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23 October 2011
Why are car colors so boring now? This is something that I've wondered about for a while. I grew up in the '70s with all kinds of green, yellow, purple cars and today's cars are all pretty numbingly dull in comparison.
I never realized there were so many dark blue cars in town until I drove my new car off the lot. It was the best choice out of the available shades -- dark blue, black, white, red and 3 shades of silver/grey.
And I am always impressed with people who buy the brighter colors (like the orange Element whose license plate was something like GRTPMPKN); I'd be afraid I'd get tired of the color after a few years and would hate it the remaining 5+ years.
Grey. Grey grey grey. Everywhere you look up here are little grey cars of varying shades. Even our car (Nissan Versa) is a shade of grey. The Versas came in two shades of grey. I think the only other option were black, white, red and blue. Boring.
At the moment, new cars here are available in more colours than ever, including some so bright they are almost flouro - particularly greens and oranges. This is fairly new, though and I remember thinking a couple of years ago that it's a shame cars only seem to be available in white, grey or blue these days.
I was noticing this a little while ago, too. I miss it; but if it means more durable paint, it's not a bad trade-off. I do like matte finishes. I see them fairly frequently on bicycles; pretty neat.
I loathe grey/silver cars. The only time I have ever nearly been in an accident that was my fault was when I just failed to see one, and I blame my brain for not processing the color properly. Anything too close to the color of the road sucks.
A kind of deep-pumpkin orange was big a few years ago and seems to have some staying power; there was also a "flip-flop" purple (looked purple from one direction, orange-y from the other) that I really liked but didn't seem to last past one season. Greens seem to change shades season to season, but there always seems to be a few shades out there.
And my theory is that yellow cars increase the farther you get from cities with taxi cabs. I'd hate to buy a car that would make pedestrians hail me with any frequency, and I never used to see them in cities, but now that I'm in a more rural area the color seems more popular.
I keep seeing burnt orange cars and while I don't like the color I do like that it's Not Grey.
I'm seeing more mossy green cars, to be honest.
As for reasons? Cars are a big purchase, the most conservative colors will win out, and for a long time that brand new shiny metallic grey paint was pushed by everyone as The Future.
A few years ago there did seem to be a spate of advice going around that you should always buy a new car in conservative colours as you might find it harder to sell a car in a bright colour.
Also wondering if it might be another sign of increased gendering. A bright yellow car is seen as "girly", so even if you're female you're reluctant to buy one in case your boyfriend/brother/husband won't want to drive it or be seen in it.
I've heard that bright colors can mean that you're more likely to get pulled over because they're more noticeable, but I've been lucky thus far in my bright red Civic. *knocks on wood*
I don't remember any green cars in the 70s, except possibly for a very very dark green. In fact, I remember being told that they had a hard time coming up with a green paint that wouldn't come off the cars, and that's why you never saw green, but I expect that's just an urban myth/dumb thing my brother made up.
My brother's car is burgundy in regular light, but there seems to be a gold fleck in the paint job that perks up at sunrise and sunset, giving it an autumnal orange glow.
Oh yeah, and there used to be a rumour in the UK that traffic cops would play snooker with the cars they stopped: 1 point for a red car, 2 for yellow, 3 for green, 4 for brown, 5 for blue, 6 for pink, 7 for black. According to this theory the best car colour to have was white: no points for the cue ball.
It's not that colors have become more dull. I think it's that they have become more subtle. A gray car may actually have gold or lavender overtones when viewed in certain light angles. Designers have been playing with chameleon paints for decades now, and that's trickling-down throughout the lines. It's actually very rare that you would find a contemporary vehicle with a purely gray or beige or even while paint job.
Which serves, too, to point out that those colors of the 50's were one-note colors. There wasn't much in the way of dimensionality or depth beyond the gloss, at least not from the factory.
I inherited a metallic purple Saturn that I insisted on calling lavender because it was more fun to say than "metallic purple." I was never able to successfully get out of a ticket, though. Seems as if "light purple" is good enough for the traffic courts.
Next vehicular thing I get, I may want to get in bright red or burgundy.
I meant to say regarding the VW colour card - my first car was a 1973 Super Beetle that was greeeeen. It must have been Sumatran Green (but slightly faded) because the other green is way off.
And it seems to me that, at least in the US, there were lots more colours available in the 1990s. My mum has a 1999 Kia Sephia that's a nice bright, but kind of flat red. I find I like that more than the current sparkly trend.
I have always wished they would design cars with patterns. Plaid cars! Striped cars! Cars with polka dots and little rocket ships! This is what I want and it's one of the first things I'm going to do when I become evil overlord of the galaxy.
gomichild: Taxis in Victoria are all Victorian Taxi Yellow (thanks Jeff), and I see very few yellow non-taxi cars around here.
mygothlaundry: If you can deal with owning a Smart car, they have a wide range of colours and can come with a variety of vinyl graphic 'wraps' from the dealer. These can be changed when you're bored of them or removed when you sell the car without damaging the paintwork. If you don't like any of the default ones, you can create your own.
gomichild, taxis in Brisbane are either orange (Yellow Cabs) or white (Black & White Cabs), but there are lots that are whatever colour happened to be on special when the cab was purchased. I think the only company that operates in Cairns is Black & White (actually Black & White Quckservice Cabs to be technical - a different company than Black & White Cabs), so that would be why they all look the same there.
Graphic wraps can be made for pretty much any car and in any design you can dream up so, if that's your thing and you can afford it, you can have pretty much any design on a car that you want.
FWIW, back in the 90's, I had an opportunity to speak with a color designer/technologist from GM, at a color conference. He told me about a technology they were working on where you could change the color of your car simply by touching a special electric pen to the surface of your car. It had something to do with aligning crystals in the coating of the car to reflect the light in various ways. Obviously, it has never made it to market.
Late to the party - my reasoning is that people don't want to invite attention. I know for me I just want to get from a to b. If the freak that cuts me off in traffic then has the nerve to get aggressive afterward sees my car is banana colored with red stripes, if he sees my car again, he'll probably do something to it. Or if I pull into a space that I was waiting for, if someone is mad that I got there first, they'll do something to my car. It could still be done currently, but once they park and come back, if the car is sitting there bright as day, it might happen, but if it's just one of other cars like that in the lot, the person might just forget about it.
My husband and I are part of the problem. *hangs head in shame*
I bought my Versa during Cash for Clunkers to replace my (red!) Ford Ranger. I was shopping features and price, with color being low on the priority list. I said, "No black, no white, anything else is OK." The dealer coughed up a grey one with the right stuff at the right price. Voila, grey car #1.
A few months later my husband decided to retire his (purple!) Honda Civic. We need a truck in the family, so he hunted around and found an elusive four wheel drive Dodge with rubber floors and vinyl seats and factory lifetime powertrain warranty. After a handshake deal with us the dealer sold it to someone else, resulting in a mad dash to locate another one of these endangered species. We found one and made a deposit on it sight unseen.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
