In the late sixties, any given car was available in 10 to 20 bright, cheerful colors.
These days you are lucky to get 6 dull, boring colors, typically black, white, silver, gray, dark red, blah!
You would think that a car like the PT Cruiser would come in some exiting colors, but no! Your choices are dark reds, dark blues, dark greens, silver, white, black, or dull gold. Phooey!
How about a nice banana yellow? or tangerine? or blue the color of a carribbean lagoon? or a fiery red? or a bright celery green? or a sunrise gold? or copper? or coral?
One of the things that make those old cars so appealing are the flashy, bright colors. You would think paint technology would have advanced enough by now that we could have the great colors again without the fading or chalking of the old days.
The world is depressing enough without all the boring sameness of the current car colors.
Well you do get some that are that funky two-tone paint thing… looks purple as it’s approaching, turns green as it passes you.
Or I’ve seen the Mother-of-Pearl paint effect, that’s purdy.
Besides, I always thought that in the UK we should reserve brightly coloured cars for foreigners used to driving on the right, so we could spot them a mile off and keep away from them…
gsteinma, I think you need a VW Beetle or a Nissan Xterra.
And yes, what you call dull, boring colors some of us call quiet, understated refinement (or some snobby bullshit like that. Would another doper please help me here?).
Yes, both my vehicles are black so I guess I’m a tad biased.
The most gorgeous colour I have ever seen was on my ex-co-worker’s girlfriend’s father’s car (got that?). It was a (newish, 99 or 00) Jaguar, and it was black, except… it wasn’t quite just black. It looked really luscious. So I went up to inspect it closer, and it was a metallic black. But the metallic flakes weren’t black, or silver, or gunmetal coloured. They were the colours of an oil slick (light pinks, blues, yellows, greens, purples, etc), but the individual flecks were so tiny they blended in together in a gorgeous blacky-shiny shade. mmm.
When I get my own brand-spanking new car (as opposed to the P.O.S '91 Dodge Shadow America I’m driving now), I’m springing for a custom colour. One of my ideas is a very light dove grey metallic with a coat of chameleon paint that’ll be clear until the light hits it a certain way (then it’ll shine a bluey-lavender).
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought loud, garish colours were making a comeback. I’ve seen more yellow, orange, pink, aquamarine, and other flashy-coloured cars in the last three years than I’d seen in the previous ten.
Who hasn’t seen those grotesque yellow-and-black Azteks that look like giant Sports Walkmans? You can’t tell me all car colours are dull when those monstrosities are around.
I think bizzarre colors have been making a bit of a comback lately too.
Just today I saw a Civic in Baby-Shit Brown[sup]TM[/sup] which was the some grotesque yellowy-brown that the name implies.
I’ve also seen another car (I think it was a Jeep Liberty but I can’t remember for sure) that was the color of my fern plant after I’ve starved it for water for a couple of weeks… a real, sickly pale green.
I kind of miss blues though. There hasn’t been many nice blues out lately. Greens seem to be the flavor of choice the past 6 years or so… at least up here.
I actually asked a car salesman why cars only come in those colors once. I was informed that those were the colors that most people bought, so those were the ones that were then made. But how can people possibly buy other ones if the only ones made are the bland colors? If they are the only ones available, then of course they are the only onces that can be bought. Ugh. Someone needs to look at their reasoning a little more closely.
Some of it depends on the car. I’ve seen Volkswagen Beetles and Golfs, and Audi A4s in bright yellow, but I just can’t picture it on a Ford Taurus. And where I used to work I saw lots of Nissan Sentras in the same shade of biege. My theory is that a ship carrying biege Sentras sank and the cars washed ashore in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and everybody took one. In general, boring and reliable cars come in boring and reliable colors.
I’m trying to stick with the old national colors, myself. I have an old MG in British Racing Green and my BMW is silver.
The mid-'90’s had some cool colors–turquoise, yellow, bright red, bright blue, etc. Those cars are starting to get old now, and it seems that the pendulum is swinging back towards 1980’s blah. Maybe it’s the Republican in the White House. Who knows? All I know is that it’s the less expensive, smaller cars that appeal to young urban types (Geo Metros, Dodge Neons, New Beetles, etc.) that get the cool colors, if any at all. My WAG is that a young urban type is more willing to settle for dark green than an older, more conservative type is willing to settle for bright yellow. Therefore, dark green is more “popular”.
My guess it’s customer preference for the understated colors, not to mention that there’s a higher resale value for such colors…the “typical-person-of-the-street”, as I believe such thinking goes, doesn’t want to be singled out with a loud-color car.
I think it was a Neon I saw fairly recently that was a metallic light purple/lavender’silver color. Now that’s a color I’d seriously consider!
I got my Subie in dark metallic blue. I think it looks pretty good in daylight, but at night under mercury vapor lamps, it really looks badass; subtle reflections, not quite black.
Low-key (dull) colors seem to be de rigeur on expensive cars, particularly Mercedes and BMWs. I bet 70% of 7-series Beemers are metallic gray; black seems to the non-color of choice for S-class Mercs. Perhaps this has some influence on the dulling down of car colors in recent years.
“Old people’s” preferred car colors always seem to be pastel metallics. Back in the late '60’s pale blue; later on pale green. Now the paint of choice seems to be a ghastly gold-tinged beige that I like to call “metallic flesh”.
Despite the above, cars in the USA are a riot of color compared to those in France. I swear, nearly every car in the country is white, silver or black. Occasionally you’ll see a red one, but I suspect the owners are expat Brits.
Put me in the “give me funky colors” camp. I cried when I totaled my year-old fuchsia Ford Aspire. Resale value doesn’t bother me – we drive our vehicles into the ground anyway.
A couple of semi-educated speculations to amplify Glory’s post:
I recall data from the WSJ indicating that the average new car today is much more expensive, has many more features, and will last much longer than the average new car of the 1960s or (especially) 1970s. (This is true despite the risk of additional trouble from all those power-assist motors.) A useful exercise is to watch the Game Show network and see what got people thrilled in on Let’s Make A Deal ca. 1975: White sidewall tires! AM-only radio! Fabric seats! Whereas many small children today don’t know how to turn a window handle because they’ve never seen one before.
A robust market now exists for leased cars. I don’t know much about the history, but it seems to me that leases didn’t become that common until the 1986 tax reform. (Prior to 1986, all interest on consumer debt was deductible. From 1986 on, only home-mortgage interest could be deducted, removing a major subsidy from car loans.)
Because of 1 and 2, the used-car market is much larger and a much better value for lower-income and, in particular, younger car buyers who find themselves priced out of the new car market. Which means youth aren’t picking what colors cars are manufactured: instead it’s all those boring, middle-aged, don’t-want-to-stick-out, don’t-want-to-hurt-resale colors.
There are exceptions, but they’re youth-oriented cars like the smaller Hondas, the “cute-ute” sport-utilities, the New Beetle.
:gasp:! WSLer, you’re my twin (or at least your off-handed joke is)! I’ve had the biggest desire to have my car plaid since the keys were passed into my hand. I think it’d be great; distinctive and easy to describe (“Okay, so what car am I supposed to look out for?” “Oh, you’ll know”).
Heh heh. 'Course, since I don’t have a fancy schmancy nice car, that’s partially why I want it. Maybe I can get those sticker manufacturers (the ones that make the stickers for adverts on autos) to make huge sheets of the stuff in plaid and have it fixed to my car…
Who wouldn’t want to be known as the owner of the ugliest car in the world?
