livery that funeral homes used to use…when I started in the 80s, Kriegshauser FH used light blue with dark blue tops, Hoffmeister had black lead cars and limousines with jewel tone coaches, blue, green or red (Richard Hoffmeister liked to switch it up so everyone knew when he had bought new coaches), Schrader had medium blue with sailcloth tops, Baue had white with black sailcloth 1/2 tops, Kutis had (and still has) horrible gold with gold tops, etc…you could see a procession coming down I-270 and know exactly who it was. Now most firms use black livery.
I’ve never had any luck with a silver car. I’ve had two; the first was an ’00 Dodge Intrepid with the 2.7 (’nuff said, we actually made it to 98K before the timing chain tensioner failed two days before its scheduled appointment at the shop to look at the rattle.) The other silver car was an ’05 Ford Five Hundred, lost to a crash and totaled out three months after I got it. No more silver cars for me.
The 500’s replacement is in a stately color Ford called “Dark Ink Blue”. Somewhat easier to see on the road on a gray day, anyway.
Yes, some color would be nice. I’ve seen two Chrysler 200s, current and last gen that stopped me in my tracks enough to circle back around to the dealership for the older model. That one was in “Autumn Bronze”, a beautiful medium brown metallic.
The second was a deep burgundy metallic that looked like a million bucks. It may even have been a Dart but it was sensational. The Avenger offered a burnt orange metallic early in it’s run that was an eye catcher.
I’ve seen a couple of deep forest green metallic Cruzes running around that look especially nice, and the butter yellow on the Spark looks great.
My first car love was a 1966 Mercury Montclair four door in Palisades Turquoise with an aqua interior. I bought a 95 Saturn SL1 because it was the same color. No aqua interior though.
My parent’s 72 Ambassador was in Cordoba Brown with a patterned brown vinyl top. But there was a 71 in the show room when they bought their Gremlin that was a frost mint green metallic with green vinyl top with emerald green interior that I have never forgotten.
Ford offered a color called “Diamond White” in the late 60s that was almost pale blue and managed to look crisp, cool and colorful at the same time. Nice trick with white.
Most appalling interior color choices seem to be in the new Malibu with beautiful brown leather seats set down in a sea of Saturn ION grey plastic. Like the seats were an afterthought.
My last two cars have been white: utilitarian, simple, basic machines. The Cavalier, white or black were all that were on the lot I shopped.
Pretty obnoxious as the offerings at the time were Blue Opal, Dark Blue, Cayenne Red, another red, white, black, at one time a light purple, lime green, and a hideous chrome yellow
The ION had Silver Nickle, Polar White, Black and Berry Red available because it was a “1”. That was it. I took the path of least resistance.
More color choices inside and out, smaller consoles and what’s protecting all those ugly grilles out there? I see fewer bumpers, larger grille work and less protection against parking lot dings than ever before.
You raise a great question that would make a good QOTD in its own right – new car’s in a color combo that grabbed us then and that we have never forgotten. When my mother was shopping for a new 72 Cutlass, there was a Cutlass Supreme convertible on the showroom floor painted a bright metallic blue (Viking Blue) with a white white bucket seat interior and a white convertible top. It was a stunning car in an era overrun with earth tones.
Predominance of imports among cars…high prevalence of leasing…virtually no special ordering…dealers stock what is safe…dull grey-silver outside, mouse-grey on the inside. Individualism in America is on the decline; it’s easier to be like everybody else. Increasingly confirmist buyers will take what they can get.
Yeah, one BS excuse I heard one time related to “resale” value. Already thinking about about selling it/turning it in before you’ve barely set foot in it. My god, my god
Yes. I have never considered the resale value of a cars color when buying it; although I have had cars that I wished the previous owner had better taste.
I had a particularly bright yellow colored ’75 Mustang II Mach I (ever the contrarian; I thought it was a great car and fast; altho I did put a pre-smog engine in) that when the sun was out; I needed sunglasses just to get in the car.
I never was stopped in that car; but I have heard that about red and yellow cars. But the truth is (from a magazine article lost to the memory cells) that a dirty/unwashed car is the most likely to get pulled over.
And the color “re-sale red” I remember the first time I heard that; and wondered when did it stop being “candy-apple red” the most coveted color of the 60s hot-rod crowd and magazines. Still like a fast car in candy-apple red or ‘midnight blue’ regardless of what the next owner thinks.
Pickup trucks have actually gotten better in this respect–probably because they’ve absorbed a lot of the traditional full-size sedan buyers.
