All cars look alike to me
And there may be a reason for it.
I was never what you’d call a car person (or a cat person, for that matter), but I used to be able to tell most models of cars apart. Or at least, many.
Now? Just a few. Very few, actually. I already knew it had a great deal to do with safety regulations, but this article explains the situation in depth, including the law of diminishing returns and unintended consequences—such as, for example, how fuel mileage regulations for regular cars have encouraged the proliferation of SUVs that use much more gas per mile. Nice going!
My particular pet peeve is how the regulations concerning body integrity make the windows tinier and tinier and ruin the sightlines.
But none of it explains Americans’ preference for black and gray and white cars. What a bore parking lots are these days! Whatever happened to the wonderful car colors of my youth? Gone, gone—or at least, rather rare.
Here’s an article on that, too:
Cars of yesteryear (if we accept yesteryear to mean the 1960s through the early 1980s) were often painted in bright, popping colors—supersaturated pigments in hues that don’t appear on most modern vehicles. But the appeal of these paint jobs has to do as much with the way the paint looks on the car as it does the color of the paint. Older paints sat flat on the surface of the car; there was no swirling iridescence to give an illusion of movement below the surface. And the finish, though not quite matte, was a lot less glossy than the finish on modern cars.
These vintage paint jobs were almost certainly the result of either acrylic lacquer or enamel paint technology. Acrylic lacquers dominated from the late 1940s until the 1960s. Lacquers were high solvent paints that dried very quickly, to a hard and shiny finish (though not nearly as glossy as we’ve become accustomed to). Lacquers were often highly pigmented, allowing for rich colors. But that hard, shiny finish became brittle with age and exposure; lacquer didn’t play well with water or UV rays, which tended to fade its vibrant colors. And, although this wasn’t a prevailing concern at the time, lacquer’s high solvent composition meant that these paints gave off a ton of environmentally unfriendly volatile organic compounds. Acrylic enamels, developed in the 1960s, were a lower solvent alternative; these paints took a bit longer to dry, but they were more durable and weather-resistant, and they gave off fewer VOCs. Best of all, acrylic enamels looked very similar to lacquers.
Because factory testing standards in the 1970s were less stringent than they are today, car companies were able to get away with using highly pigmented paints that were brittle and not very durable. To make matters worse, acrylic lacquers and enamels were single-stage paints, meaning that these paint jobs weren’t even protected by a clear top coat. They didn’t wear well. According to Jerry Koenigsmark, who has worked at PPG, one of the main automotive paint companies, for 30 years, a lot of the colors that were used back then simply wouldn’t pass muster today. “The saturation and depth of color was a lot better,” said Koenigsmark, “because they didn’t have a lot of the specs that we have now—adhesion testing, gravel chip testing, engineering tests. If I had the exact same pigmentation of a highly saturated color from the ’60s … that paint would be brittle.”
Picture a modern car: If you look at one in the daylight, it almost certainly has a gloss on it so shiny that the paint seems to swim under the surface. What you’re looking at is a polyurethane based clear-coating technology that accounts for much of the difference in appearance between cars of the 1960s and 70s and cars of today. Modern technology uses a base coat, which carries all the pigments, and a clear coat, which adds a deeply glossy layer on top. It creates an effect a bit like looking at a bright color underwater—the experience of the color is interrupted, and sometimes dulled, by the reflection off the surface of the paint.
But as you move around this imaginary car, you’ll notice something else: The paint shimmers and sparkles, and its hue seems to change as you look at it from different angles. That iridescent quality is the result of the other major technological change that came about in the early 1980s: the development of mica-based effect paint. Metallics were available before the 1980s, but they were made by adding aluminum flakes to paint. These first-generation metallics gave a very flat and reflective surface…“Mica,” says Jane Harrington, the manager of color styling at PPG, “gave colors a more of a luster or gem quality”—a pearlescence that is difficult to describe but obvious when you see it…According to Harrington, these days a lot of colors are blended with aluminums and micas, with variously-sized flakes that add to the dimensional quality of the paint. These effect paints are applied over the pigmented base coat, and below the glossy clear coat. They add depth to the paint, but they also tend to diffuse color. In some form or another, they have become nearly omnipresent in modern paint jobs.
