I do a lot of kvetching about the sad lack of color to be found in the automotive world, and I think I’m right to kvetch, as we are in the grips of a severe chromatic crisis, where actual, genuine colors have been muscled out of our global carscape by the pervasive and insidious specter of achromatic colors. You know what I mean, the brutal grayscale horde, white, black, and a never-ending gradient of gray.
Anyone who looks out a window at any random road or parking lot knows what I’m talking about here; the vast majority of cars out there are some shade of gray. Sure, automakers try to mask this by giving the non-colors evocative names like Slate and Dusklight and Graphite and Ennui and Abandonment, but the result is a world further denuded of color.
This is a well established trend, not just in the automotive world, but among almost all human-made things. For whatever reasons, we seem to be sucking the color out of everything, and there’s even been studies showing this to be true. Also, it sucks.
That’s the global color chart from BASF’s 2023 Color Report, and you can see how dominant the grayscale goons are. It’s 81% achromatic! Ugh. How is it in just America?
Oh it’s a little better in America. 80% achromatic. Again, ugh. Has it gotten any better recently? Here’s the 2025 global report:
Oh crap, it’s worse. 88% grayscale. And that’s not even counting beige. Blue is the top color at 6%, then red and green at 3% – green making a sort of surprise increase here – and everything else is barely hanging on at 1%.
My headline was hopeful, though! And here I am being all gray and gloomy! But I am hopeful, and I’ll explain why: the past two press cars I’ve received have both been blessed with actual, real colors! Honestly, it’s been far too long.
The first was a Volkswagen Tiguan R-Line, which arrived in a deceptively subtle shade of green:
In certain lights, it had a golden cast to it as well, almost iridescent in a way I was not able to fully catch on film. Or pixels. Whatever. I’ll just say it’s better in person, and the color has some real depth and complexity.
Volkswagen calls it “Avocado Green Metallic” after that stuff you can put on toast that will eventually prevent you from being able to buy a house, or something like that. It’s definitely a real color, but it’s also subtle enough that it could be a good way to lure those candy-asses too afraid of real colors to come over to the side of light.
I liked it a lot, and I have to donate props to VW for offering an actual, if perhaps subtle, green.
But then the real whammy rolled up to my house:
Hell yeah, Toyota! Yellow has been my favorite car color for decades – over the years, I’ve owned, let’s see, five yellow cars, and still have two. And this Prius is clad in a wonderfully, unashamed yellow! It’s close to School Bus yellow, but not quite. It’s less orange, and a little deeper. Toyota calls it Karashi:
For those of you who don’t know, like me ten minutes ago, Karashi is a kind of Japanese Mustard:
Here’s how our pals at Kikkoman describe it:
Karashi / Japanese mustard (辛子 in Japanese) is a condiment made by adding powdered Japanese mustard seeds into water or kneaded into paste form in warm or cold water. Karashi is primarily sold in tubes in Japan. The distinctive spice, felt at the back of your nose, is perfect for enhancing the taste of Oden hot pot dishes, “aemono” (dressed dishes often made with fresh seasonal vegetables) or “natto” (fermented soybeans).
That “felt at the back of your nose” thing struck me as odd at first, until I realized I know exactly what they’re talking about.
This yellow works so well on the new Prius design – which is vastly better than the previous generations of awkward-looking Priuses – and it made me realize how a, say, silver Prius can just turn into another anonymous suppository, but put it in this yellow and then the sporty, sleek, fun aspects of the design really shine.
Color matters.
When the press fleet driver dropped off the car, he mentioned that he wasn’t sure about the color, and he said it like it made him uncomfortable. That struck me as sad, because it’s a reminder of how conditioned we have become to being uneasy with real colors, which is a miserable state of affairs.
But the fact that these two huge carmakers, VW and Toyota, have both decided to let their press fleet cars exist in bold, unashamed colors, I take that as a good sign, a sign of hope. If these are they cars they want the press to see, the cars they want photographed and shown to the world, then maybe, just maybe, that means the pendulum is swinging back to a world with colorful cars.
I have a vision! A vision that requires color vision, a vision of a future where our roads look like a bag of Skittles was decanted all over them, a myriad of color everywhere. Seeing these cars ignited a little spark of hope, a hope that we will be freed from this automotive grayscale prison, led out by mustard and avocado-colored cars.
We all just have to believe!
I’m doing my part. My Maverick is “Cyber Orange Metallic”, which you can see from my avatar is actually pretty much school bus yellow. It might help the cause if colors didn’t cost extra.
Ford is really good about fun colors. I wish the Hyundai EVs came in half the chromatic variety you can get on the Mach-E.
As someone who owns a Velocity Blue mustang, color is good! Though my son wanting all four of his bedroom walls painted a different (bright) color might have been overkill.
Harlequin bedroom. But Dad, if VW can do it why won’t you let me?
Technically, yeah, black and white are greyscale but subjectively I’d say they should be considered “colors.” They each have a distinct aesthetic beyond some random shade of grey.
I don’t like white cars but love most cars in black – my latest happens to be a solid black with a little bit of chrome highlight. I do wish (a little) that I could have found one in blue or red, though.
That said, people need to actually buy these colors if we want them stick around. No buying signals that they aren’t wanted. I’m guilty of that, too, since I only buy used cars so I can’t complain much.
Climate change at least gives you a reason to choose white now.
Every time one of these types of articles comes out I link to what we used to enjoy back in the conservative, button down 1950s. Glorious.
https://www.autocolorlibrary.com/pages/1952-chevrolet-truck#parentHorizontalTab1
I like yellow, but particularly with a Prius (or any other Toyota Hybrid) it makes me wonder if it was ordered as a fleet vehicle for a cab company.
There’s a yellow Tucson in my neighborhood that always makes me wonder, since I’m not even sure that was a standard factory option.
I was going to say, the yellow Prius
driver was probably uncomfortable because so many people stuck their hand in the air
and called out “Taxi!” when he drove by.
I love yellow cars, but I would never get yellow on something that could be confused for a cab.
Unfortunately many brands offer great colors that can only be had by 1. Buying the premium version, 2. Paying extra for the color, or 3. Both. Maybe understandable on a sub 30k vehicle. Has to have a negative effect on buyers choosing a color
GM has a excellent bright blue that I see quite a bit on Chevrolet vehicles. Partly because dad’s truck is that color but there’s others out there, too. Including Silveradoes that I confuse for Dad’s.
I think yesterday I caught a Toyota crossover in an eye catching red as well. Could it be an automotive spring is upon us, signaling the end of this Nardo Gray winter?
I’ll also say that when I was shopping cheap folding bicycles a couple years ago, I ended up choosing the Zizzo I did because it was Orange. I realized I needed color in my life’s transport.
Chevy has a Habanero Orange in the Blazer SS, Equinox, and Silverado EVs and something similar on the Cadillac EVs. The only reason I didn’t get it on my Blazer was a lack of availability (the ONE on the lot had just been sold, and the next nearest one was 200+ miles away). At least the one I selected in it’s place has orange belts and trim on the seats, so there’s that…
My Equinox EV is orange! (Though it looks red in a lot of light)
I refuse to own a car on the gray spectrum for safety reasons…there will be weather/sun conditions that make almost any white/gray/black car disappear, but never an orange one!
I’m just waiting on the cops to start painting their cars Concrete Grey. Perfect for speed traps.
Currently car shopping. Parents took a while to understand that color is a massive dealbreaker for me- needs to be real! Orange, red, blue, green. Something! I refuse to have a boring all greyscale driveway in the neighborhood. Give me our blue jeep, orange vibe, JP truck (ignore the white mustang).
You have to put your money where your mouth is. Don’t buy the greybeigescale that’s on the lot. If you have to wait for an actual colour, wait. Eventually, dealers will stock more colours.
My own personal example of this: I was buying a Mazda6, and we all know how awesome Mazdas red mica is. NONE of my local dealers had a red car on the lot. Getting that red was non-negotiable, so I waited.
There’s a mixture of 1) 90% of the car buying public see the car as an appliance and just buy what’s on the lot. And 2) Dealers don’t want to carry costs for cars that won’t sell. Enthusiasts – the noisy 10% – need to push for colour with our purchases.
Oh great more black hole wheels.
Gotta have big wheels to visually fill out the wheel wells – sidewalls are too black.
Now murder it out.
What was the point again?
“Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.”
Now you have to excuse them, as they install the legal maximum window tint to every piece of glass, put a dark tinted cover over their rear license plate, and install some black tinted tail lamps and angry headlamp graphics.
I like the color of that Prius, but the car is still just about the ugliest vehicle I have ever seen. How can people like this but hate the Cybertruck? They both look like background prop vehicles from a 1980s sci fi movie. The Prius also has bizarre proportions (the passenger cabin looks tiny compared to the amount of car below the beltline), the wheels are comedically oversized, and the windshield is excessively slanty. Taste is subjective, but this car is objectively hideous.
It isn’t even good looking by Prius standards. As we all know and agree on (though some are reluctant to say publicly for some reason), the first generation Prius is the best looking Prius. The second generation cars also look decent, although clearly aesthetics were a secondary consideration.
Why do we continue to perpetuate the myth that the fifth generation Prius is a good looking car?
Size matters. The Prius is normal car size and on the low side, which makes it a lot less in-your-face than a Cybertruck. Plus it has actual curves.
So if the Cybertruck were 20% smaller you would think it looks nice? Doubtful.
Also, the new Mercedes-AMG GT 63 EV has actual curves and people hate that car as much as the Cybertruck.
Curves and overall size can’t account for why people like this thing.
You are all victims of a conspiracy by Toyota to gaslight the public into believing the Prius is good looking. I’m not sure what Toyota’s endgame is with this chicanery, but it can’t be good.
I don’t actually find the Cybertruck very noticeable. Especially from the front, it’s a just another huge gray vehicle.
The new Prius? It’s got perfect lines and proportions. It looks like a proper sport coupe. It’s a few steps up from the prior Batman design.
It’s got perfect lines and proportions.
sport coupe (spoiler alert – its neither)
With those statements, I’m not sure if you need an optometrist, a therapist, or an exorcist. All I know is you need some kind of professional help.
(On an unrelated note, did Toyota pay you in cash or were the payments traceable? I’m open to bribes, although I’m trying to avoid any trouble with the IRS)
Yeah, I think the latest Prius is very agreeable, but, “perfect?” No.
The interior is also a large step up over every prior generation. It’s a great conveyance and looks nice now, but perfect isn’t going to happen given the interior packaging requirements a Prius needs for its buyer.
It’s like I had a coworker 15+ years ago that claims his new Mazda 6 was “the most beautiful car on sale.”
When, you know, the DB9 was on sale. The Mazda 6 was quite handsome for what it was, but I wouldn’t even stretch it to “pretty.” Very sharp, looks good, but… folks, genuine pretty/beautiful stuff exists.
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Here’s the thing: No one has a concept of what this is anymore.
I’ve people question my vehicle choices, and I say, ”I prefer the classic definition of a sports car.” As in 2 seats (not 2+2), RWD, etc. You know what response I got last time? “Why didn’t you get a BMW X6?”
To the average person, a BMW X6 is a “sports coupe” or “sports car.”
I can see where someone might think of the X6 as sporty or a sports car, even if I think that is absurd. When it comes to sports cars, I know one when I see one, and the X6 ain’t one. But, unlike the Prius, it at least has some sporty characteristics.
Nothing about the Prius is even remotely sporty. It is an economy car with low rolling resistance tires. It accelerates, handles, and brakes like the economy car that it is. That is not a criticism – the Prius is a fine car that achieves its stated purpose.
I will acknowledge that “coupe” is broadly defined in 2026 to the point where it has largely lost its original meaning, but “sport/sports/sporty” when referring to a car is still a concept with an accepted definition that the Prius does not meet.
You won’t catch me disagreeing with you.
However, tell that to the average person who is looking at Durangos and pickups, and they’ll cock their head sideways like a confused puppy.
“but the car is still just about the ugliest vehicle I have ever seen”
You’re entitled to your wrong opinion. LOL
I think the current gen Prius looks great.
I’m only semi-serious with my rants about this car, but I’m genuinely confused why people like it so much. I can usually intellectually understand why people like a design I dislike, but I am having trouble doing so with this car.
Part of the problem is that I see elements of cars designs I like within the Prius. When I look at the Prius, I see features that remind me of both the Corolla and the Model 3 (yeah, those look nothing alike; I like both quite a lot, though). I think that induces some kind of uncanny valley effect where I perceive the Prius as a distorted Model 3 or Corolla rather than an independent design. Maybe I could appreciate it more if I could look at it without being reminded of those cars?
