What’s up with car colors?
Whatever happened to car colors?
It seems these days that gray’s the thing, in every possible shade and tone: silver, metallic, charcoal, light, dark, middling, and every type of gray in between. Much more gray than I care to look at.
I ask you: whose decree is this, and why?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe what people buy is closely linked to what sells, and when something sells, sellers will tend to supply more of it.
That’s less certain if the seller is owned by the government. But that’s another topic.
It’s the urbanites of the northeast. Look at what they wear; every outer garment is black/gray. I see a lot more color in cars where I live because people here aren’t that hip.
Historically, silver and gray have been associated with luxury cars. Such colors have an understated beauty associated with them.
Disclaimer,
I have a metallic dark gray German sedan.
I like my “grigio metallic” Acura, thank you 🙂
Not only are all the cars’ colors about the same, but all the CARS pretty much look the the same to ME. At least within a price range.
I’ve preferred white.
As always – my girlfriend is the one who gets the choice.
She prefers dark gray. or is it grey.
So my next car will be dark gray.
But today – my 1999 white minivan is in the shop getting new brakes and getting my air conditioning fixed. That means I’ll have white for a few more years. 🙂
BTW, I just remodeled my home and am renting it out. I moved into an apartment. This is why I’ve not commented much lately. I’ve read neo’s posts though.
Guess who picked the floor color and granite and kitchen cabinet color 🙂
Gray shows dirt less.
I have a gray S-10 and can’t remember the last time it was so dirty it need to be washed.
Firetruck yellow was popular in pickups the last two years along with various reds (it seems truck types are more flamboyant than sedan drivers).
Ditto for Forest Service Green, Bright Blue and lots of industrial whites.
Some of these bled over into minivans/sporty cars. But yes the Northeast is very conformist wrt colors
Maybe car colors follow a society’s level of imagination or lack thereof. Which means latinos with their low riders possess the most imagination at present.
Here are the results of a survey I just conducted of 50 cars passing under my office window:
blue, red, beige, gray, burgundy, black, black, black, black, gold, red, gray, burgundy, black, red, red, black, red, white (dump truck), blue, gray, blue, black, white (sheriff’s car) black, black, red, black, gray, gold, gold, red, black, black, white (another dump truck) red, red, black, very dark gray, black, burgundy, red, gray, gray, white, gray, yellow (school bus!) black, burgundy, black.
Gray’s clearly not predominant here — both black and red are much more popular. But this is an unsophisticated little rural town where trends come late. I notice a couple of things: no greens (remember a few years back when almost all cars seemed to be forest green?) and surprisingly many burgundy cars.
My own car is pale silver gray. I like the color but didn’t choose the car for that reason. If I were picking a car for its color, I’d pick red — far and away the most fun, though I understand it increases the odds of getting a speeding ticket.
I’d pick transparent if money was no object. 😉
Is it like mini-skirts indicating good financial times? Maybe greys indicate the pulled back state of mind… or maybe it’s like painting your house a neutral color, and choosing neutral appliances… Is Faith Popcorn the go-too resource on color trends?
You only THINK that market forces are at work here, but it’s far more sinister than that. A secret cabal makes all of these decisions for you. Did you choose avocado refrigerators in the ‘70s? I didn’t think so. How about the ‘earth tones’ that followed? Again, no. The Color Association of America meets to decide, and we blindly follow.
http://www.colorassociation.com/
What do you think will happen the next time you go shopping for a British Racing Green MG? A blank stare, that’s what, and a suggestion that you consider something in metallic slate gray with gunmetal gray accents. This deserves closer attention.
Baklava – I actually did wonder where you had gone. Good to know you might be settling back down here, your Virtual Home.
Re: cars –
It appears I’m the only person here too poor to have a car, so I’d take anything, gray or hot pink. Though it would be more alarming, methinks, if all cars were suddenly hot pink. There’s something to be said for blandness and austerity, even if it is used as a kind of Veblen-esque conspicuous consumption status signifier (not like I would know -I haven’t a clue about any of this, never having had a car).
I guess for me it boils down to what Steve Martin said in Planes, Trains and Automobiles:
“A f**king Datsun, a f**king Toyota, a f**king Mustang, a f**king Buick – four f**king wheels and a seat!”
(pardon the French, but anyone who’s seen the film will recall how funny that scene is).
I blame George Bush.
