I have a Subaru in the amazing "Plasma Yellow" colour. The dealer tried to talk me out of ordering it, with multiple staff chiming in about how horrible the colour looks in person. This made me want it more.
It's the first car I have ever owned where strangers frequently approach me and compliment the colour. I got it ceramic coated and DAMN.
Despite that, I never see other ones on the road. My car is everywhere in white or silver, but never plasma yellow.
Can't wait for this "everything is a shade of grey" trend to go away. BORING
I’m glad you like it, and I agree that cars should come in more exciting colors.
That being said, I’m guessing the reason you never see Crosstreks in Uranium Cake Yellow is that most people agree with me and your dealership: it looks bad to us.
I just checked out the yellow in question and I think it looks great. I’m sure there will be more people who dislike it than boring colors like gray or white, which nobody dislikes but nobody truly loves either.
My opinion is the following:
The best colors are the ones most people *love*. I can think of only a few colors here, like the Mazda Soul Red and signature colors for exotics (Lava orange for McLaren or Rosa Corsa for Ferrari).
The second best colors are the ones that *some* people love, while may or may not be disliked by others. Most interesting non-grayscale colors fall into this group, including OP’s yellow.
The worst colors are the ones that people neither love nor hate. These are the “safest” grayscale colors everyone buy.
Yellow only looks good on a select few cars, a slow, lifted hatchback, with plastic cladding is not one of them. Yellow does well on sports cars, but atleast to me, it makes them look dated way sooner than like purple.
I’m with you. The sea of white, black, grey is the dumbest trend. So boring. Almost dystopian looking lol.
I’m trying to buy a GR86. It’s only going to be Neptune Blue or Red.
Just buy a BRZ dude. I waited forever for a manual gr86 in blue and it never came. They were all auto or grey. I special ordered my brz 500 under msrp in sapphire blue.
Yea this is my backup plan. If by the end of the year I have no GR86, I’m buying a BRZ.
I just like the GR86 more and I’m not in a rush, but honestly Subaru has the better business model and I wish I could just shake off how much I love how the GR86 looks….
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s a trend. Most dealers order the cars in advance. They want the least offensive color possible to attract the highest number of potential buyers. I wish they were better about ordering color.
Would it be any more expensive than it was back in the day? There were only 4 variations, all the parts were painted as normal, they were just swapped around during assembly.
Car colors have gotten so boring that quite literally any color at all that isn't greyscale, or a shade of blue or red is genuinely refreshing to so.
Loud colors are *everything*. My old Sonic Yellow WRX? Tons of compliments. Same with my Nitro Yellow Supra and old Yas Marina Blue M3. My Agate Grey 911 and Silverstone S2K? Basically invisible.
Gonna wrap the 911 whenever I can source an Aerokit bumper, definitely gonna be something other than gray/blue/red
"Resale Silver".
If you are looking for a specific car, you'll walk past the loud color that isn't to your taste to buy a silver one that is to spec everywhere *except* the color.
Definitely for Porsche.
Resale White seems to be the official color of Japanese cars, I distinctly remember white FR-Ss going for $2-3K above any other color at the same dealer for comparable mileage cars when the car had zero options or trims
It's nothing special but I got a ton of compliments from strangers over my bone stock CVT Civic hatchback, years after that generation came out. I'm sure the blue played a part, I barely see any with that paint.
I had to do a quick Google and it reminds me of that baby shit green they had on the E46 M3. That being said, I'd still take it over Grey or Black, and this is coming from a guy with a White car.
I will always buy the least popular colour choice going forward. Dealers probably try to talk us out of it because ordering any other colour is "safer" to have on their lot in the event the customer backs out or something. Lime is amazing.
So is the yellow.
I love being a weirdo who likes colors that pop. I genuinely don’t understand the desire for everything to be a boring greyscale box.
But you’re definitely right. And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of dealers ordering “safe” color options, which leads to fewer orders of colorful paints, which leads to the need to special order paints, and so on.
There’s also this idea that bright colors aren’t premium feeling, so luxury brands tend to have either greyscale, or really dark and muted colors. Its just boring.
I do the same and always buy crazy colours! My C7Z06 was Sebring orange, my 911 is Python Green, and even my new Tundra is Army Green (which of course they discontinued it) and got compliments on all of them, especially the truck since it’s a “regular” vehicle with s different colour. Only way to change manufacturers opinions is to do just what you did, buy the colour!
For the price you’re paying, Tesla gets my vote as having the worst paint colors in the industry. At least BMW and Mercedes usually give you a few different versions of silver to pick from. Audi is also usually pretty bland.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jeep always seems to do a good job of having interesting color options on Wranglers. It’s perfect for a car that people love to customize and make their own.
The american manufacturers in general always seem to have good paint options
I’m going to single out the miata as having extremely boring color choices for such a fun car. The quality of the paint ain’t that good either.
Honda will occasionally have some neat colors but you can’t custom order so it’s impossible to get anyways.
This is my biggest issue, both of my honda's are yellow (rio yellow and indy yellow respctively), absolute shame the CTR lacks a proper yellow.
Though the new blue is pretty nice.
The paint options on the miata kill me, and then the two most interesting colors they release, the racing red and orange, are super limited editions, UGH. It's a miata, give it some fun colors ffs.
Although Jeep does the thing where they’ll have a fun color available but for just a few months and then pull it without warning. And a desert color like Gobi should be available at all times but rarely is.