True. I’d noticed that weird Las-Vegas-casino-like shimmer, but I never knew what it was about or why it was so ubiquitous on modern cars. Then again, that still doesn’t explain all the white and black and gray, because they still are capable of making bright ones. You continue to see the occasional red car, for example.
Maybe I’ll get a red one next.
I have a red car that I am very pleased with.
http://tractioncontrol.well-regulatedmilitia.org/on-craigslist/
And have you noticed houses? First thing a home owner does when prepping the house for sale is paint everything grey. Depressingly conformist.
I just want British Racing Green to make a come back.
The reason so many cars are gray, white or black is that at least Ford charges more for other colors.
@Garrett Crawford – houses painted in neutral colors are easier to sell. It allows prospective buyers to better visualize how they would like it painted once they move in, instead of being pre-conditioned to whatever colors are already there.
“I just want British Racing Green to make a come back.”
That was the color of my MGB I had back in college. A maintenance hog, but way fun to drive.
White, black, and gray cars have better resale values. Beige houses with white or off-white walls sell more quickly. We’ve become a nation of movers, off to the new great thing, and being able to sell the existing thing is now important.
Lack of color choices doesn’t quite ring true for me, so I used the search term 2019 car colors… scroll down the page and you’ll see that there are plenty of colors to choose from.
Which leads me to suppose that people are choosing those whites, greys and blacks, while rejecting the actual available colors. Years ago, I read that white is the safest color for a car in that at dusk its most visible. Black is the racially ‘cool’ color. Grey? You take a guess. I suspect a homogenized public picks what most represents them.
I too find today’s modern homogenized look boring as well.
Red Jeep Cherokee – wife’s car
Red Chrysler 300 – my car
Neo, go with Red. Of course there are numerous different “Red’s”.
American automobiles were commonly aesthetically pleasing from the beginning down to about 1960, then increasingly banal afterward. Some European brands remained pleasant to look at some time longer. Japanese brands were from the time they were widely distributed here blah. Technically, they’re much more reliable now than they were forty years ago. The 1970s may have been the pits from an aesthetic and technical standpoint. My sister’s Chevette, purchased new in 1979, was unsafe to drive by the end of 1981.
Forest green and cream color are the best of the palette.
Neo misses her lavender Ford Pinto.
It seems possible that this is related: a few years ago I was in San Jose. On a grocery shopping trip to Whole Foods or some similar place–basically a giant supermarket, but super hip-natural-etc. It was around the new year, so in what passes for winter there, a little on the cool side but not cold, enough so that a lot of people were wearing light coats and hats. I kept feeling that there was something awfully drab about the place and finally realized that part of the reason was that in all the throng of affluent customers not more than about one out of 20 was wearing any color other than black, beige, or grey (varying shades of, from off-white to charcoal).
I’m not especially observant and definitely not fashion-conscious, but since then I’ve noticed in other places that those colors are awfully prominent, though to a lesser degree. Especially in affluent urban areas like DC. So I reckon the fashion is also operative in car color choices.
Decor & product packaging were also very muted in color, too, of course, for the pseudo-rustic vibe. None of your regular American supermarket glitz for these folks.
Home decor in general, not just paint, has become more bland and neutral, too.
My last two cars have been black… Because I don’t buy new cars… And I’ll never choose a used car for its color. They both happened to be black.
Before that was a sun yellow late-model MGB. Fun car, easy to work on.
My college cars were a hand-me-down silver-blue Pontiac Le Mans (my mom’s old car), the other (after that went TU), was a Bright Orange Pinto Wagon (very useful for moving… And making out in)… They didn’t have the little “essplodey problem” Pintos became notorious for.
