It would increase the cost of your vehicle substantially. For instance, every plastic and fiberglass piece is specially manufactured to match paint colors precisely, if new paint colors were custom made then all matching parts would have to be custom as well.
Cars are also ‘batched’ during production to save time and material waste. Units are shuffled about so five black cars get painted in a row, then 7 white, then 6 red, and so on. It isn’t practical to have a robot that only paints blue, one that only paints white, etc. Instead, paint lines are ran with each color to one robot, and applicators are automatically cleaned with solvent when switching between batches.
I was thinking the OP just a couple of months ago. 90% of the cars I see on the lots are Black, White or some form of Silver. My father bought a jeep and had to pay extra to get it in red.
So then yeah, they come out with these surveys showing that, surprise surprise, the most popular colors are… Black, White, Silver. Exactly the colors the lots are full of and you don’t have to special order and/or pay extra for! What a shock! Never saw that coming! :eek:
I actually started this thread earlier this year when we were car shopping because I noticed the same drabness in colors. We ended up buying a Mazda CX-5, and we would have gladly taken it in red, but they were charging an extra $300 for that color (they were also charging extra to get it in white, which baffles me to this day). Instead, we got it in lovely Stormy Blue Mica, which was not very easy to find.
I see quite a few other newer CX-5s on the road these days, but they’re almost all black or grey/silver.
Is that a really dark blue? If so, it sounds like the colour of my Mazda 3. I love the colour and there are very few cars around the same. Well, there are lots of Mazda 3s but not many the same colour as mine.
We have a ten year old Toyota Isis that is bright, windows screen metallic blue. I love it! We were told that we could choose from eight “colours” when we bought it then were disgusted to see that the eight choices were silver, gunmetal grey, white, pearl white (which was a thousand dollars more) black, a navy that was so dark as to be indistinguishable from the black, then finally two real colours, a very dark wine red and our zingy blue. It was a very easy decision to make!
One funny thing, the guy at the shop said as we left “You’ll never lose it in a car park” and we called in at the supermarket on the way home. When we came back there was an identical blue Isis parked next to us! There are maybe four in our local area that we see regularly. Most cars here in Japan are white, silver, gunmetal grey. Boooooring.
My 2004 Pontiac Sunfire is Canary Yellow. I never would have chosen it myself (it was a gift), but at this point, I’m pretty happy with it. No issue spotting it anywhere!