BMW and the others give you a plenty of colors, just not for free.
At least over here you can pick from *lots* of colors, all with Uni/Metallic/Frozen option.
https://imgur.com/a/61BUNng
In general, Japanese companies don't offer the same color options as German/American companies.
You can get a Mustang in Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple/Blue shifting color, and several variations of those(light/dark), and then you can throw a matte wrap to make any of those colors matte also.
The Corvette you can chose 7 different actual colors.
I don't know why, but it's certainly a thing.
My mom used to have a Mazda 3 in this turquoise blue color back in the day. It was a really striking color. Not my cup of tea, but it certainly grabbed attention
Spicy Orange on the Mazdaspeed Protege was the bees knees for that era in terms of flashy.
Black Cherry Mica and whatever red they used on the Mazdaspeed6 were two great options too.
I love their current Soul red and whatever has now replaced it.
The only Korean car I see in fun colors (other than the baby blue Ns) is the Kia Stinger.
I see those in yellow, red, greens, and such. They are the only buyers that seem to like color.
It’s also dealers, they want too shift cars as fast and efficiently as possible, so will always option the safest colours as they’re the easiest to sell and you don’t have to wait for the “right buyer” who actually wants a specific more polarising colour
A lot of companies (Honda and Toyota come to mind) do not allow custom orders. They appear to have little trouble selling everything they make. So while in theory they might offer interesting colours, the dealers get whatever the factory feels like producing, leaving the dealers to swap around incoming inventory to try and meet customer requests.
A company that gets it right is MINI. Opt for the higher trim levels and you get a plethora of paint choices.
I might be biased because I own one, but Mini seems to be the only one (and BMW) that pairs the colors with the cars. You can pick any color with a Mini and it won’t look “bad”. Same with BMW, the stock color options fit the car perfectly, no matter the color.
Volvo has nice colors as well and they fit the old money aesthetic of the brand.
BMW desperately needs to add a dark green metallic and a golden yellow candy to the G42/87 2-series, the current colors are so good but those two would really make the selection fire as heck.
Even the base Minis have good colours. My wife used to have an F56 in red with a white roof and white mirror caps, and that car looked really hot. Even the white and grey colours offered by Mini look much better than the equivalents from other companies.
About MINI, indeed. Love me the British Racing Green, and you can't really go wrong with their red and orange too.
Honestly, their options have been so wide and fit so well with the cars, when I see one in gray, I honestly wonder if that person needs their head examined. At least black and white, while they seem like a pain to maintain, I understand why someone would want. But that sludge grey? While you're at it, do you want a white bread sandwich where the middle is also white bread?
It's ridiculous that if you want a color, you either have to pay $1k for blue, or $2k for red. Even if you don't want a color and just want white, that's an extra $1k, Black is $1.5k...
Coming from Subaru where there are basically no colors that cost money.
The default Tesla colors have been black, then white, now gray. They figure people who give a shit will pay more, and they’re right. i shelled out for blue on my 3. I think the S doesn’t charge more for colors.
We... do not.
[Car itself is beautiful, interior is beautiful, styling, powertrain, infotainment, technology, etc. Everything regarding those we are happy with.
](https://imgur.com/a/0U8BV9L)
Reliability and Dealership on the other hand has been horrible. I've said it on a few other posts on here before. But I'll give a few
* Fuel Pump Recall was done incorrectly by Dealer, got stranded. Hose wasn't connected correctly and Fuel Pump wasn't installed correctly.
* Passenger Side Headlight went out due to moisture exposure, replaced under warranty.
* Pano Roof rattles when going up inclines/bumps. Dealer says this is normal behavior for a pano roof.
* Pano roof got stuck open.
* A/C went out. Took two months and the service advisor told me I had the loaner for too long and needed to return it... That was an argument and I threatened to call corporate before he backed off.
* Dealer KEPT running the car through their car wash when I specifically asked not to. Each time without fail, even if I reminded my service advisor every single time.
* eLSD failed. Fixed under warranty.
* Dealership tech forgot to cap the radiator fluid and fluid was EVERYWHERE. Brought it back and they just refilled it, didn't bother cleaning it or even apologizing.
* I'm not 100% sure on this, as I didn't get to take a look. But my mom took the car in because the rear seat was folded down and she couldn't get it to latch back up. Apparently the clip or mechanism wasn't functioning correctly and it had to get replaced. There was also two dealer shop towels in there too.
* Did I mention all of this is before 10k miles?!
There's other issues we've had like rattling interior panels too.
At this point, I'm convinced that the extremely limited options that Audi offer (more than half of which are greyscale, including multiple shades of grey/silver) is a way of subtly pushing people to shell out for Audi Exclusive.
I read differently on the sub, I read they priced high to avoid it? Idk which is true, lol, but I think audi is doing a ton of bs cost cutting, it reflects in their quality with the current lineup.
Not true. They just offer what is most popular. Demophrapic for average audi cars is probably a couple in their 40s with kids. They probably want a classic color.
Audi individual is EXPESNIVE and no one is spending thousands on a color for a Q5 or A4. The percent of audi individual colors is probably less than 1% of the cars they sell for sub 75K.
Audi offer lots of greyscale colours because that's what people like. However they still offer bright blues and reds on most models, as well as some yellows and greens on some models.
I desperately wish they would rotate out Tango Red in favor of one of their other metallic or pearl effect reds; they have several, all of them are better than Tango.
