Posts from ‘Color’
Check out our gallery of eye-catching colors seen at the 2019 Chicago Auto Show.
Traditional auto shows are facing plenty of challenges these days, as manufacturer priorities shift and the new-vehicle marketplace evolves. One thing has stayed the same, though: an auto show offers an unparalleled opportunity to compare competitive cars back-to-back, and to “tire-kick” a broad range of vehicles in a short amount of time. For an auto journalist, these shows are also a great way to spot industry trends large and small.
They’re almost exactly the same color, but each shade of gray has a unique name. Check them out.
The older and crankier among us have long lamented that all new cars look alike. If we’re entirely honest about it, we must concede that our grouchy acquaintances aren’t completely wrong. Certain safety and aerodynamic considerations have, to some extent, tied the hands of vehicle designers, giving them a little less leeway when it comes to shaping a modern car or truck.
You’re not imagining it–most new cars and trucks are black, silver, or white. We try to figure out why…
If you have spent any time reading responses to our posts on the Consumer Guide and Collectible Automobile Facebook pages, you may have taken notice of a frequent lament: “New-car colors are dull.”
Check out our gallery of the most eye-catching colors at the 2018 Chicago Auto Show.
There’s no better place than an auto show to see a broad range of brand-new vehicles up close, and there’s also no better place to check out the latest trends in factory paint-color offerings. One of our Chicago Auto Show traditions is to scour the show floor on the hunt for interesting new or recently introduced colors—“double-take” hues that are more eye-catching that the usual whites, silvers, blacks, and grays (and, for that matter, straightforward fire-engine reds).
1996 Volkswagen Golf Harlequin
Special-edition, limited-run vehicles have long been a part of most automakers’ bag of sales-boosting tricks. Producing a limited number of specially trimmed examples of a given vehicle—unique paint, wheels, interior and exterior trim, and maybe some stripes or special emblems—is a relatively easy, cost-effective way to drum up a little excitement over a given model line without incurring the significant expenses of a serious styling update or mechanical refresh. The special-edition model is a time-honored practice that has been going on in one form or another since the Fifties.
1968 Pontiac Firebird
Born in 1883 as the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, PPG began dabbling in paint almost from its birth. PPG was there from the start when automakers began producing vehicles in volume, providing both glass and paint to the burgeoning industry.
We recently had a 2017 BMW M760i in through the Consumer Guide fleet for our usual rounds of editor test drives and evaluations. We’re no strangers to high-end luxury vehicles at CG HQ, but even by premium-brand standards, the M760i was one of the most lavishly equipped (and priciest) vehicles we’ve tested in quite a while.
Damon takes a closer look at the most-interesting colors seen at the 2017 Chicago Auto Show.
Bored with beige? Sick of silver? Weary of white? Tired of tan? Chagrined by champagne? Troubled b… OK, sorry, we’ll stop. Though muted, conservative colors seem to dominate in the new-vehicle marketplace, most manufacturers offer at least a couple unusual hues in their factory-paint palettes. Auto shows are a great place to see these colors up close and in person on a new vehicle, instead of looking at a computer screen or a paint chip at the dealer. If you’re an extroverted type who wants your ride to turn heads, an out-of-the-ordinary color is a great way to do it. Keep in mind, however, that these colors can fall out of fashion much quicker than the “safe” standby colors, which can be an issue come resale time.
Red Hot! Five Very Red Car Ads
1960 Willys Jeep brochure
Folks don’t buy a lot of red cars, but they do like to look at them. According to automotive paint supplier DuPont, red was only the fifth most popular new-car color in 2012. The most popular? Plain vanilla while. Snooze.
1958 Chevrolet Brookwood
American car shoppers are something of a dull lot. We like our cars with four doors, we prefer traditional sedans, and when it comes to color, well, it’s snooze time.
According to DuPont, one of the globe’s leading producers of automotive paints and coatings, the top four colors chosen by American new-car shoppers for their vehicles are variations on black and white. Here’s the 2012 list of most popular car colors, as provided by DuPont:
