Black cars! We all love them, I think, even if we don’t love owning them so much, because they look terrible when dirty. But if I’ve got pay-for-a-weekly-detail money, I’d definitely consider going black. And I mean black black, not some metal-flake anthracite or really dark silver-gray Midnight Rensezvous or whatever.
Exactly how much I want the car to be black depends on the car in question. I like my obnoxious sports and/or muscle cars to be equally obnoxious in their paint hues – lime green, banana yellow, bright AF orange – you get it. Ditto off-roady things and convertibles and hot-hatches, anything meant to put fun ahead of practicality. Give me a nice, bright color there.
Of course, it all depends on the specific car. The Subaru WRX is something I’d expect to want in a snazzy shade like the nice red below, but I don’t love the goofy plastic wheel-well surrounds and the black lipstick on the nose. But put a coat of black on the WRX, and it’s all homogenized nicely. I’m sure we can all think of a bunch of other plastic-not-so-fantastic cars that would benefit from a blackout treatment.
If we’re talking luxury or some kind of grown-upness (or sinister adulting), that’s where I think black cars really look best in general. Examples abound, but some obvious ones to me are the Chevy Impala (you know the one) and Mercury Marauder:
Mercedes S-Class? Gotta be black. I’ll have a W140, please.
Range Rovers should also be black, I think. I’ve been watching a lot of Slow Horses and The Diplomat, and MI5 is always turning up in a fleet of the things. And every time, I think, “Yes, those look good.”
Your turn: what cars are best in black?
Top graphic images: Ford; AC/DC via YouTube
My first car was a ‘67 Impala SS that was primer grey when I got it. Shortly after the tv show Supernatural came out with its excellent black 67 Impala that convinced me to paint mine black too. Huge mistake for my own car, but the TV one still looks great that way!
Mk 1 Rabbit/Golf GTI
From another time I know, but any Lincoln. Esp. Continentals.
Cadillacs can look good in many hues, but the traditionally subdued, sleek lines of Lincolns demand darker colors, best of all black.
Cadillacs are right up there. Quiet Riot made a banger of an 80s-metal classic on the topic: https://youtu.be/b9TAqNPktyw?si=aURKNTMxkrTG2e-y
Ooh, good call – the ‘66-‘69 Continental in particular – the earlier ones had some curves, but the 66s got that squared off look that’s pure sex in black.
Oh, the whole 4th generation, from ’61-’69! In any other color you look like you’re driving down the road in a huge white (or green or beige or whatever) flat billboard, just a featureless giant rectangle of monochrome monotony… but in black you’re Johnny Drama and you’re definitely getting laid tonight.
https://youtu.be/n4VMFiC-Z2A?si=lMmhCNwI4UNuLqZt
A London Black Cab is just a little bit worse in any colour other than black.
I’ve been to London a couple of times and don’t think I ever saw a cab that wasn’t black. Last time I was there, I did ride to Heathrow in an A6 hire car in black that looked quite sleek.
Impala SS and GNX.
https://external-preview.redd.it/BydkQBonIJxB66sMou_8Q6NgPR63wFpVumArj2Jt-Y0.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=72696dd7517a9d07dc34d434f7010e07390d349c
It would different in powder blue.
Pontiac Firebird/Trans Ams.
Obvious answer – see my profile pic.
Fourth gen facelift WS6 works in so many colors, but black is perfect because it’s the closest thing you can buy to a Batmobile.
I miss my 99 every day. It was just a V6, it still did it’s job.
Third gen in black lets me pretend it’s K.I.T.T.
Had an 86 IROC back in the day. Spent most of my time getting it worked on. When it was on the road, it was a blast. It was black but it wasn’t K.I.T.T. It did hit the spot, though.
The 987 Boxster S in my garage.
I’m biased, but I would say a pre-elephant foot beetle (esp bc they aren’t that common)
BMW E38.
