During my last visit to Kroger for a Coke Zero restock, I was blessed to see the wonderfully orange (metallic orange, no less) Lexus RC 350. Never mind that the actual color name is Molten Pearl, that car is orange. Orange AF, even.
As we are all aware, car colors are frequently barely colors at all these days, as Jason most recently wrote about here. Says Torch:
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.
I knew this to be true, but I didn’t realize how inured I had become to the grayscaleverse until that RC 350 warmed my retinas. It was like that scene in The Tingler when the otherwise black-and-white film renders a sink and bathtub full of blood in bright red. “Oh right, color!”
… and what a color. Orange is pretty much my favorite hue, not only for cars but basically anything meant to look cool in a coat of paint. Look, I even painted my latest RC (bud sadly, not an RC 350) in a bright shade of citrus:
So, more orange cars please (and all the other bright colors, too. How about you?
What Car Colors Do You Miss The Most?
Turd green. Which reminds me to get an appointment with a GI doc.
Teal and turquoise, and two-tone paints like Nash Metropolitan, i want to see happy colors but not with current angry, aggressive designs, these happy colors need happy looking cars.
Late nineties dark green metallic. It was everywhere!
ALL OF THEM.
OK maybe not that sad dark brown Mercedes offered in the 70s. Or beige.
No one color, I just miss the fantastic choices we used to have. Look at a paint-chip chart from the 70s or 80s, colorful cars were absolutely everywhere.
Sure, I’d like a yellow car. But do I want primrose, lemon, more of a gold, or wait, green is good, too. Forest, lime, emerald…
I understand dealers not wanting to stock the same car in 30 colors, but it sure made the roads more interesting.
Imola Yellow
The 1970s lizard green metallic like on the Bertone Ramarro.
https://automedia.revsinstitute.org/bertone-ramarro
I’ll say green, in the 90s metallic green was the ‘default’ color, minivans had it, Explorers had it, Pontiac Bonnevilles had it, and now it’s like Rivians and Mini Coopers maybe? It’s just strange that it went from being THE color to barely available. Aside from that, all the options you could get on Dodge Challengers and Kia Souls, purple, yellow, orange and greens.
My first car (’93 Jeep Grand Cherokee) was a beautiful forest green. Second car (’06 Ford Escape) was dark gray. Current car (’20 Chevy Bolt) is white. The color has literally been leached from my automotive life. (I wanted the Bolt in the electric blue they made, but I bought it during the pandemic, and options were limited …sigh).
Honestly, I think I miss cars that are colors, plural. Stripes, accent colors, checkerboards, heck even silly things like Firebird logos!
The Chestnut brown on my 2000 F-150 was perfect. Light enough it didn’t look black but dark enough to really have good highlights in the sun.
I miss the Magma colour Ford offered for 2 years on the F150.
I had that colour and loved it. Depending on lighting it could look anything from purple to brown to black.
Proton Yellow, Plum Crazy Purple, and that special Ford paint that changed color
Tahitian Green Pearl
I have found it an unexpected blessing in parking lots that I have a red roof that is about two inches higher than nearly all the other roofs.
I am looking at an orange vehicle for my next.
I want green, in lots of shades, to make a return. That was one of my favorite features of the Eddie Bauer trims on Fords, the nice variety of delightful green paints.
I will admit that I am often disappointed that my vehicles are easy to spot in a parking lot, thanks to their bright colors, red and blue, but today I was happy to find my very red car parked next to a very red Bronco (and I’ll just ignore the other three white cars that flanked it on the other sides).
Red, blue, green, brown, and two-tones!
Yessss – two tones.
Seconding — heh — two-tones!
Hey, those are back! Toyota and Kia (I think) make two-tone cars. Maybach too, but they look like buttocks.
Cosigning the teals, greens, and reds. I’ve also noticed the death of true golds and browns from the palette. Not warm silvers, I want brassy, root beer-y goodness again. Makes the right car look so much more classy.
Also, I will pay SO MUCH money for anything in Volvo’s Safari Green.
Red.
I’m very hopeful that changing trends will increase the color levels on the roads. I’ve done my part for the last 11 years with my Omaha Orange Jeep Renegade. I’m also a big fan of orange and I must admit the color was a significant factor in that purchase decision.
It’s in the process of being replaced by a lightly used Acura Integra A-spec. Fortunately I was able to find the one I wanted, in Apex Blue.
My daughter thinks I should wrap it orange.
Forest green, teal, bright orange, light blue metallic, pale yellow, dusty pink.
Some cars offer these colors, but not many, and not in the midwest.
Plum Crazy all the things!
Check this out, from the Wikipedia page for the stupid Chevrolet VEGA …. “In February, eight 1976 Vega exterior colors were added: Antique White, Dark Blue Metallic, Firethorn Metallic, Mahogany Metallic, Dark Green Metallic, Buckskin, Medium Saddle Metallic, and Medium Orange; plus two additional interior colors, Firethorn and Buckskin.”
sad.
INTERIOR colors
This! Bring back interiors where literally everything is a strong color, like blue, red, or green.
I’m old enough to remember when medium gray interiors seemed so fresh and futuristic, and only sports cars had black ones. Funny how familiarity breeds contempt.
I remember that transition as well, but I still loved my colored interiors even then.
80s blue – both navy and powder – remains severely underrated.
Genesis has both a full green interior as well as a blue that are both stunning on a few models.
Indeed! And it is glorious.
ORANGE! but also greens. a nice dark green is fantastic. Not enough yellow cars these days either.
All of them.
I’ve had a blue van, a couple of silver cars, a sort-of honey-colored Civic, a black RAV. None of these are especially bold colors, though when the minivan started driving out from under its paint – thanks, Chrysler – my wife and niece painted mermaids and fish on the van and we drove it like that for a few years.
I also have a very blue pickup. At one time I had a red Subaru. At one time I had a rust-brown Civic – that was the color it was painted, a ruddy brown metallic. It looked like rust. Probably a smart strategy, that.
My mom has a bright yellow – I mean, BRIGHT yellow – Opel GT. It’s super tiny, so she decided it needs to be noticeable despite its size. It’s about the same color it was when it was new in 1971.
I get online and look at the color codes for vehicles of the same era as my truck: 14 listed. Ten years later, 16 listed. Ten years later, 2006: four.
FOUR. Pewter, black, beige, medium red. I’m hoping those are just the ones most requested for touchups and the dozens of other shades simply never get dinged in the parking lot.