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Excellent Slate article by Julia Felsenthal explaining why fewer color selections and conservative ones at that are the new auto trend.
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Herc: It's a good read, but I don't believe it to be accurate. This isn't about paint technology. Bright hues still exist on brand new cars----check out the Challenger and Camaro for example, with oranges, greens, yellows-----and of course "Plum Crazy" purple on the Challenger. Also, there are plenty of white cars that have high gloss. Car makers can achieve perfect finishes on bright colors. This is really about limiting choices. The manufacturers decided that it's much less expensive from a manufacturing standpoint to offer about 6 to 8 colors on a given model. They know that most people tend to want discreet blues, silvers, blacks, whites, burgundy finishes----and to that end, they've pushed those colors as being "understated, timeless, brilliant" to push buyers in the direction of a few colors. It's the same reason we don't see a lot of chrome anymore. It's not that people suddenly decided they don't like chrome----it's that manufacturers decided they could charge the same for painted finishes and flat blacks----and charge the same as they did for offering cars with much more expensive chrome. So they pushed the buyers into believing painted bumpers were "in." Back to colors: In the 1970's, Cadillac offered about 15 standard colors and 6 "Firemist" super metallics. They'd have over 20 colors available for any car. Now, they offer maybe 6 colors per model---to simplify the assembly line and greatly reduce costs. It's as simple as that.
Posted by: Angelo | October 31, 2011 at 05:15 PM
Angelo, points well taken. As long as cars are available in gun metal gray, I'm fine.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | October 31, 2011 at 08:12 PM
Gun metal gray with metallic or not?
Posted by: Angelo | November 01, 2011 at 04:45 AM
Tough decision. In gray I like both metallic and matte finish.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | November 01, 2011 at 06:15 AM