Look at the plethora available on the 1991 GMC: Red, blue, black, gray, white, tan.
http://i.imgur.com/gpMIJxX.jpg
1991 was a long time ago. The 2016 GMC Sierra base model has exactly ONE interior color, dark ash gray in cloth or vinyl, and three paint colors, white, red or black. There are five optional ($395) metallic paints, of which three are shades of gray!
My dad bought a ’79 base model Sierra with a blue interior, and brought home the brochure. The other interior color options were red, green and a particularly amber-hued tan. Big spenders buying higher trims could also get white vinyl bucket seats and door cards with dash and carpets in any of the above four colors.
If you use a base model as your comparison, you’re gonna have a bad time.
SLE trim adds cocoa and black cloth seats, removing the vinyl option, but the extremely limited paint colors are unchanged. Top of the line Denali trim has even fewer colors.
Love the deep magenta metallic on my Sonic! Picture is from a Chevy press release but it’s the same exact car.
I really like the pale greenish color on the Volvo wagon next to the Breeze.
There are two color combos that really struck me…both Olds Toronados if you can believe that:
1. 1979 Toro, charcoal gray, no vinyl top, maroon leather
2. 84ish Toro, non-metallic beige exterior, but the interior was what I loved…taupe and gray interior tones…very low key but it was lovely. That was a demo from Bob Pulte Oldsmobile and I only rode in it once.
Can’t stand the clay colored leather in some GM vehicles…in an otherwise battleship gray interior. There is a TV spot that GM is running with some interiors that look more like peanut-brittle or honey than clay, but these are surrounded by the same dull gray.
This post has gotten me thinking about color names…what color names do posters remember from past cars? I had a 77 Honda Civic in Alluvial Gold, a 90 Accord in Seattle Silver, 92 Accord in Bordeaux Red, 96 Windstar in Medium Willow Green Metallic. Those colors seem self-explanatory.
We have an ugly little 13 Civic in Urban Titanium(leased, being turned in tonight, thank God) that we picked out at night…looked like a smoky, warm silver color under the lights, but in daylight it’s a horrible light brown…I surely don’t associate titanium with brown, I think of it as more of a silvery-platinum color. My dad had a 2001? Civic in a titanium color that was really pretty, that’s why I thought the 13 was going to look good.
Firethorn Red and Fire Mist Claret were two GM metallic reds of the 1970s. There was a spate of clever colour names in the late ’60s-early ’70s: Plum Crazy, Inviolet, Panther Pink, Moulin Rouge, Sassy Grass Green, Sublime, Curious Yellow, Tor-Red, Go Mango (“Go, man, go!”) and the like from Chrysler US; Thar She Blue, Little Hood Riding Red, and Bondi Bleach White from Chrysler Australia; AntiestablishMint, Hulla Blue, Original Cinnamon, Freudian Gilt, and Thanks Vermillion from Ford USA, etc.
I had an ’87 Ford Laser in “Oxford Blue”. A dead-ringer for the colour on Dad’s ’55 Morris Oxford – truth in advertising!
Color names–hmm. Yellow Beige (’79 Malibu), Light Titanium (’91 Crown Vic), Vineyard Gray (’91 Accord), Light Blue (’82 Malibu), Opal Opalescent (’96 Mark VIII), Silver Birch (’03 Marauder), Bright Red (’00 Alero), Corsa Blue (’12 Forte Koup)
Most seem pretty straightforward, though “light titanium” was basically silver.
I was pleased to see Chrysler add Forest Green Metallic to the 300’s colour palette this year, but I doubt I will ever see one in the wild.
I’m sort of surprised nobody’s mentioned http://www.autocolorlibrary.com yet (unless I simply missed it).
I’m generally a reasonably calm and calmly reasonable man, certainly not the type to have an extremely negative reaction to a colour of paint on a car…with one exception: that awful metallic lipstick red/magenta Ford put on Escorts in the mid ’90s. (Okeh, two exceptions: those Mary Kay pinkmobiles.)
Even though I have complained; with others here; about too many silver and grey cars; this time period (the last 10-15 yrs) is not as bad as the 70s in someways/colors; which is usually considered the colorful/disco era; but not in the cars I managed to buy.
Back then grey was one of my favorite colors; mainly cause I had a Mazda 1800 SW in the nicest pearl grey every seen; it had a metallic look to it that in strong sunlight made it have a slight pink tint; the best paint job on a cheaper car I’ve had.
But half of the used car I bought; being a cheap-skate (and raising a family) were either a baby-throw-up brown or some green in an off-colored dead-pea or dead Douglas-fir look. One especially turgid green colored little 76 Toyota Corolla; that otherwise was a great car; made my wife ask “what have you drug home now; can’t you find a car that doesn’t look like it’s last trip was thru the digestive track of a cow?” It didn’t stay around long.