I suspect my reasons for hating the new Prius will always be a bit of a mystery. I also suspect this will not be my last rant on the subject.
“How can people like this but hate the Cybertruck?”
This looks like a fight you’ve picked and a hill you’ve died upon more than once before so I won’t send down much of a volley. Taste is subjective and you’re very much in the minority and that’s ok.
“but this car is objectively hideous”
Well, fuck, now you’ve done it. Mangling word definitions. No matter how loud you type it, there is no such thing as “objectively” hideous.
EXCEPT THE CYBERTRUCK 🙂
I saw a Prius that color at the supermarket last weekend and I agree it looks really good. My wife commented that it looked like a sports car color but not in a bad way. Considering it has roughly 2x the horsepower and is something like 5.5 seconds faster 0-60 than the Prius we used to have I guess that fits.
I was at a rental car counter last week, and the clerk asked if I wanted a white, black, or gray car. My response was that that wasn’t really a choice, but he wouldn’t choose for me—I had to pick one. Are there really people who would see a difference between those non-colors?
Edited to add: the color wouldn’t have made a difference on what kind of car I was getting; it would have been a Genesis G70 regardless.
I would have chosen white.
Because you can’t drive white after Labor Day.
Weird, I’ve never had a rental car agent ask me if I had a color preference.
That green is so grey it looks like it could just be a grey car parked under a tree.
Like day-old guacamole – after it’s turned grey.
Heaven forbid we get fresh guacamole around here.
And the thing about that yellow Prius is you can’t get it on an LE, XLE or Limited. You have to go with the murdered-out Nightshade package to get it.
As if Yellow is allergic to a touch of chrome trim and not-black wheels.
When I was growing up, my dad had a friend named Bob. Bob liked yellow. Bob liked yellow so much that he owned a Hummer H2, an F-150, and a Porsche 911 all at the same time, and all in yellow. Even when his cancer confined him to a wheelchair, he insisted on purchasing a BMW motorcycle, and was pissed they didn’t offer yellow. I think he rode it maybe six miles. He passed when I was 11 but not before giving me the Craftsman socket set I still use today. Thanks for reminding me of Bob.
Nissan needs to bring back the orange they had on the XTerra.
That popped, I loved it.
Yeah that VW is too close to Gray to get excited about it, now the Toyota Yellow is something to celebrate, though Toyota has had some good colors on their truck recently.
Slate however is our best hope for color on vehicles. I found the Slate forums and there is a page for people to enter how they ordered their truck. The last I checked about 1/3 of the people reporting have indicated they have opted for a full wrap. Now it doesn’t say what colors but, fingers crossed, people are ordering the extra cost wrap because they don’t want grayscale. Hopefully other automakers take notice that people will order colors and are willing to pay at least the $500 minimum install it your self price.
Last car I bought, I asked about getting it in anything by greyscale and they suggested I wrap it.
Another avenue for dealers to nip a small profit on an accessory if the manufacturer doesn’t want to do anything about it.
The problem with wraps is they don’t last like paint and the installed price isn’t that cheap. I do think there will be some Slate buyers who ordered the wrap believing that Slate would really have someone local to them that will do the install for $500 and do a good job.
I think there’ll be quite a few owners who don’t understand the effort to wrap a car properly, and will be blazingly frustrated by the experience to promise never to do it again.
I agree, hopefully they will offer individual pieces, at a reasonable price, for those people who do mess up. Slate does warn that it is an “Advanced” level install. The more interesting thing is on launch day they said it takes 10-12 hrs and two people. They quickly changed that to 12-15 hours. Either way that doesn’t speak to someplace willing to do it for $500 doing a high quality job.
Oh, and a good eye-popping red, like Rosso Corsa. We’ve had several restored Italians painted in it. It’s only proper.
I appreciate a proper retina-burning yellow, one approximating the attention you would provide from a nuclear detonation in your face. But it only works on smaller cars, especially sports cars or sporty looking cars. Throw that paint on anything larger and boxy, and it looks like a school bus.
Yellow also works on big cars –
When I was a kid and Dad was taking delivery of our special-order ’72 Monterey Custom, there was a lady there taking delivery of her new special-order ’72 Marquis Brougham Hardtop sedan: Lemon Yellow with a white roof and interior, and a glass sunroof.
