Car colors redux
[NOTE: And just when I thought I’d lost it forever, one of the missing posts turned up again. Mysteries abound. Here it is.]
Yes, I knew it. It turns out that (hat tip: commenter “Mr. Frank”) silver is the most popular car color, with black next, and white quite popular too. All of them neutrals.
And gray is third, so my observation the other day about gray being such a common car color (including silver as a subset of gray) turns out to have been correct.
By the way, remember when I was looking for a car a while back? Well, I got a used Ford Fusion a couple of months ago. My new/used car’s color is dark green metallic, so dark it’s almost black. Very spiffy, IMHO.
Here’s a photo (not of my actual car, but of one that’s the same color), which doesn’t really show the color to advantage. It has to be seen sparkling in the sunlight to properly appreciate all its finer nuances and subtleties:
Of course, the dark green color does get dusty rather easily. And of course, it isn’t made any more; it was phased out for 2011, along with the highly adjustable passenger seat option that was the main reason I bought the car in the first place. Progress.
Note the colors of the 2011 Fusion: red, white, black, silver, gray, light blue, and something called “steel blue,” which is a grayish blue. In other words, out of seven available colors listed at the site, three of them are more or less gray. I rest my case.
Ah, for the car colors of yesteryear:
My dad was driving a Chevy in 1957 that was about the color of that Ford, except it wasn’t two-toned. Solid aqua. I think the official name was Sea Foam.
While I believe there is an element of “market driven” in the choice of car colors, I think it would be more apt to say “market stampeded.” “Look,” some manufacturer says, “they liked silver and bronze last year. We’ll give them five shades of each this year,” and order the dropping entirely of the less popular green and yellow colors. Then, since no one can buy green or yellow, no green or yellow cars are sold, and sure enough, silver and bronze remain the favorites for new cars. I know that green disappeared once before, then came back. Hope more real choices show up soon…
It’s not just the colors of yesteryear’s cars, it’s the chrome. The lovely, shiny chrome. Cars lost something significant when they left off that chrome trim.
We used to associate our cars with excitement. We lost that somewhere along the way and it shows in car colors. When was the last time you saw a surfboard painted one neutral color?
I could agree with you if you hadn’t shown that particular awful two-tone car.
It seems to me that colors trend. Right now, we are going for low-saturation shades, often on the border between one color and another. You can gat a lot of interesting shades there. But not all THAT long ago, Chrysler introduced a car called the Neon, with appropriate colors. If I’d been a little smaller at the time, I might have bought one; it was fun to drive. And from time to time, carmakers offer “anti-establishment” cars with bold colors, including, forty years ago if I recall, a Ford color called Anti-Establish Mint. (Yes, an odd shade of green.)
What do most buyers of model X want? Do that want a color that is interesting once you stop to look at it, or do they want a color that shouts “Look at MEEE!”? And, if the latter, do they risk it shouting “Hey, Mister Trooper, ticket ME!”?
True primary colors are rarely seen, although we get some near-primaries as iconic colors: the ‘vette candy-apple red (which, I believe, has been muted somewhat too).
I’ve noticed two new Camaros tooling around my neighborhood. One is a really bright yellow, and the other is an equally bright red. Both have a black stripe running down the hoods.
And it occurs to me that the reason why I even noticed them is because they are so different from all the other cars. They are perfect for the 50-something, recently divorced, man going through a mid life crisis.
P.S. What’s up with putting a car on the roof of that structure?
I love the dark greens. There was one that was almost chameleon-like in that its base was a very dark green, but it changed in the light, almost a bit like a diffraction grating. Good stuff, that.
Of course, if I were really going to worry about my car’s color, I’d just paint it. I’m an artist, after all.
Aqua and white (pictured above) were the colors of my very first car: A Chevy convertible with a white top and white interior. VERY snazzy for a recent high school graduate! Loved that car.
I once owned a car in a distinctive periwinkle color
— a soft light blue tending toward lilac. It was pretty and not like any shade I’ve seen on any other car before or since. However, in my little rural community, the unusual color turned out to have an unexpected downside: everybody in town knew exactly where I was at all times. On any given day during the seven or eight years I drove that car, I might hear from a neighbor or a fellow soccer mom: “So, did you enjoy lunch at that new restaurant?” or “You should have let me know that you were in town last Wednesday!” They knew my whereabouts because nobody else in the county drove a car the color of mine.