When looking for a car “that became” my current car, I considered several colors from maroon, blue, and silver.
If you want a distinctive car, look at the Nissan 370. The z cars have been uniquely distinctive looking for over 3 decades… You would never look at one and not know it wasn’t a “Z”
I was in a Chevrolet showroom at a large car dealership in the late 1980’s visiting with the sales manager and as we looked across the cars on display I made the comment that they appeared to be monochromatic, black, grey, silver, cream and white and I asked him why. His response was that he missed the color but Chevy painted cars and trucks to sell and those were the colors that sold, they were also the safest for the rental fleets which would be purchased back by dealers for late model used cars and the safe colors sold faster.
Another observation is that her in Texas most of the cars and trucks are painted in light colors because black absorbs so much heat in the bright sun. I too miss the colors, I was partial to green with BRG British Racing Green being my favorite but as stated above those colors did not hold up as well as the neutral colors. To me what I have trouble with more than the boring colors is the fact that all of the cars no matter the brand are boring bubbles, some being larger SUV bubbles and without seeing the badge on the front I can’t tell a Mercedes from a Huyndai either of them probably being white.
We only buy low mileage pre owned cars. Our 2003 Passat station wagon is grey. Excellent car with a blah exterior. Last year we bought a 2017 red Ford Escape to drive on long trips. We like our red Ford. Plus, the Escape has a backup camera which we find handy. Taking it to the Wind River Range in Wyoming on a hiking vacation.
The resale value points are correct: the neutral colors have the most potential buyers. Now why does that matter when the car is bought new? Because so many cars are leased, and the projected resale value is rolled into the lease cost.
I have a new, iridescent white SUV. White because it’s the safest color in terms of other drivers being able to perceive you. I also like it best of all the boring colors. Sadly, there just aren’t interesting or lovely colors being offered–I’d jump at the chance to have that heavenly turquoise of the early Ford Thunderbirds, like this: https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1154521/1955-ford-thunderbird-for-sale-in-marietta-georgia-30062
NEO: But none of it explains Americans’ preference for black and gray and white cars. What a bore parking lots are these days!
we forget the penchant (fetish?) of the left for Steel, Iron, Grey, black, etc..
and regimentation, equality, repeating sameness… the architecture…
Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More…. 🙂
should i point out that from the date you mention to now, we are less and less free to choose whether i want snazzier with less mileage or this or that… the more regulations from the council (soviet), the same outcome of narrowing the design till, why bother having multiple car companies..
I cant believe we don’t collectively (heh), remember…
we were not being crushed between the hammer of standards and the anvil of environment
look… you want to see the fun cars with eye popping colors?
then look to the wealthy who do not follow what the commoners do
and those commoners USED to do what the wealthy did not said..
which made them hard to tell apart.. easier now (compared to using the wrong fork)
My 1967 Mustang Fastback was Nightmist Blue, which, if you were more than ten feet away from the car, is black.
Nightmist blue sounds more like the color nylons that a woman would wear with a gray skirt.
When I was a kid in the late 50’s early 60’s I could only afford old cheap cars. Didn’t like the color, no big deal. Earl Scheib would change that for only $19.95.
I used to paint cars in a GM factory before they switched to robots and base coat/clear coat. Base coat can go on thin and clear coat also. This cuts costs.
But I remember seeing a lot of certain colors with the paint flaking off.
The sun’s UV actually penetrated that thin paint and attacked the sealer coat which gave adhesion tot he metal. They eventually figured it out.
A friend of mine had a 57 Chevy Nomad with 20 coats of lacquer with metal flake and a coat of clear on top. Real depth to that.
My brother works in a Auto Paint canning plant.
Someone stole a can of $400 a quart iridescent paint out of a locker.
A week later, one of the employees drives in with an 80’s model hoopty with the most expensive paint job you can imagine.
