I would’ve strongly preferred anything but a gray/silver/white car, but I drive a silver car, because there weren’t a lot of options available that met my requirements, there were very few cars that met my requirements that were any other color. I don’t think you can infer people actually like boring colored cars, just that custom-ordering your own color is more rare than it used to be (and the minority of new cars, let alone all car purchases). I think they’re aiming for “inoffensive”, very few people are going to refuse to buy a black/silver/white/grey car but some people might refuse a red or green car, so they play it safe and it ends up with 90% of cars on the road being boring. I bet if people had a real choice every time they bought a car (like if the majority of people custom ordered) we’d see a much wider color palette.
My wife’s '05 Hyundai is a rather vile shade of light green. And a few years ago they had a lovely copper colour for their SUVs.
I did my part back in the day, buying a purple Saturn. This shade:
https://paintref.com/graphics/sample/saturn1998plum.jpg
My mom was annoyed when I called to tell her my new car was purple, because she thought I was joking.
That’s a good deal lighter than I’d expect from a shade called “Plum”. Was it somewhat of a deeper hue in person?
Was looking at Mustangs upthread, and I see that they’ve also come out with a stock purple, called Mischievous Purple. Exactly the right car to drive down a lonesome highway while blasting “Highway Star”.
The dominant colors of automobiles in the US nowadays are: white, black, and gray. If there’s any question about that go to google earth satellite view and look at any five parking lots at random. Go ahead try it.
Here’s one completely at random from Michigan:
Google Maps
completely at random in Kentucky:
Google Maps
random from Nevada:
Google Maps
I think blue is the off the lot default for people who don’t want greyscale shades. Our family with three drivers have three different makes (Subaru, Hyundai, Nissan) that are all different shades of blue. We don’t even love blue that much, we just hate the boring colors.
Nah, that’s about right. I had another Saturn that was very pale lavender but could have passed for silver grey.
Going off on a bit of a hijack here, but I wonder if this is a similar phenomenon to what this author calls the “HGTV-ification of America”. I don’t know if anyone here had been apartment hunting lately, but if you have, or if you’ve stayed in an Airbnb lately, you may have noticed that they all look kind of the same inside. That grey laminate flooring, subway tile backsplash in the kitchen, probably a sliding “barn door” to the bathroom*. When I heard her interviewed on NPR she attributed it to the fact that the people making remodeling decisions aren’t the people who will actually be living there, they’re landlords and house flippers. So in addition to trying to convey “newly renovated”, they’re going for “inoffensive”, just like car dealers.
*I had just recently stayed in an Airbnb right before I heard this story, and this describes the interior decor to a T.
Saw a lime green car with purple hubcaps.
I’ve even heard people say when renovating the place they’ll be living in to be this HGTVified interior that they’re looking at re-sale. Boggles me. I like creating a space that’s unique and appealing to me, not some who-knows-when hypothetical buyer.
Also, by the time you sell, the HGTV-style interior may be dated and out of fashion.
'Xactly. All those people kvetching about the travertine tiled bathrooms and kitchens will be saying the same things about the grey walls and subway tile down the road.
My issue with car (non) colors is that I live in the Pacific Northwest, where, you might know, it rains. A LOT. And all those white/grey/black cars absolutely disappear when it rains and the streets (and especially the freeways) kick up a lot of spray. Pair that up with the absolute refusal of a substantial number of drivers to put their damned headlights on when it’s raining and the world becomes a white knuckle game of GTA, I swear. Is it safe to merge over a lane or is there a huge pickup truck right there being camouflaged by spray? Who knows! You’ll find out when the crashing noise starts!
I have one white van (because it was a delivery vehicle for many years but it does have a blue interior) and have had one black car but everything else has been either blue or green. My current Subaru is technically green but it’s that light minty green, I liked the deep green better. This particular shade is apparently very popular because I see Subarus this color like EVERYWHERE lol. When you’re buying used cars though you have to take what you can get. Oh yeah, I did also have a '67 Cougar that was oxidized whitish when I bought it but I painted it a nice vibrant electric blue, it was very pretty.
Sure wish cars weren’t so boring though. Sigh.
It just became the law a year or so ago in either L.A. or California (both apply to me, so I never remember) that if it’s raining, your headlights must be on.
Probably would make more sense to tell the carmakers they have to put in a switch that turns the headlights on if the wipers are on or they can’t sell their cars in California. Watch that shit become a thing of the past.
A year ago the government had an incentive program to get people to buy new cars, and Toyota was offering something as well. Because of my kids’ ages and such we went with a minivan, and the only colors we could get were silver or white. They do offer a really nice blue, but there was only one in all of Taiwan and someone else had reserved it. Because of the time constraints of incentives, we went with silver. It’s not a bad color, just not my favorite.
That’s been the law here in Illinois for decades. It’s regularly ignored, and I suspect many drivers aren’t even aware of it.
Is that the law, or is it “if you’re using your windshield wipers your lights must be on”?
Yep. I just have my lights set to always be on. I see no reason not to.
My Cherokee has daytime running lights, and it turns on the headlights if the wipers are turned on.