Fortunately, I have no secret life; my periwinkle car would have been a real problem if I’d had anything to hide. Those who value their anonymity should choose gray!
Scott,
The car on the roof probably signals a dealership for ugly aqua cars. Or else it’s to scare people away from the premises.
Ah..The1950’s of my childhood. Happy colors everywhere from cars to kitchens to bathrooms. Then we hit the 60’s with the awful harvest golds and baby poop greens and onward into the earth tones of the 70’s and 80’s. I’ll take the bright optimistic colors of the 50’s any day.
That last picture looks like my parents’ ’56 Chevy, which I dimly remember and exists now only as photos in the family albums.
What I don’t understand is this:
Grey, silver, white, and yes, even black, all become the invisible car whenever it starts raining. (There’s a reason the Navy paints its ships haze grey.) So why do people in these cars drive around in the rain without their lights on?
Love those 2 tones… my first car was a used 57 Ford Fairlane. It was a black & white 2 tone with a 4 barrel carburetor 289, positive traction, 3 on the tree, and a overdrive hand lever. Sweet and petite. Burned rubber in second gear.
I have never driven or rode in a Fusion, but I hear they are very nice cars. It’s a good looking thing, for sure.
Wow! The first car we had after I was born had exactly the same color scheme as the ’56 Ford you have pictured, only ours was a ’55 (slightly different headlight and grille treatment). Talk about taking me back. That’s about as far back as my memory can go.
Dark green is a very nice color for a car. Almost bought one in that color, but I ended up going for a (used) S-class Mercedes in a very light blue (Horizon Blue, they called it), with a beige interior (think of the UCLA football uniform, and you’ve got it, and no, I didn’t go to school there). It didn’t show dirt that much, and it was easy to find in a parking lot.
AAhhhhhhhhhh…’55 Ford Fairlane. The one my Dad bought–New–was buckskin & creme 2-tone, 4-door and 6-cylinder. Best friend’s Chevy Dad down the block bought–New–a 55-Chev Bel’Air, 4-door,V-8, Green & Creme. Bud’s Dad, next door, bought a ’55 Buick Special, 2-door in dark gray & white. What a YEAR for classic cars.
Before I went in the service and got married I owned a 1968 Oldsmobile 442 painted a dark green. Loved that car.
Also had a 55 Chevrolet painted black and a 57 Chevrolet painted candy apple red.
Wish I still had all three.
I have been in the auto repair business for a long time. Of my last 5 vehicles, 3 have been silver. Mostly for practical reasons: silver tends not to show dirt. When it is clean, it sparkles, with some dirt, it still looks OK.
My first car was a dark green 68 Firebird i bought used and it came with a set of much needed jumper cables in the trunk. I recall going to the bank with my mom and fretting over the loan officer’s proposed $48.00 a month payment. Between that and my $33.00 a month Marantz stereo, i considered myself deep in debt. 🙂
Me: 2011 Ford Fusion S, metallic black. And yes, it sparkles brilliantly under direct sunlight, and seems to change with the lighting.
What a YEAR for classic cars.
Yes, it was. The tailfins hadn’t gotten outrageous yet, as they did a few years later, and each make was distinctive. Nowadays, it’s hard to tell a Ford from a Chevy from a Honda. At least, from the outside. Ford seems to have gotten its mojo back regarding quality, but GM isn’t there yet. And I don’t know if being partially-owned by Fiat (“Fix It Again, Tony”) will save or kill Chrysler.
Well, I bought a silver car for two reasons. As Roman says, silver tends not to show dirt. (Black cars are among the worst that way.)
And because I read that silver cars are the least likely to be involved in accidents.
(Because they are more visible? Because the drivers who choose silver are more careful? I have no idea.)
Here’s a quick link I found to some data.
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My first car was a ’59 Ford Custom I bought from my brother; green, a bit lighter than the color known as “British racing green.”
And last week I paid more to fill up my car (not a huge one, it’s an ’02 Prizm) than I paid to buy the ’59 Ford.
Great color. A knockout!