My first new car was a ’76 Capri II V-6 John Player edition black with gold trim. Later a blacked out ’92 Pathfinder (with grey interior), and last a black ’05 Subaru Legacy GT Turbo wagon (had a kid). All in their way fun to drive, they all looked better in black, but were too hot in summer so the next car was always some lighter color. I’m waiting for a black EV hot hatch.
Yes, that 76 Capri II V-6 John Player edition black with gold trim was quite the looker. A friend in high school had one with a tan interior that I got to ride in far too little. Chef’s kiss!
It wasn’t clear to us kids over in the US at the time, but the idea of Ford selling a cigarette branded car is pretty amazing, although we did have the Winston Cup, so…
I had to look, the black/gold John Player Specials go back to the 1972 Lotus-Ford Lotus 72 Formula 1 car. Before that they were red/gold Gold Leaf Specials, another John Player brand. I had no particular idea JP in JPS was a cigarette company, it just looked cool and was fast enough to get myself in trouble. IIRC, the JPS Capri IIs were available in white, black, or red with gold trim, all with black interior and gold seat inserts.
i disagree on red WRX just because I actually do like the plastic fender flares to be distinct from the car. And on W140 you should see W140 in dark blue.
if anything then at least BMW E38 should take that spot.
Like the Midnight Blue originally applied to the Kennedy Lincoln, which was used instead of black because it caused less problems with the TV tech and mainly black-and-white sets at the time.
Big ugly ones
C7 Corvette.
One of those things in black, especially with the black gloss wheels, and you’ve got yourself a real life batmobile
Mercedes W100
I wonder what high school parking lots would have looked like in the 80’s and 90’s if the Smokey and the Bandit movies had featured, say, a white Trans Am instead of black.
As a 1990 graduate and someone who considers the Bandit to be his Autopian spirit animal (see profile pic): if that movie had never come out but “Hooper” had still been released the following year, they probably all would have been red instead.
Sadly, nobody was ever going to remember McQueen’s black Trans Am from the Hunter.
Oh, I promise you I am. I can even name three other deep cuts featuring black and gold Trans Am SEs: Rocky drove one in “Rocky 2,” one of the first things he bought with the prize money from fighting Apollo Creed in the first movie; Ed Harris as the cruel badass coyote goon squaring off against forthright Border Patrol agent Charles Bronson in the criminally forgotten movie “Borderline”; and one of TV’s most loveable antihero scumbags, Detective JD Larue on “Hill Street Blues.”
Doesn’t Roy Scheider very briefly drive a black one in Blue Thunder, slaloming it around cones out of the parking garage?
I just remember the helicopter, a modified Aerospatiale Gazelle. It may have been the first helicopter with a fenestron instead of an exposed tail rotor.
Back in the early 90s, I got to fly in a US Coast Guard Eurocopter MH-65 Dolphin.
I now live near a hospital with a trauma center and I hear EC-135s flying to their helipad nearly every day. The only other things I see and hear flying there are Bell 407s. I got a demo flight in a 407 and it’s pretty impressive in its own right. I hope to never be in an EC-135 because they’re only used around her for medevac flights. I’ve done several tour flights in AS-350s and they are very comfortable machines.
The fenestrons make a unique sound. And if you search on Wikipedia, they’ve been a thing for a lot longer than I thought. But they are quieter and safer than the spinning tail rotor blades on anything else. Except maybe, a Boeing/MD Notar equipped helicopter. I’ve never seen one or heard one, so I don’t know about the noise factor.
And I apologize for going down a rabbit hole not related to the original topic. I just love helicopters.
No apologies needed; who doesn’t love helicopters? When I was in college, the medical center had an aeromedicine team, and there was nothing cooler than when the helicopter would rise up from the middle of the complex and roar over the campus.
I didn’t know fenestron was the term for that – thank you, and it absolutely is the thing that I remember about that helicopter. That and the red LIVE cover on the control stick that Scheider gets to dramatically flip up with his thumb to access the cannon’s trigger.
