Hey, have you ever noticed just how boring car colors have become? Look at your average parking lot, and you'll see lots of white, black, silver, gray, maybe some tan, and the occasional bright red...
I call it "Monochrome" car colors, using the term from photography for black and white photos. Makes sense, doesn't it? If everything's either black, white or a shade of gray in between, it would be monochrome, right?
In fact, let's look at the last photo as a black and white...
...notice how the colors of the cars don't change?
So, I wanted to share some thoughts about how many people have lost their sense of adventure in char color choices.
A note, quickly, about red...Yes, there are lots of red cars out there (both bright, vivid red and dark maroon or burgundy red); but red has been a car color forever, and it's so standard and so prevalent that it's almost equally boring to my eye as the monochromes, and – with something like 10% of cars being red, it's almost as if red is The Only Socially Acceptable Color (TOSAC) these days!
Even the choices from the manufacturers promote this trend...take a look at the colors available from Buick for their 2020 Regal sedan. The basic model comes in just 3 colors: Summit White, Quicksilver Metallic (silver), and Ebony Twilight Metallic (black)-- all monochrome. The premium model only adds Rioja Red Metallic (TOSAC), and Dark Moon Blue Metallic (which is almost black).
The Cadillac XTS Sedan comes in 9 colors, of which one is dark blue, one is bronze, and one is red (TOSAC); The other six are all monochrome.
Af least Ferrari has some colorful choices,,,in addition to the usual Racing Red and monochromes, you can get your Ferrari F8 Tribute in yellow, orange, and blue, The Kia Soul colors, in addition to red and monochromes, include Mars Orange, Neptune Blue (which is very vivid), Platinum Gold, and Solar Yellow. Jeep also offers a vivid lighter blue, yellow, and orange...and in 2019, had a bright green.
The 2020 Camaro comes in a bright red, bright yellow, bright orange, bright blue, and a deep green, but I think the 2020 Ford Mustang wins, with three shades of bright blue, orange, bright lime green, dark green, and two shades of red.
So maybe there's some progress (at least among enthusiast-type cars), but...here's a true story:
I was cycling one day on the sidewalk along a busy road in our town...and a bright green Jeep passed me. So, I decided to keep count, and watched the next 99 cars, for a total of 100. Of the 100;
- 7 were red (TOSAC);
- 3 were blue (a mix of bright and deep, dark blue)
- 2 were green (including the first one)
Thanks for reading!