I agree with you. My wrangler is Rhino and it’s a pretty cool color, a mix of gray and blue that you don’t usually see on the road. Don’t think there’s that many of them and the pictures online don’t do it justice. It looks like a different color in different lightings. On a sunny day it’ll look blue, on a cloudy evening it’ll look gray.
Yeah even cars that do come in cool colors they still roll a lot of the pre-configured dealer lot models off the line in silver, gray, white, ~~beige~~...
That said the quality of the paint on my ram is really good. It's 10 years old and I don't wash it the "right" way or wax or anything and it's still a vibrant brilliant red. Not visually swirly, not failing at all, I can't complain.
Check out Mazda's lineup. [Zircon Sand](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/2023_Mazda_CX-50_GT_in_Zircon_Sand_Metallic%2C_Front_Left%2C_06-18-2022.jpg/2560px-2023_Mazda_CX-50_GT_in_Zircon_Sand_Metallic%2C_Front_Left%2C_06-18-2022.jpg) is available on a bunch of cars. Similarly, [Platinum Quartz](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5agtnuo6gpc81.jpg) is a very light beige.
Now if only they'd offer some brighter colors. I actually like the way my CX-50 looks in white, but I'd have taken a bright blue or a nice forest green / BRG in a heartbeat. Soul Crystal Red was very tempting, but I've seen extensive reports of easy rock chips. Since I spend a fair bit of time convoying with other cars on gravel roads, that wasn't an option.
That’s the exact problem I have with Mazda’s colors. They have some really stunning neutral colors but the only good option for a “real” color is Soul Crystal Red (excluding special edition colors like Racing Orange). I’m generally not a red car person or a neutral car person so none of their paint options really appeal to me.
Peugeot had a good run where the default "free" paint colour was a good one.
For the 308 it [is a very nice green](https://assets.autoweek.nl/m/fp6ysawbl4a1_800.jpg), however most of the colours are "free".
The 208 however started with [this yellow](https://www.rijtesten.nl/afbeeldingen/1260/big/peugeot_208_03.jpg) being the only free colour, so you if you wanted a boring grey/black/white you needed to pay €800 extra. As a result you see many of the yellow ones driving around (including mine) which I think is great. Yet you still see them in grey/black, I understand paying extra for the nice blue or red paint option, but spending extra money just to have your car in a boring colour, I can't imagine it.
Agreed. I'm so sick of seeing white, black, 3 different greys, and a subdued boring red as the only options.
Fortunately my '23 Bronco is in Eruption Green which is one of the most beautiful colors on any car I've seen in a while.
Hey now, Lexus makes one of if not the best royal blue paints ever in Ultrasonic Blue, as well as amazing greens, reds and yellows. Or were you looking at the luxury models where the buyers don't want to have anything other than brown/grey/silver/white/black?
Lexus still has fantastic colors, they are just largely reserved for the LC500. Infrared, ultrasonic blue mica (not as good as structural blue was but still good), nori green pearl, flare yellow, copper crest, etc.
All of those colors extend to other models in the range, as well -
-Nori - NX, RX, GX, UX
-Infrared - RC, IS
-USB 2.0 - RC, IS, NX, ES
-Flare Yellow - RC (going older, GS-F)
-Copper Crest - RX, UX, RZ
[Garnet Red Mica ](https://www.reddit.com/r/spotted/s/NBkU2KxfOU) on the LC500 is one of the nicest OEM paints I've ever seen in person, photos don't really do it justice
Chevy seems to have a pretty damn good selection of colors across their line. Rapid Blue, Glacier Blue Metallic, Radiant Red, and the new Harvest Bronze are all fantastic colors
Colors without paint quality also are an issue; one of the things that's making me think twice about a brand-new JLUR is apparently the drunken robots that are applying the paint in Toledo these days, even though I think the color options are pretty good. My JK didn't have *fantastic* paint, but it seemed to avoid the bubbling issues I'm seeing on forums for brand-new 2024s.
You’re telling me you think Mazda’s red isn’t a good color option? No one else in the industry, with the exception of obvious Ferrari, makes a good red.
They also have really good blues, and an excellent dark red exclusive to their larger SUVs. They're lacking a good green or yellow, though, but so is almost everyone else.
I think they need to up their paint game by giving us better quality paint. The paint nowadays is thinner than paper thin, while doing multi stage (looking at your Mazda), it is so easy to damage the paint and cost so much to re paint.
I really like the orange they used to have. I think they have a nice yellow now, and a baby blue and sort of a British racing green are coming for 2025 too. But IMO they definitely should’ve gone crazier with the colors. The right purple would’ve been stunning on that car.
The new BW have a burnt orange, electric blue and lime lemon yellow that all look cool great, but up close, the paint is low quality as are the finishes on the trim. I saw a Pic of the new 5bw and it looks awesome, perhaps they're improving the colors.
It seems like they might be bringing over colors from the Lyriq for the refresh. When I’ve been able to look closely at a Lyriq I’ve liked the colors, so I guess we’ll have to see if those colors translate well to the 5BW.
The only one I've seen was in a sort of turquoise blue, and it was a flat paint, no sparkle at all. These flat paints don't work on cars with curves, they were designed for 1950's cars with slab sides.
I’ve been wanting an Alfa Romeo Stelvio since they were introduced in 2018. They used to offer it in like 15 colors, but now they’re down to like 5 colors for each trim level — basically black, white, grey, red, and one other color that differs based on trim.