I painted my motorcycle once (more than once). with black urethane paint and was furious with myself for not mixing the hardener right.
It didn’t dry! Or so I thought. Looked wet all the time. Beautiful.
Why do we buy boring colors? That’s all we can find without paying for a special order. I miss my Patriot Blue minivan, bought right after 9-11. Black is a solar oven, as someone else noted, white shows every smudge, silver and gray are invisible but doesn’t show dirt so much. They say red is a magnet for the highway patrol, but maybe the statistics mean that the owners of red cars drive faster and take more risks. My new van is gold, which doesn’t show much dirt, either, but I really wanted blue.
My car is a deep red Subaru Legacy, a gorgeous color. I like red cars. Years and years ago I had a little red Renault 12 that was so much fun. I don’t think I’ve ever had a white car. Gray, black, forest green. The most interesting color I ever had in a car was a periwinkle-blue minivan. I’ve never seen a color quite like it. The disadvantage was that in this little community, I was the only person in the town and possibly the county with a car that color, so everyone always knew whose car that was and therefore where I was. Not that I was going anywhere all that exciting, but it was a bit disconcerting to be told, “Oh, I saw your car today at the (grocery store/library/school/landfill/farmstand/wherever).” An advantage to a gray, white or black car is the enhanced privacy!
I have a Mitsubishi Outlander Sport in Rally Red, which is really the perfect red. Slightly more orange-red than blue-red, but you would never think to call it reddish orange. And my boyfriend has a Subaru Crosstrek in some delicious orange color (can’t remember the name). We have a very colorful driveway.
Many good points.
When the Japanese auto makers all rolled out their premium brands, several years later they all looked vaguely similar to me. I called them InAcurExus cars.
We’ve got a now old little Honda Fit, that I got in a rather hot medium blue. A bit like an M&M candy color. 135K miles and nothing but maintenance. Still going strong.
We’ve owned a few silver grey cars, which I like, but got a little tired of it. The color hides a modest amount of dirt well.
Now I’ve got a Focus ST, which I was going to get in a silver grey, but it’s got these pretty grey Rado alloy wheels. So I went for more contrast with the Kona Blue paint job. In the sunlight it looks like a dark metallic blue, but on an overcast day it looks nearly black. It’s pretty, if you can keep it clean enough.
Boy are the windows small in the Focus. The car also has this deep throaty exhaust note (Symposer they call it), and it feels like piloting the Starship Enterprise which is a little cool. But I’d rather have more window size and a greenhouse feel.
I don’t hate white cars, but they fairly shout boring to my eye. Silver grey says, “I’m not boring, just refined.” I love a good dark red or maroon. Had one of those.
neo: I ran into that article too and thought it explained a few things.
I had to replace the front bumper on my silver-gray Accord after one of those concrete parking space thingies caught the bumper and peeled it off as I backed out. Because my car is an old 2007, I settled for replacing it with an unpainted bumper and saved $300. Comes in handy when I need to locate my car in a sea of similar silver sedans.
The sameness of current cars reminds me of the sameness of current pop music. It’s not an old fogey’s imagination. The algorithm guys analyzed new vs old pop and the new pop is far more similar and simpler across the board than classic rock.
Like McMansions or even modern two-flats trying to replicate older architectural styles. Most likely built by the same company.
With ever more cars being company cars purchased through lease constructions, and those lease companies charging extra for cars in colours that aren’t bland because of the ease of resale on the used car market (there are more people who won’t buy a green car because it’s green than those who won’t buy a grey car because it’s grey…), grey cars are cheaper for a lot of people to lease than other colours, including the colours they’d prefer.
As a result, manufacturers replace real colours with shades of grey in their lineup.
I was in the market for a new car myself this year to replace my midnight blue Volkswagen.
Went to the dealer, got the brochure, saw the available colours which turned out to be baby blue, banana yellow, white, black, and 5 (yes, FIVE) shades of grey, and decided to hang on to my car for another few years.
