15 October 07
Every Hue of Dull
A trip down I-80 yesterday afforded yet another opportunity to reflect on how unimaginative the colors of cars that are available on today’s market. With the exception of midlife-crisis red, one can find almost any color out there, but the color saturation level is, say, no more than 12%. And heaven forbid trying to find a two-tone color scheme.
This New York Times blog post discusses this phenomenon. As commentators suggest, does this have to do with resale value? Or perhaps the desire for camouflage?
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Surely you are talking about America, right? The colors of cars in Europe and other places like Africa and South America and Southeast Asia can hurt your eyes at times! And then there is Japan where something like 80% of cars are white, for the resale value. WHITE! How boring can you get?
Before we put the spacetime warp-engine nacelle (disguised as an ordinary cartop luggage pod) on the silver wombat-model RAV4, I considered it the perfect post-crime getaway car for the Bay Area because there were so many just like it on the road.
We didn’t choose the color, though, as we bought it second-hand. The model comes in some way-saturated shades of cobalt blue, deep green, and red and I admit to envy attacks when I pass those.
The older RAV4 models I actually like better, the square ones, came in a very pretty silvered robin’s-egg turquoise too and I’m quite fond of that.
Of course, what we all need is art cars.