Kolnai, I actually owned a Datsun (red). After it was totalled in a accident that was not my fault, I asked my dad to look for a replacement. He asked what kind. I replied one that is too ugly to steal, cause I lived in Philly at the time and Frank Rizzo’s cops weren’t exactly proficient at stopping crime. I ended up with a used white Rambler that no self-respecting car thief would have even eyed. I still go for boring and reliable in cars. Actually, I go for boring and reliable in many things. I do, however, like stimulating minds, which is why I come here.
Bill West, interesting link you provided to the color association. Looks like control freak progressives (interesting founding date of 1915) trying to run us poor peasants lives. And the writing at the site also reads like it came straight out of a post modern generator.
I just bought a new car. And the very first thing I said to each salesman when he asked what I was looking for, my answer was “ANYTHING BUT SILVER!!!” The Toyota guy laughed and told me I was the THIRD person that day who had answered him in this way! Me, my reason was simple: I want to be able to find my car when I’m parked in a busy parking lot!
I ended up with a Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland which I adore. Not the best mileage, but almost all driving around here is highway so I get decent mileage — but these days, just filling up the big tank is still a shocker!
It’s a pretty hot car around here (in the NC mountains) so color ended up being more of a preference; getting a car was the more immediate problem. I wanted big, strong, and safe. I love the snow — love it! — but driving in it on these mountain roads when it’s iced over underneath and snowing like the dickens ain’t so much fun. Also, after some 30 years in NYC without a car (driving only intermittently when visiting family in Miami) and then having what should have been a serious accident (I was LUCKY)
I didn’t want white – it shows everything (dirt). I thought about red — but in some almost 40 yrs. of driving, I’ve had 1 white car, and 3 reds. Ended up with black (I know, it shows everything!) but it’s beautiful and it has this new saddle colored interior which is “pretty.” Maybe it’s a “girl” thing, but it was really hard to get hold of, but it seems there are plenty of guys who are crazy about it, too.
And mission accomplished: I can spot it in a second even in a huge packed Walmart parking lot!
nice bright red for me, thanks. easily found in the jumble of parking lots, and it certainly isn’t a boring snoozer color like grey yup, that’s me. brand new car, color other than what is popular at the time.
Powder blue was the best.
Here’s a piece about car colors:
http://mobilelifetoday.com/health/01/31/car-colors-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow/
Years ago I read that car companies have a department that selects car colors years in advance of a model year. They look at social trends in colors and try to guess what will sell. For years dark green and dark blue pretty much disappeared. Green reappeared years ago but has gone away again. Dark blue is pretty big now.
Kolnai,
Yes. This is home.
I’m at peace here more than anywhere. So this last month I’ve had no peace. 🙂
My 12 year old minivan now has cold air and good brakes.
Now to get renters in my home ! Expenses are killing me!
Property managers kill me 🙂 6%!!!!
I’ve never had silver/gray in a car, but I have liked it since a friend had a silver/gray Fiat in the ’70s. I have a green car which was a good price for a used car in my price range. I don’t like the color, but I liked the price.
All things being equal, I would choose silver/gray.
My new (2002) GMC is as close to OD as I could find. The truck it replaces,a 93 GMC(300,000 miles) was the best color ever,a nice metallic teal green. I’d paint the fenders red on my new one if I didn’t think it’d make too much of a target for the traffic cops.
I drove – for more years than I like to think – a pumpkin-orange colored 1974 Volvo two-door sedan. A lovely car, fairly mechanically reliable, comfortable to drive, roomy — but the day that a fellow member of the unit that I belonged to said that he had spotted me from three blocks away, turning into the local mall parking-lot on a Saturday mnorning … I arranged with my father to have it painted brown. A nice, discreet, chocolote-brown. Drove it for another fifteen years, and sold it to a local Volvo motor-head who wanted to restore it. Not to the original color scheme, I hope…
I replaced it with a much younger Accura Legend, which is sort of a pale goldy-beige. I never, ever lost the Volvo in a parking lot, no mater what color it was, orange or brown — but I loose the Accura all the time, mostly because it is so much smaller than the cars parked on either side of it.
I first noticed the proliferation of silver cars back in the 1980s.
I’ve bought all of my cars used, and I always chose them based on the features I wanted. I didn’t care about the color. My 1973 Dodge Dart was metallic gold, my 1981 Chevrolet Chevette was navy blue, and my 1991 Toyota Corolla is white (though developing a rust red trim).
I once had a nice hunter-green Mazda, and its interior was a cheese-mold gray for some reason.
I traded it in on a newer Mazda in “Mojave Beige Mica,” whatever the flip that is supposed to be – I’ve been through the Mojave, and it ain’t beige – and the interior trim was the color of butterscotch pudding.
