Harvest Season for the '08 Car Colors

[pupp1]

By PHIL PATTON
Published: June 13, 2005
FLORIDA is famous for alligator farms and nutria farms and the farms that produce flavorless winter strawberries. To the auto industry, however, Florida is famous for its panel farms.

These are the fields where the durability of new automobile paints is tested, determining if the finishes can withstand years of exposure under the state's harsh combination of sun, salt and humidity.

And the new crop is in - the 08's are already in the can, so to speak. They are the new blues that are verging into purple; after years of silver and gray and other noncommittal tones, blues are coming back strong, said Christopher Webb, color trend manager for General Motors.

Mr. Webb is proud of his new blues, especially the laser blue seen on Chevrolet's Equinox and Malibu. But the color of the future, according to G.M., is one called amethyst, after the pinkish-purple mineral. Mr. Webb applied it to Chevrolet's new retro-style wagon, the HHR.

Within the Ford Motor Company, similarly, color designers are pushing new blues like the periwinkle on the Jaguar Advanced Lightweight Coupe, a design study that made its debut at the Detroit auto show in January. The periwinkle in question refers to the flower (not the snail) whose blossoms are close in color to what Americans might think of as cornflower.

Even "reds are going bluer," Mr. Webb said. It is never just a matter of one primary color succeeding another; colors infect one another. Silvers are becoming bluer. For 2008, Mr. Webb said, "50 percent of the colors are blues or have evidence of blues." By "have evidence," Mr. Webb refers to the influence of one color on another.

"Color is very cyclical," he said. "When blues go up, greens go down." Car colors echo colors in other products, with a delay like a bad satellite uplink. Color trends in fashion are the shortest, perhaps only a few months; the auto color cycle is about two or three years. "Fashion looks for the next hot color," Mr. Webb said. "We look for the next hot color family."

Color echoes the zeitgeist, but just how is hard to define.

And disruptive events occur in the process, like the arrival a few years ago of Xirallic pigments from the automotive coatings division of Merck, the drug giant. Developed in Japan, the pigments are made with aluminum particles coated with titanium oxide. The result is paint with a crystalline glitter and a sparkling effect of depth.

The "candy apple" effects once restricted to red and blue now can be achieved with other colors: multiple sets of highlights that seem to shift and offer an uncanny depth, fascinating and indeed mesmerizing viewers without pharmaceutical assistance.

The new paints produce the burnt metallic oranges that have now become popular and new silvers that are darker, "tarnished" and "serious," like Mercury's "satellite silver" with blue effects. At Ford, they've produced the "legend lime" of the new Mustang, which echoes certain Aston Martin silver-greens of the past. They are also changing the light colors that don't seem to be color at all, like white.

The new pigments provide pearl effects, "just a slight highlight shift" said Marek Reichman, who recently changed jobs at Ford to become the director of design at Aston Martin. "They are a kind of sophisticated version of candy apple that you can now do with whites and creams."

The signature color on the 2006 Lincoln Zephyr, for instance is called white chocolate. "It's a creamy white with luster and depth," Mr. Reichman said. "You can almost taste it."
Source

[plane]

Yes, but what about black?

[FireFox89]

me love-fusion orange metallic (actually took the time on gm's site to find the name of the color since i love it so much). It sets it apart from other vehicles. I like how it looks orange at one angle then has a reddish hue in the sun....Thinkin about getting my firebird sprayed that color.
But yeah straight black too its simple and it gets its message across clearly-enough said..

[SVT2888]

Yeah, I love blues! any color with blue in it looks great.

[Snafu_SS]

i think i have an obsession with blue myself...im glad to see new colors makin their way into car line ups. im also glad that gm got their dark blue back, i look forward to having a GMT 900 Z71 with dark blue just like my current ride....

[IMPALAon20s]

that reminds me, i saw an new eclipse the other day, with a metallic orange color, almost identicle to the GM burnt orange. nice color, car even looks nice, but i'd never trust mitsu to sell me a car.

[asim]

i think they are perfectly right. blues are for a comeback.

[SSrevolution]

Originally Posted by asim

i think they are perfectly right. blues are for a comeback.

two words... admiral blue

anyway. best colors for me = red, black, silver, dark metalic gray.

[ponchoman49]

How about instead of placing so much attention on exterior paint colors we get something other than black, tan and gray interiors. People don't their spend time outside the car. That time is all spent inside. Sure the exterior color is important for image reasons but it's the interior that badly needs some extra color choices. Blue and Maroon is a geat place to start.

[cfch3399]

Good to see that boring grays are "out." Blue is my favorite color for cars too. Still, I'm not sure I want to see everyone driving blueish cars now.

[jwrebholz]

Blue happens to be my favorite color. I'd like my next car to be a deep navy blue, or perhaps a dark blue/bright silver two tone.

Of course, black makes any car look better.

[Kennyboy]

How about lime light green? Noboby seems to talk about light green colors nowadays. A light green Caddy is alright for me.

[moman]

BROWN, no one has mentioned brown, but all over the media BROWN on cars is coming back in a big way. I'm happy about it as well.

Glad we are moving away from black, silver, and red back to move varied tones. Anyone remember forest green? It's difficult to find one of those now, and I always liked it with a tan interior.

I'd like to see brown, blue, and maroon car interiors as well. Enough of the stardard grey, black, or tan b/s.

[gmhashope]

Originally Posted by moman

I'd like to see brown, blue, and maroon car interiors as well. Enough of the stardard grey, black, or tan b/s.

Yea they look nice but I remember they had some trouble with those fading.(right or am I just imagining stuff?) I personally like a blue-green exterior that was on my dad's '92 Saturn SC has to be my favorite along with candy apple red on the 50th anv. Corvette.

[moman]

Originally Posted by gmhashope

Yea they look nice but I remember they had some trouble with those fading.(right or am I just imagining stuff?) I personally like a blue-green exterior that was on my dad's '92 Saturn SC has to be my favorite along with candy apple red on the 50th anv. Corvette.

Correct about the brown paint fading problems, but the chemists think they have the problems solved with the newer colors. In reailty, I think a lot of the fading was preventable with proper waxing.

That blue/green color you are talking about is the color of my van.