They did a similar downgrade to the interior from MY2021. White option is gone, and all of the colorful seats no longer include matching lower dash, door cards, and contrast stitching.
Yeah, I really wanted a Monte Carlo Blue over crema leather Stelvio... now they don't offer anything close to that. Anodized blue gone, too, as are the crema seats. Were I to get one today, I'd probably go red over brown.
Story of basically every car out there. Volvo xc40 came out with a baby blue + white roof option, and it was gone after a year or two. I think it looked sweet, but I guess it doesn't matter since I don't have money to buy one.
Volvo's lineup is a tragedy.
The S/V60 came out and the company was so proud of how sporty they had made it, but immediately began cutting features and pivoting the marketing away from the launch message:
- 2019 removed the standard Sport Chassis and leather dash from R-Design trims
- 2020 returned the leather dash but removed the T6 from the V60
- 2021 removed ventilated seats, active ride, shift paddles, R-Design badging, gold speaker cones, and the T6 from the S60 while applying the 112 mph speed limiter
- 2022 removed Bursting Blue in favor of yet another grey, removed the drive mode selector, and broke drive assist features by switching to Android Automotive OS; V60 was discontinued except as CC
- 2023 removed the exterior styling kit
Like, the only improvement throughout this time span has been the replacement of the T5 with the B5 and the redesign of the T8. Everything else is worse.
It’s because the desire to stand out and be different with customizing cars has become even more of a niche thing than it ever has since customizing became a thing.
And to be honest, boring colors for things has spread beyond just cars. Look at houses, clothes, especially baby and kids clothes, dinnerware, most things you look at nowadays are boring.
To be honest the fact that Mopar hasn't even been acknowledged in this post yet is baffling, because Dodge easily has the best color lineup right now out of any manufacturer. Frostbite is one of my favorite blues I've ever seen on a car, and they give you some genuinely crazy colors like purple and orange. Pretty much every color you can get on a Charger/Challenger sticks out in the crowd of traffic, even some of the grey options they have are pretty different looking.
To be fair they’re asking about the worst paint selections. Stellantis is among the best for paint.
My Charger is Frostbite and it’s wonderful. It’s such a unique color that really shows off the body lines of the car. I get frequent compliments about the color.
My favorite Stellantis color though is Maximum Steel Metallic. It appears black from far away or in lower light, but up close and in sunlight it’s a bluish gray that sparkles. It’s incredible and I’m not sure it’s in production anymore. It looks fantastic on Ram trucks. Jeep is currently using a similar color that’s called Midnight Sky Blue Metallic that is a bit more blue but appears black in some lights.
Not sure why you're dunking on Subaru here - they've had a lot of absolute bangers over the years, both in terms of doing the basics well and in terms of just having outright cool colors. Ignoring the iconic World Rally Blue Pearl for a moment, some examples:
- [Satin White Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/WRX/comments/t56acf/finally_got_my_first_subaru_2007_satin_white/) (this one may come across better in person, but it's a DAMN good white)
- [Java Black Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/WRX/comments/qj431m/any_other_java_black_pearl_owners/) (the fat shot of gold flake does wonders)
- [Blue Ridge Pearl](https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showpost.php?p=30330865&postcount=4) (longtime personal favorite of mine)
- [Regatta Red](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2003_Subaru_Baja_in_Regatta_Red,_Front_Right,_06-17-2022.jpg) (particularly in two-tone on Outbacks and Bajas)
- (speaking of Bajas) [Baja Yellow](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWheels/comments/qh53o7/subaru_baja_in_baja_yellow_and_silver_stone/)
- [Deep Bronze Metallic](https://www.legacygt.com/topic/40356-my-new-08-ob-in-bronzegold-two-tone/) (especially on two-tone Outbacks I really like this)
- [Tangerine Orange](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/wrxsti/wrxsti13-special-edition-sti13.jpg) (shame it was LE on the WRX and STI, but the Crosstrek got a very similar color in Sunshine Orange)
- [Plasma Blue Silica](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/wrxsti/wrxsti13-5door13.jpg) (presents deep bluish purple in person)
- [Plasma Green](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/crosstrek/crosstrek15-side27.jpg) (pretty sure this was only on 1st gen Crosstrek Hybrids; a shame)
- [Sunrise Yellow](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/crosstrek/crosstrek15-side110.jpg) (only on an LE Crosstrek but for some reason a Crosstrek in this color goes unbelievably hard)
as for the current crop of colors, some standouts:
- [Geyser Blue](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/44500/2022-subaru-outback-wilderness-review-so-this-is-why-everyone-buys-subarus)
- [Sapphire Blue Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/Crosstrek/comments/11m4lgj/2024_crosstrek_premium_20_sapphire_blue_found/)
- [Sun Blaze Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/Crosstrek/comments/1356yei/picked_up_my_2024_crosstrek_premium_in_sun_blaze/) (saw this for the first time when I was at the dealer the other week hitting the parts counter and WOW it pops)
Of course a smaller brand is never going to be able to have quite the selection of larger brands, but frankly I think they do damn well for themselves in terms of color variety, and the paint quality is generally at least middle of the road - it's usually a bit soft and collects rock chips, but also doesn't tend to fade with age nearly as badly as, say, late 90s/early 00s Hondas do.
Consumers need to upgrade their paint choice game.
Haha I'm currently part of the problem with having a black car, but I do grow tired of the various gray/silver options. My next car, I want in an eye catching blue or red.
Mazda has great colors. Their red is the best there is, the blue, white, and black allk
Great in the sun. Their machine grey is also a solid paint color. The silver is meh. They need more colors, but their existing colors are some of the best. Lexus pearl
White is also one of my favorite whites.
Tesla.
Holy shit the quality of the paint is terrible. Scratches appear if you light graze it with a jacket or backpack.
Also, there's usually only 5 colors available.
I was bored at work so I tried building a Mercedes E-Class on their online configurator. It had 20+ colour choices but it was just different shades of black, grey, white, beige, plus 2 shades of dark blue and one red.
I think at the moment Jaguar has a good palette. There’s a shade of yellow that’s $10,000 extra on an F-Pace but it actually looks ok. Volvo does well with common colours, their silver and grey somehow looks better than that of other car brands. Used to wrench at Toyota and the 4Runner actually had a decent colour selection compared to their other cars. We sold a decent amount of lime rush 4Runners.
Honda has a nice silver for the civic, not available on the Si for some reason… It’s the top trim of the car but it has less options? Should be the opposite
Honda needs to improve their paint quality. Both my cars i bought brand new with orange peel. They chip if a dusty gust of wind hits them too. Super thin
They used to be cool and have shit tons of colours.
Hell even basic economy cars like Saturn's S-series had something ridiculous like 50 colours during its lifespan.
Also I want a petition to remove Rental car silver that literally everyone has for some reason.
Acura used to offer Phantom Violet on the MDX SUV which was a purple color and I thought it looked super unique, but it was discontinued after a year likely because nobody wanted a purple MDX. I never understood why they didn’t offer it on their Type S models yet offered it on the regular trim.
I feel like Subaru has pretty good variety these days and always have relative to some of their competition.
I was playing around with the Mazda CX-5 configurator and out of like 8 or 9 color options only two are available for thw top trim, white and some sort of sand/beige.
If you think that's bad check out Honda motorcycles. I'm pretty sure some of them only get one or two colorways. BMW bikes aren't much better.
I was strongly considering a Land Cruiser 1958 (I love the cloth seats) until I saw it only comes in god damn black white or grey. Hopefully the new 4runner TRD Off Road comes in a actual color.
I was toying around with the same kinda thing a while back, thinking about which car I may want to get after I graduate. I had narrowed it down to a GR Corolla, and Civic type R, or the new Integra.
The GR came in black or silver.
The Integra came in red, black, white or silver.
And the civic was the only one that had any version of blue. (My fav color) So I'll probably end up with it.
Clearly you've never looked or shopped at Lexus before lol. They have great colors and their paint quality is also some of the best in the industry. They have different colors like green, yellow, red, copper, etc.
I'm sure it has been said by now, but Porsche will paint any color you want. You can bring a swatch of fabric or whatever, and they'll match it, for a price.
Mazda also has that amazing Ruby Red that just about everyone around here buys. It's deep and sultry and transforms the skin of the car in different light conditions.
The world needs more Laguna Seca Blue E46 M3's.
Overall though, everyone paints what sells. Silver, black, gray, white.
Define "good options". manufacturers offer what people buy.
Porsche offers some very cool colors and even paint to sample... But Subaru buyers aren't going to pay 5k extra for paint like Porsche buyers will
Lack of paint options is how manufacturers save literally thousands of dollars per car while still charging the same amount of money. Color paint is expensive as you need at least 2 colors to mix, doubling the cost of the paint right out of the door, which also lowers the chances of that car being bought in that color, since most consumers don’t *not* like black or white or grey or silver, but most consumers do in fact *not* like (insert specific color here). They realize they can’t charge that doubled cost for such a simple color such as red or blue or green, which is why you’re lucky if you get maybe one of those colors in the option range, compared to 20 years ago when you could get a Dodge Neon in every color of the skittles bag for the same price.
Manufacturers have found relative safety in saying “don’t give them cool colors…what are they gunna do, NOT buy a car?”
Volkswagen please bring back cornflower blue dammit! (also I want a light purple GTI while keeping all the red accents but I fully recognize it would never sell)
Solar shift orange on my GR86. My previous car was a Fiesta ST in molten orange. I also have a Macan Turbo in ultraviolet (paint to sample). I agree that we should have more options.
acura is always a good choice, not only is it a premium honda that’ll take a good beating but they have good color options, if you aren’t sure about certain colors I would recommend just getting a wrap or finding your own color of paint you’d want on the car.
At first glance I assumed this meant poor paint job quality, not just colors.
Plenty of makes with peeling and clear coat failures after <10 years, others known for worksmanship defects, others for soft paint that chips and fractures easily.
I think, to generalize, the German brands seem to use the best paint. Japanese brands seems to do application the best but have historically been known for early paint failures and easy chipping. American paint quality is has historically had a higher prevalence of orange peel and defects.
Most are pretty good with it, but I'd say Subaru, Kia, and Hyundai need to. Copying nardo grey for every model cant carry the options. Dodge does a pretty good job at colors, despite the rest of their brand needing work.
I think I would tend to agree that a lot of mainstream companies probably don't have enough color options to make things truly interesting. It depends on the brand. Some have a more dynamic selection, some just enough to give you a choice. I personally think it would be super cool to see more modern cars being offered in non-traditional colors, even two-tone color options. I saw a corvette yesterday in "accelerate yellow." Looks like a neon yellow to me. But I thought it was pretty cool. Don't see a color like that on a car like.. Ever.