Our SUV was getting dinged and dingy, so we decided a paint job was in order.
Looked through the color-chip book at the body shop, and picked a nice, mid-tone blue — not too bright, not too dark.
Got the car back, took it home — it was a brilliant turquoise.
Something to do with the color of the lighting in the shop’s office.
Moral: take the chip book outside in the sunshine to pick your color.
Silver lining: never, ever misplaced that car in the WalMart parking lot again.
PS we never buy a car looking to the popularity of its color on resell: we never get rid of a car until it dies.
2003 Red F-150 Supercab and a “cool vanilla” 2005 PT Cruiser. I also own a pair of orange Levis that I’ve worn to church on more than one occasion. And not been escorted out.
Home decor in general, not just paint, has become more bland and neutral, too.
That’s what happens as the domestic arguments play out. He’s not getting the wood paneling, the maps, and the maritime themes, she’s not getting the floral themes.
This won’t get lost in a parking lot.
https://imgur.com/a/Jo90Zn3
Keep in mind that there are a lot of blacks too. Some black cars look pleasant, others just too deep and shiny for that type of car.
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray
–The Monkees, “Shades of Gray”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SubpzqswJRE
I always thought that song was under-rated.
Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who wrote a ton of hits, including “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”
While shopping for a car recently, the salesman asked me what color I prefer. I answered that I didn’t really have a color preference except that in the color pantheon, gray or silver are both at the least-preferred bottom, with black just one notch better.
Why? Because like others have said, black cars – especially if they have dark interiors – become ovens in the hot sun, while gray or silver cars become almost invisible in any kind of precipitation. There is a reason the Navy paints it’s ships gray.
The car I eventually bought is a nice pearl red.
“I always thought that song was under-rated.”
The Monkees as a group were unjustly scorned for being a made-for-TV boy band.
Each of them was a serious musician, and as accomplished as most of the bands at the time, and their writers were often very good.
Plus, the Monkees were so much fun.
Its not just the colors, although I really like some of the variety of blue and metallic copper colors you see here and there in parking lots, its the shapes, the designs–they’re horrible, they’re boring, they lack adventure, and swagger.
At least those old monstrosities with fins had some character–outrageous though it might have been–some “je ne sais quoi.”
You can wrap a boring box with an external indentation here and there, and a whole lotta electronics inside in all sorts of hype to hawk it–in background music and a slick visual “story” but, in the end, it’s still really only a boring ol’ box.
P.S. One of the silliest of these car–in this case truck–commercials, is the current one for a 2019 GMC Sierra Pick-up line that features a tailgate with a built in step you can fold down, which this commercial portrays as revolutionary, literally jaw-dropping, practically the Second Coming.
For close to 20 years now, all cars have looked exactly like running shoes. Uglier than sin. (Partial exception — one or two of the Minis look as if they might actually have a car somewhere far back in their ancestry; ditto the VW Beetle.)
Colors for cars. I’m a fool for metal-flake cherry-red, magenta, grape, and sort of a royal blue, but not dark. And our first real car (there was a sorry prologue by way of a much-used DeSoto) was a ’64 (IIRC) Chevelle in my favorite car color at the time: metallic light blue. Awesome!
But it did eventually dawn on me, long after the Chevy had disappeared in the rear-view mirror, that the best color for a car really is white, for its visibility (except on snowy back roads). And I’ve always driven with the lights on — for visibility. And I pump the brake a bit when slowing down or stopping, on the theory that the flashing tail-lights might catch the eye of a guy who might otherwise rear-end me.
Before I had a child and bought the Deeply Uncool Minivan, I had a Saturn that I referred to as painted “2004 Blue”. All the brands used that identical color that year and probably the couple of years around it. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to stick my key in the door of a Nissan or Toyota or Chevy sedan, because they were all the same shape and same damn color.