A ridiculous movie, but I’ve watched it several times. Lol
My 80’s high school parking lot was a sea of hand-me-down Volvos in various baby poop colors. Brown, mustard, baby blue puke green – all the fab colors of the 70s and earlier 80s.
But it wasn’t exactly the average American high school.
Somewhere in Connecticut? Due to a bad crash right before I arrived, students weren’t allowed to drive to school, unless you had a job. But living in the Pittsburgh suburbs, my friends were sporting American iron, from hand-me-down Chevelles to yes, a black Trans Am.
The TA was owned by the son of a Wise Guy who skipped college and opened – and I am not kidding here – an olive oil importing company.
Southern Maine.
I love my BMW i3s in Fluid Black
Living in Arizona, none of them!
Porsche 356 Speedster, black over red interior.
that’s what I thought until I saw 356 in Ivory with red interior…
I currently have 2 black cars. A Lexus LS460 on which the black flatters the lines which can be a bit frumpy in other colors and a Cadillac Blackwing which has a lot of black trim regardless of the paint color, so the black paint ties it all together better. Still trying to warm up to the black wheels though.
For personal transportation, absolutely none. I also would really, really like to see a stop to the endless sea of silver/grey/white/black cars and see some actual colours. Cars are so boring colourwise nowadays…
100%
And while we’re at it – can we get rid of all black interiors, and “color” packages where just the seats and door panels are in some non-black, but everything else is still black?
And above all, black wheels.
Unless they are steel.
Steelies actually look better in red, especially with chrome hubcaps.
Steelies are so cool! For some reason they look good in pretty well any colour as they are so retro/classic. Seeing a car with nice steelies always seem to cheer me up for some odd reason.
OMG. Black wheel on a black car are horrible and my world kinda lazy. A nice playful colourful car (red, yellow, green, etc) with black wheels can sometimes work ok. It offers a nice contrast. But if we had to ban a wheel colour – I would accept black going away 100%.
Plug-in RAV4s all have black interiors. Completely idiotic for California. It will probably turn on the engine to cool the car. Toyo-duh!
I propose giving all the black and white cars stripe/graphics packages. I always think black and white cars are super dull until I see one with racing stripes, and then the stripes make it work. Black and white may be boring on their own, but literally any color goes with them, so they are a universal fit for whatever racing stripes and graphics packages you can imagine.
Yes, I am the target market for the Mustang II Cobra II, born decades late.
I heartily agree with this! My 2012 Honda Fit is Raspberry Blue metallic and I often get appreciative comments about the color. And it’s easy to find in a parking lot!
Also, living in Louisiana, you do NOT want to get into a black car that’s been sitting in the sun all day…
Second-gen Supra looked absolutely fantastic in black.
A hearse in a color other than black should be a crime.
The Queen of England didn’t think so.
Her Jaguar hearse was Claret.
We had a guy in our hometown who had a fleet of mint green hearses, for some godforsaken reason. Friend of the family, but not where we had our funerals.
Because Leprechauns Are Real.
Ford Model T
Even though you can have one in any color you want? LOL
Saab 900 Turbos looked great in black. So did my Fiata. But black cars suck to own, and the first time I put my arm on the window sill of the Fiata after it had been sitting in the Florida sun all day I questioned my life choices. But beggars can’t be choosers, for 1/3rd off MSRP I made the best of it.
Agreed on the SAAB – it has to be the two door hatchback.
Exactly what I had – a black on tan ’85 900T combi. Great car.
When our son turned sixteen, we talked him into getting a used SAAB 9-3 Aero (6 cylinder) convertible. We all enjoy driving it. It’s a 2006, so the dash looks more like a SAAB than a GM product.
I had seven all together. The one new one was an ’08 9-3SportCombi. That GM radio looked terrible, but worked so much better than the crap Saab came up with on their own.
No complaints about GM air conditioning!
Great car overall. Sold it to one friend who sold it to another who still has it approaching 1/4 million miles.