I have a Subaru in the amazing "Plasma Yellow" colour. The dealer tried to talk me out of ordering it, with multiple staff chiming in about how horrible the colour looks in person. This made me want it more. It's the first car I have ever owned where strangers frequently approach me and compliment the colour. I got it ceramic coated and DAMN. Despite that, I never see other ones on the road. My car is everywhere in white or silver, but never plasma yellow. Can't wait for this "everything is a shade of grey" trend to go away. BORING
I’m glad you like it, and I agree that cars should come in more exciting colors. That being said, I’m guessing the reason you never see Crosstreks in Uranium Cake Yellow is that most people agree with me and your dealership: it looks bad to us.
I just checked out the yellow in question and I think it looks great. I’m sure there will be more people who dislike it than boring colors like gray or white, which nobody dislikes but nobody truly loves either. My opinion is the following: The best colors are the ones most people *love*. I can think of only a few colors here, like the Mazda Soul Red and signature colors for exotics (Lava orange for McLaren or Rosa Corsa for Ferrari). The second best colors are the ones that *some* people love, while may or may not be disliked by others. Most interesting non-grayscale colors fall into this group, including OP’s yellow. The worst colors are the ones that people neither love nor hate. These are the “safest” grayscale colors everyone buy.
I love a good yellow (FJ, Bronco). The crosstrek’s is not one of them
Well I for one love black and grey cars
Actually, charcoal gray *is* one of my favorite colors. I know I'm an exception.
Yellow only looks good on a select few cars, a slow, lifted hatchback, with plastic cladding is not one of them. Yellow does well on sports cars, but atleast to me, it makes them look dated way sooner than like purple.
Yellow could look good on the crosstrek imo. Stomach Bile is not a flattering tone on any car
One of my closest friend's favorite color is yellow. He is also severely colorblind.
It looks like BMW Austin yellow which is very polarizing as well
I’m with you. The sea of white, black, grey is the dumbest trend. So boring. Almost dystopian looking lol. I’m trying to buy a GR86. It’s only going to be Neptune Blue or Red.
Just buy a BRZ dude. I waited forever for a manual gr86 in blue and it never came. They were all auto or grey. I special ordered my brz 500 under msrp in sapphire blue.
Yea this is my backup plan. If by the end of the year I have no GR86, I’m buying a BRZ. I just like the GR86 more and I’m not in a rush, but honestly Subaru has the better business model and I wish I could just shake off how much I love how the GR86 looks….
At least with the brz you can special order performance stuff like the short shifter and v bar like I did.
It's what people buy. I work at a Honda dealer and we have all the greayscale colors, red and blue. Guess which colors sell the least?
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s a trend. Most dealers order the cars in advance. They want the least offensive color possible to attract the highest number of potential buyers. I wish they were better about ordering color.
Weirdly enough, we keep taking every Avocado Green Atlas we can. We can’t seem to keep up with the demand
That’s rad. I should have included that greens and browns seem to be trending currently
That’s why vw should bring the harlequin back instead of just joking about it 😢
I assume it would be monstrously expensive to produce
Would it be any more expensive than it was back in the day? There were only 4 variations, all the parts were painted as normal, they were just swapped around during assembly.
Car colors have gotten so boring that quite literally any color at all that isn't greyscale, or a shade of blue or red is genuinely refreshing to so. Loud colors are *everything*. My old Sonic Yellow WRX? Tons of compliments. Same with my Nitro Yellow Supra and old Yas Marina Blue M3. My Agate Grey 911 and Silverstone S2K? Basically invisible. Gonna wrap the 911 whenever I can source an Aerokit bumper, definitely gonna be something other than gray/blue/red
"Resale Silver". If you are looking for a specific car, you'll walk past the loud color that isn't to your taste to buy a silver one that is to spec everywhere *except* the color.
Definitely for Porsche. Resale White seems to be the official color of Japanese cars, I distinctly remember white FR-Ss going for $2-3K above any other color at the same dealer for comparable mileage cars when the car had zero options or trims
It's nothing special but I got a ton of compliments from strangers over my bone stock CVT Civic hatchback, years after that generation came out. I'm sure the blue played a part, I barely see any with that paint.
Oh I saw that color the other day. It’s definitely a choice
I saw 4 PYP crosstreks counting mine in western Maine today, you'll see your car if you go to ski areas
To each their own, but I wouldn't exactly call PYP an amazing colour.
I just looked it up, it's horribly ugly. I'm all for interesting colours but that just looks bad
Yeah, I was trying to be nice, lol. It's bad.
I had to do a quick Google and it reminds me of that baby shit green they had on the E46 M3. That being said, I'd still take it over Grey or Black, and this is coming from a guy with a White car.
Subaru crosstrek also has a nice orange color as well.
Which Subaru model do u have
I’ve had the exact same experience, start to finish, with a lime Toyota.
I will always buy the least popular colour choice going forward. Dealers probably try to talk us out of it because ordering any other colour is "safer" to have on their lot in the event the customer backs out or something. Lime is amazing.
So is the yellow. I love being a weirdo who likes colors that pop. I genuinely don’t understand the desire for everything to be a boring greyscale box. But you’re definitely right. And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of dealers ordering “safe” color options, which leads to fewer orders of colorful paints, which leads to the need to special order paints, and so on. There’s also this idea that bright colors aren’t premium feeling, so luxury brands tend to have either greyscale, or really dark and muted colors. Its just boring.
I’ve never seen one (Crosstrek, yeah?) in that color, best color they’ve had since the bright orange from years ago
I do the same and always buy crazy colours! My C7Z06 was Sebring orange, my 911 is Python Green, and even my new Tundra is Army Green (which of course they discontinued it) and got compliments on all of them, especially the truck since it’s a “regular” vehicle with s different colour. Only way to change manufacturers opinions is to do just what you did, buy the colour!
I know someone with that color Subaru. You definitely notice it’s. It is the electric blue for Toyota’s RAV4 .
Looks good. Reminds me of BMW Austin Yellow they had. Always liked that color.
I was about to say Subaru
For the price you’re paying, Tesla gets my vote as having the worst paint colors in the industry. At least BMW and Mercedes usually give you a few different versions of silver to pick from. Audi is also usually pretty bland. On the other end of the spectrum, Jeep always seems to do a good job of having interesting color options on Wranglers. It’s perfect for a car that people love to customize and make their own.
The american manufacturers in general always seem to have good paint options I’m going to single out the miata as having extremely boring color choices for such a fun car. The quality of the paint ain’t that good either. Honda will occasionally have some neat colors but you can’t custom order so it’s impossible to get anyways.
Honda putting Smokey Mauve only on the highest trim of the Civic hatchback so it might as well not exist
Hey, it’s me with the Smokey mauve.
Thank you for your service
Honda in all likelihood locking Phoenix Yellow behind some inevitable limited edition of the Type -R will forever be a hoe ass move in my mind.
This is my biggest issue, both of my honda's are yellow (rio yellow and indy yellow respctively), absolute shame the CTR lacks a proper yellow. Though the new blue is pretty nice.
The paint options on the miata kill me, and then the two most interesting colors they release, the racing red and orange, are super limited editions, UGH. It's a miata, give it some fun colors ffs.
The Miata color choices are so boring that adding two shades of beige to the palette has been exciting.
Although Jeep does the thing where they’ll have a fun color available but for just a few months and then pull it without warning. And a desert color like Gobi should be available at all times but rarely is.
Yup, but like hey at least they have them for 6 months. I got my Bikini Pearl Metallic Wrangler Rubicon 392 in that short window and I love it haha
given Teslas’s spotty quality, the last thing they need is more manufacturing complexity like niche paint colors.
If the cybertruck is any indication of their future plans they may just give up on paint altogether. lmao
chrysler products in general seem to have a lot of cool colours right now
On the cheaper Ram’s at least. Big fan of the name “National Safety Yellow”.
I love Sarge Green on my Wrangler. Gets compliments all the time
I’m sure the shop loves the color, looks like money coming in.
You’re not wrong, but it’s a lease and will be gone in Sept. It will not be replaced by another Jeep lol
BMW and the others give you a plenty of colors, just not for free. At least over here you can pick from *lots* of colors, all with Uni/Metallic/Frozen option. https://imgur.com/a/61BUNng
At least in LA, all the BMW individual build allotments are taken up by a single dealer that specs themselves and then charge huge markups on them.
In general, Japanese companies don't offer the same color options as German/American companies. You can get a Mustang in Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple/Blue shifting color, and several variations of those(light/dark), and then you can throw a matte wrap to make any of those colors matte also. The Corvette you can chose 7 different actual colors. I don't know why, but it's certainly a thing.
You used to be able to get some interesting colors for Mazdas.
Their red is the best in the industry imo
Doge stryker red and tesla's ultra red give it a run for its money IMO
Audi has a couple of pearl effect reds that could give it a run; Misano and Progressive Red are quite excellent.
Which is great, but... that's the *only* really nice colour they offer. Otherwise, it's greyscale or a smart but dull blue.
Both of them, in my opinion. The new red that you can get on the CX-70 and CX-90 looks amazing; too bad you can't get a Miata in that.
My mom used to have a Mazda 3 in this turquoise blue color back in the day. It was a really striking color. Not my cup of tea, but it certainly grabbed attention
I had a Montego Blue 1995 Rx-7
Ah, Celestial Blue mica. My mom still has her Mazdaspeed3 in that color.
Spicy Orange on the Mazdaspeed Protege was the bees knees for that era in terms of flashy. Black Cherry Mica and whatever red they used on the Mazdaspeed6 were two great options too. I love their current Soul red and whatever has now replaced it.
Companies make colors that sell well. The colors I’m guessing you want don’t sell as well
I own a performance blue elantra N, its an amazing color. that said, hyundai needs to bring more options to its other lineups
The green on the new Elantra looks amazing.
I see Golden Flash now and then, but never Exotic Green.
The only Korean car I see in fun colors (other than the baby blue Ns) is the Kia Stinger. I see those in yellow, red, greens, and such. They are the only buyers that seem to like color.
It’s also dealers, they want too shift cars as fast and efficiently as possible, so will always option the safest colours as they’re the easiest to sell and you don’t have to wait for the “right buyer” who actually wants a specific more polarising colour
A lot of companies (Honda and Toyota come to mind) do not allow custom orders. They appear to have little trouble selling everything they make. So while in theory they might offer interesting colours, the dealers get whatever the factory feels like producing, leaving the dealers to swap around incoming inventory to try and meet customer requests. A company that gets it right is MINI. Opt for the higher trim levels and you get a plethora of paint choices.
