I’ve just ordered a RAV4 and the colors sound really exciting
Ruby Flame (an extra $250): Ordinary red
Magnetic Grey: It’s just dark grey
Lunar Rock: Greyish minty green. I guess it would be cooler if I didn’t see it on a million Ford Escapes five years ago.
Blueprint: The only exciting color. Dark blue and shades of purple based on the light going to black in low light. Hugh metallic flakes. So of course the one I ordered.
Wife was offered a Tesla that came in before hers (charcoal grey, yawn!) came in. It was white with black trim and black interior. I asked the salesman, “Wouldn’t that be like driving inside a stormtrooper?”
An old neighbor of mine had a car in his driveway he worked on most weekends. He eventually got it running, the bodywork patched up and sanded down, etc. When the time came for paint, he said fuck it and painted it where it sat, using a bucket and a brush. He was careful to keep paint off the glass and chrome, but wow was that an ass-ugly car.
I don’t doubt those statistics at all. I took the OP as referring to the availability of non-drab car color choices. The fact is that with most vehicles you can get a non-grayscale color if you want. People just don’t want them that much. While one of my current vehicles is gray, it’s available in 10 different colors. Every other car I’ve owned has been a shade of red or blue.
True, and, as noted, most new car buyers are now buying a car directly off of their dealer’s lot, rather than ordering a car to spec; even if a particular model is offered in cool/unusual colors, a shopper may have a difficult time actually finding the car in those colors at their local dealer.
I didn’t put a kid in the car, but my husband was supposed to pick me up somewhere, and I saw what I thought was his silver Civic - and found out it wasn’t when I opened the passenger-side door and someone else was in the driver’s seat. And he wonders why I was so annoyed when he bought the same car same color next time.
Heh. Did that myself, too, back in high school. My friends had an early 90s gray Mustang 5.0, and what I thought was them was parked along 47th Street. From the back of their heads, it sure as hell looked like them. I slid into the back seat, closed the door, and yelled out “Hey Slav, hey John!” To which two unfamiliar heads turned back. We all paused for a moment. I sheepishly said “whoops, wrong car” and they started yelling at me as I slid right back out and hurriedly crossed the street.
This seems to happen to me much more than it should. Lock your cars, people!
Here in Arizona white is pretty much the default as well. Even the school buses have white roofs. One co-worker had a black SUV with the plate, AZ OVEN.
I think your second paragraph pretty much sums up what’s happening. It’s not that people want the boring colors, but they’re willing to settle for a boring color if the car has all the other features they want and is in the dealer’s inventory, rather than having to wait for a special order. But they’re probably more likely to settle if the car is an “inoffensive” color, not one that some might consider “too flashy”, like the bright blue Mazda @kenobi_65 got a deal on because no one else wanted it.
I don’t want to start a hijack, but was it really the case that at some time in the U.S. most, or even a large portion of, new cars were ordered from the factory instead of bought out of dealer inventory?
Out of the dozen or so cars I’ve owned, only one was bought new, the 2003 350Z I mentioned above, pre-ordered in 2002 before they were released and available at dealerships. AFAIK, no one in my family ever bought a new car before that, so I don’t know what the norm for buying new cars was or is. But I just didn’t imagine that ordering from the factory was a very common practice.
Was just waiting for a bus at a busy 4 lane street. Hey, let me pay attention and see! Yep. All white, grey, black. 6 red ones, darkish red. About 6 vibrant cerullean blue.
I admit I was basing that off of what I have read online and not from any personal experience – the only new car I’ve ever bought was in 2019. But my understanding is that dealerships in the 1950s-60s era were a lot smaller than now. Most of them didn’t have huge lots full of new cars for sale. There was pretty much just a showroom and a few demo cars you could test drive.
I think my parents ordered their first minivan from the factory in 1984, but I was really young so I don’t really know for sure. All I remember is that it felt like an eternity from when they decided to buy one to when we actually picked it up from the dealer. That could just have been because minivans were the hot new thing at the time and dealers couldn’t keep them in stock. Or maybe they didn’t actually order it from the factory but just had to have it shipped from another dealer.
1990 Mercedes 300E: pewter silver
2007 Chevy HHR: burnt copper/orange
2014 GMC Terrain; cherry red
2020 Honda Civic: dark silver.
I have never seen another 300E on the road so have no idea how common that color was then. I have seen other HHR’s on the road that are the same burnt orange as the one I have. I have seen other GMC Terrains the same vibrant red color that ours is. And I have seen many Civics the same dark silver as the one I have – indeed, I work with someone who has one. I have to look at the license plates when leaving work to determine which one is mine.
My first car was a canary yellow 1975 VW bus. My wife’s first car was a cherry red 1987 Eagle Summit. I have not seen a factory yellow paint job in ~20 years.
If I had my way I’d have a British racing metallic green paint scheme. Alas, such was not an option when I bought my Civic; all the other cars were acquired used.