Now I’m surrounded by gray – er, “dark taupe” – in a white car.
I finally stopped buying cars in various shades of red. Result? Haven’t had a ticket in years. But I still drive the same way. Funny, that.
The cars I’ve owned have been navy blue, light sky blue, gold, medium blue, burgundy, medium blue, red, green, blue, white. I think that covers them all, going back to the early 1970s. Not a black, silver, or gray in the lot, and the white car was a gift from the parents. While I have no objection to owning a silver/gray car, it just hasn’t worked out that I’ve seen one that I wanted when I was car shopping. Black, though, I actually dislike, either exterior or interior. Maybe some subconscious funereal connotation or something, who knows? But now, I haven’t owned a car in almost 4 years, because I live in a big, Asian city that has awful traffic, worse drivers, and cheap and abundant taxis. BTW, the most popular car color here, far and away, is silver.
White diesel pickup. White was what they had. But I miss my first one, a pink/cream two-tone 1956 Buick Special with 3 cruiserline ventiports on each side of the hood. (Their real name.) I still think of that as the exemplar of “car.”
I had a red car once that would get covered in mosquitos on summer evenings in Georgia. Really weird and a good reason not to own a red car in the deep south.
“People can have the Model T in any color — so long as it’s black.”
– Henry Ford
Khaki Jeep Wrangler the better to fade into the desert rocks.
I’ve heard a lot about color preference but not color utility (though there was a mention of dirt shown by some colors). Some of us like to blend in. If you can find your way out back very well, I’d recommend international orange and a strobe light.
Does anyone else give their transport a name? That’s got to be as interesting as color rationale.
Scout here, of course.
Bright, bright blue Protege, thankyouvery much.
Anyone who watches Criminal Minds knows that when they profile an unsub for a car color, it’s always DARK.
Here in the desert southwest, white or gold is the color that withstands the torture of the sun rays best, and is cooler to enter when left in an open parking lot when the outside temps are 110 degrees
My wife drives a “Desert Sand” (gold) Mercedes E320 and I drive a gold Ford F-150 pickup.
It’s not only cars. Clothes now come in black, light grey, dark grey, lavender, fushia (yuck), greyish white, greyish blue, etc. Where are the clear colors? I have bought nothing in many months, and my clothes (in lovely colors) are wearing out. Depressing.
My preferences are dark blue, dark green, or dark red.
I see more than enough gray or white in mirrors.
The answer, I think, is dirt.
Dirt, and even small amounts of dust, shows better on flat colors.
I had a black car once (vs. metallic black) and I could see dust on it within 5 minutes of washing it. By the next day it looked dirty again.
Metallic flake won’t work in many flat colors without looking like confetti; so you have to go more grey to hide the metallic flake (example, cream for metallic white vs. flat white)… to better hide dust and dirt…
Let’s face it, Bill, that may not be associated with the “Racing Green” element of that comment.
😀
Having owned a lemon yellow MG (not my choice of color, it’s the one it had when I bought it used — I planned at one point to repaint it a very dark, almost “midnight” Aconite — outside my model year but one of the official colors), the cars were quite fun, though there are a number of modern cars that target the same quality of niche, such as the Miata and the higher-end RX8 — nimble little roadsters.
Timely comment. I was just yesterday sitting in traffic with my kids when i commented that there are no cars with “color” anywhere around us. So we played a game of “find any car with color” (other than black white silver or grey)… The very thing results were depressing to a car guy like me who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. Even the cars that were “colorful” had a muted tone to them. The bright cobalt blue and fire engine reds are looong gone. It’s really not that different nightclubs. All colors are shades of grey.
As the ethics and aesthetics of a nation change, so does their conception of what is beautiful to the eye adapt to their beliefs.
This culturally relative, discarding of truth in the pursuit of absolute power and dominion over humanity, is perfectly consistent with Leftist agit tropes and visions of Utopian Beauty.
Forty two comments about the colors of car paint. This makes forty three.
Once a friend took me to his non-working dairy farm in NW Wisconsin where we were going to put up a new fence. After one of our forays into town for supplies he spied a neighbor as he was pulling onto his drive and stopped to chat.
The neighbor talked nearly nonstop for forty-five minutes (after the first ten I was looking at my watch). When the neighbor walked off my friend turned to me and asked,
to which I responded
Whereupon my friend said
That was thirty-five years ago and I haven’t had another experience like it until just now.