Truth. It was as though the entire auto industry were trying out every possible variant of Shìt Brown and Overcooked Pea Green and other putrid colours that aggravated the offensive designs of the era and didn’t help the half-decent ones.
Oddly enough, I really like the current Jeep “Rescue Green” despite it being a metallic canned-peas green. Perhaps it’s the different paint technology today; there are some very unintuitive things done to achieve particular apparent colours. About 13 years ago, there was a metallic red/maroon colour available on Chev Corvettes that involved something like a base coat of dark metallic silver, a coat of a transparent, almost fluorescent hot pink, some other layer I forget at the moment, and then the clear coat. I guess if you can afford a Corvette, you don’t have to care how much paint repair costs.
(I am pretty sure you did not mean “turgid”; it’s a word that has nothing to do with colour. Billious, maybe?)
I was loath to buy a ’74 Continental Town Car because it was painted Overcooked Pea Green. Damned nice car otherwise.
The ’79 I ended up with is wedgewood blue, a far more flattering and timeless hue.
It’s true that some colors take quite peculiar paths to come up with the final result. The Opal Opalescent paint on my Mark VIII was basically a pearl beige or dark pearl white. The door handle broke and I had to repaint the replacement part, and I learned that the color was a tricoat with a peculiar almost greenish base, and then a *very* pearly, semi-translucent layer that turned the greenish base white, then a clearcoat to finish it off. I’m sure that one was an extra cost color originally, but then again I didn’t buy it new!
No; I actually looked turgid up before I used it.
One of the definitions is: “swollen and distended or congested.” it sounded right; to conjure up the thought of it’s coming out of the “ass-end of a cow” as my wife said nicer. LOL
Sorry, no. Green cannot be turgid, even if it sounded right to you. In all fairness, neither can red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, violet, turquoise, puce, dun, beige, taupe, or any other colour.
Not to belabor this point; but I used it as the car was a small, kind of round two door so should of said : “One especially putrid-green colored little; turgid, 76 Toyota Corolla;”
As the definition of turgid as I said is: “1-swollen; distended; tumid. 2. inflated, overblown, or pompous;
So the car seemed “swollen, distended” in appearance to me; now if that isn’t ok I suggest you are being a little turgid about it; difinition no. 2.
One thing no one has touched on; why people buy weird or garish colors. People see colors differently.
I see most colors just fine but have been told by my eye doctors over the years that I am what they call “color deficient” I don’t see weak colors that well.
So the light reds, browns, greens and yellows can blend into the same color; like the wiring harness in an old car, motorcycle or even TV; makes it fun when your trying to restore one or repair a harness; or are a TV repairmen; like I was back in the 70s.
So when people buy cars; what men see as putrid-pea green; women (and it’s usually women with the “good” color seeing eyes) will see differently and like different colors; especially grays, greens, silvers.
The only thing I can’t understand is why some women (especially if they know you are color deficient) get ‘hostile’ if you like or see a color differently then they do!LOL I’m mostly talking about my wife (and daughter, sister; etc.) but we had to ‘agree to disagree’ to get along when we were painting our houses.
I painted one house an off yellow; she said it was drab–come on how can yellow be drab? but they did put black in it when they mixed it. She also painted our kitchen the most garish off pink/red that I had ever seen; just had to close my eyes when I went in there; for years.
When buying a car; it was/is mostly how good of a deal we could make and mechanical condition; so I was in charge; luckily Lol.
So that might explain the lack of taste or them buying a certain color in a lot of drivers.
Not only do people see color differently (actually their BRAINS interpret colors differently), but some, as they get older, have their color vision muted by cataracts. They go on for years without realizing it, until they have them removed, and then marvel at what they have been missing.
I think the Holden Commodore SS has one of the more colourful paint ranges available, as the “sports” model it gets some options not available in other trim levels. And that is since they have dropped the purple that the previous model came in.
From 2000 they started to do a ‘hero’ colour for each new model release, the first was Tiger Mica, a bright orange/copper type colour.
my favourite colour name was an aunt’s valiant. to my eye it was a dull red but she said it was called “autumn rust”. of course after a few years in salt laden Ontario it was an “autumn rust-ER” also spring, summer and winter one too!
Don’t start e on this!
50 shades of grey, at your Audi dealer now
It does disappoint me how automotive color choices have gotten boring. The love of vivid colors was some of my motivation behind buying my Focus ST. It’s easy to find in a crowded parking lot too.