It looked like Palm Beach
Nah, he’s right. It does look funny and out of place on larger cars. Bright “sports car” colors are for cars that deserve attention. None of those pedestrian cars deserve any attention. They’re just consumer products.
I believe you may have been brainwashed by the greyscale.
There was a time before bright yellow Lambos and Corvettes when Yellow was just a choice when one wanted a light cheerful color for their car.
Look at the Packard which Fae Dunaway’s character drove in “Chinatown” – or the ’53 Mercury Monterey Lucy and Desi’s characters bought to tow their “Long, Long, Long Trailer” – or the Rolls-Royce Phantoms in “Goldfinger” and “The Yellow Rolls Royce”…
…then there were the yellow 2CVs, Type IIs (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Beetles (Like the one Goldie Hawn drove in “Foul Play”) plus thousands of 1970’s Celicas, Corollas, Volvos, Vegas, Fiestas, Coronets, Novas, Fiats…
There was a time when a yellow car was absolutely mundane.
World Rally Blue. British Racing Green. (whatever Subaru called the yellow on its WRX that one time).
We used to be a proper country.
BRG is always the right answer
I really don’t want to give that shade of green more credit than it deserves because IMHO it’s the first cousin of grayscale. Most manufacturers have been rolling it out lately and I think we’re so starved for color right now that we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Do I like a light forest green more than the 50,000 shades of gray in the German rainbow? Absolutely.
Is it a great color? No, it isn’t. It’s maybe a 6/10 on a good day. Give me a real forest green, BRG, or absurd lime green over it every single time.
The blue version is also becoming prominent. I don’t hate them, but I would appreciate a more saturated color.
Buick and Chevy have a purple version that is…interesting. It was very popular when I was at Buick though
I actually like the GM gray that’s oozing with metallic flake and purple undertones. It kind of has this kaleidoscope effect in the light and looks a bit different at every angle, but the purple is always present. My neighbor has an Equinox EV in that color and I think it’s quite nice.
My wife also said “you can get a purple car if it’s that kind of purple” as well so bonus points for that. 99.9% I am a card carrying gray hater but that particular color really scratches an itch I didn’t know I had and almost had a sort of Mystichrome quality to it.
I didn’t care for it on the Buicks but I liked it on the Traverse Z71. I think it doesn’t go with the chrome as well as it does with the other accents
A thing actually working against light and bright colors are the black model and brand badges. A black badge seems to “dirty” the area around it on a yellow car, whereas a silver or chromed badge makes the yellow pop even further.
Cars have so much black trim now that it’s a real issue for me, as you end up with a bright car that feels sullied in all these areas, whereas otherwise it’d really pop.
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Another thing is “murdering out” has been so popular. Dark grays and blacks, with black trim, black wheels, and heavy tint. I went to a car show recently and for the first time in my life, I had multiple people come up to me to say, “Thank you for bringing this!”
I was… confused! I didn’t bring a Carrera GT or a 906 something crazy. There are similar cars to mine around. Though I got it immediately — all the others are “murdered out.” Mine was the only one trying to be bright and happy.
Those cars always make me think “so when are you going to spring for the fully rendered version?”
Isn’t that what Slate is doing?
If you want textures on your polygons, they’re extra.
My last few drives on I-81 I have noticed that the only vehicles with interesting colors have been the Trucks on the Tractor Trailers! That’s a shame.
Yup on big trucks you can order them any color you want w/o it being a big production. The county has trucks for moving the garbage trailers from the transfer station to the land fills. Instead of ordering them all in white they ordered them in a wide range of colors. I assume that is to make it easier to identify which truck is which. What every the reason I do appreciate seeing the rainbow of colors.
Maybe they got a discount on the end-runs of other orders in color.
No, this has been going on for decades and the trucks are in a very specific specification with windows in the cab corners that you just don’t see on other Kenworth trucks.
Taste the Rainbow! Drive the Rainbow!
Mmm, Rainbows. P:
I’m part of the 1% of folks with a yellow car. Honestly Yellow, Teal, and Red are the best car colors
Yep. Just sold my speed yellow 987 boxster a few months ago, and it always turned heads.
Smallish sports car. Yellow,looks perfect.
It really does and did. It had a blue interior and convertible top, which really made it even more interesting.
Yellow anniversary TC, Yellow matched accented seats and wheels? Perfect it has convinced me that all future car purchases will be loud colors.