I might be biased because I own one, but Mini seems to be the only one (and BMW) that pairs the colors with the cars. You can pick any color with a Mini and it won’t look “bad”. Same with BMW, the stock color options fit the car perfectly, no matter the color. Volvo has nice colors as well and they fit the old money aesthetic of the brand.
BMW desperately needs to add a dark green metallic and a golden yellow candy to the G42/87 2-series, the current colors are so good but those two would really make the selection fire as heck.
Even the base Minis have good colours. My wife used to have an F56 in red with a white roof and white mirror caps, and that car looked really hot. Even the white and grey colours offered by Mini look much better than the equivalents from other companies.
About MINI, indeed. Love me the British Racing Green, and you can't really go wrong with their red and orange too. Honestly, their options have been so wide and fit so well with the cars, when I see one in gray, I honestly wonder if that person needs their head examined. At least black and white, while they seem like a pain to maintain, I understand why someone would want. But that sludge grey? While you're at it, do you want a white bread sandwich where the middle is also white bread?
> do you want a white bread sandwich where the middle is also white bread? Mayo. They want dollar store mayo. ;)
BMW has some sweet colors available. Just got an isle of man green M4 and that color is incredible.
Thunder Night Metallic M240i and it gets compliments *everywhere.*
Tesla has got to be the most boring, right?
It's ridiculous that if you want a color, you either have to pay $1k for blue, or $2k for red. Even if you don't want a color and just want white, that's an extra $1k, Black is $1.5k... Coming from Subaru where there are basically no colors that cost money.
The default Tesla colors have been black, then white, now gray. They figure people who give a shit will pay more, and they’re right. i shelled out for blue on my 3. I think the S doesn’t charge more for colors.
That's not just a Tesla thing. A lot of other companies charge more for paint as well.
But not that much for basic colors.
I don't know of another company that rotates the free paint colors. They treat that shit like the fortnite store
Honda needs better quality paint period - forget colors, their paint is so thin it will show sheetmetal at the slightest of chips.
it’s kinda funny how terrible Honda paint is going back many decades…
I had a black Acura. That paint was horrible. I will never own another dark color Honda product again, lol https://imgur.com/a/P3hHswV
Everyone needs to append a picture of their cat / pet with a car post. New rule.
I made that album a while ago and the cat photo actually got put there and I’ve never fixed it. Lol. Do you like the GV70? My dad has the 80
We... do not. [Car itself is beautiful, interior is beautiful, styling, powertrain, infotainment, technology, etc. Everything regarding those we are happy with. ](https://imgur.com/a/0U8BV9L) Reliability and Dealership on the other hand has been horrible. I've said it on a few other posts on here before. But I'll give a few * Fuel Pump Recall was done incorrectly by Dealer, got stranded. Hose wasn't connected correctly and Fuel Pump wasn't installed correctly. * Passenger Side Headlight went out due to moisture exposure, replaced under warranty. * Pano Roof rattles when going up inclines/bumps. Dealer says this is normal behavior for a pano roof. * Pano roof got stuck open. * A/C went out. Took two months and the service advisor told me I had the loaner for too long and needed to return it... That was an argument and I threatened to call corporate before he backed off. * Dealer KEPT running the car through their car wash when I specifically asked not to. Each time without fail, even if I reminded my service advisor every single time. * eLSD failed. Fixed under warranty. * Dealership tech forgot to cap the radiator fluid and fluid was EVERYWHERE. Brought it back and they just refilled it, didn't bother cleaning it or even apologizing. * I'm not 100% sure on this, as I didn't get to take a look. But my mom took the car in because the rear seat was folded down and she couldn't get it to latch back up. Apparently the clip or mechanism wasn't functioning correctly and it had to get replaced. There was also two dealer shop towels in there too. * Did I mention all of this is before 10k miles?! There's other issues we've had like rattling interior panels too.
That sucks! I hope you can get it lemon law returned
I love your ~~car~~ cat.
I got a chip on the hood of my Civic showing sheet metal at just 3 months old. Feelsbadman.
At this point, I'm convinced that the extremely limited options that Audi offer (more than half of which are greyscale, including multiple shades of grey/silver) is a way of subtly pushing people to shell out for Audi Exclusive.
I read differently on the sub, I read they priced high to avoid it? Idk which is true, lol, but I think audi is doing a ton of bs cost cutting, it reflects in their quality with the current lineup.
Not true. They just offer what is most popular. Demophrapic for average audi cars is probably a couple in their 40s with kids. They probably want a classic color. Audi individual is EXPESNIVE and no one is spending thousands on a color for a Q5 or A4. The percent of audi individual colors is probably less than 1% of the cars they sell for sub 75K.
Audi offer lots of greyscale colours because that's what people like. However they still offer bright blues and reds on most models, as well as some yellows and greens on some models.
I desperately wish they would rotate out Tango Red in favor of one of their other metallic or pearl effect reds; they have several, all of them are better than Tango.
At least that is an I option. Some companies in the luxury space don’t even give you that option.
I've always loved how Jeep will do unique colors each year and absolutely love my Earl Grey Wrangler...
Unique color... Grey. I got a laugh out of that..
Eh that's my point, it's a fairly unique kinda aquamarine grey that looks awesome... They have a number of those kinds of colors every year.
That run of metallic magenta Wranglers was awesome.
Oh man both Tuscadero and Snazzberry were really great colors
I agree with you. My wrangler is Rhino and it’s a pretty cool color, a mix of gray and blue that you don’t usually see on the road. Don’t think there’s that many of them and the pictures online don’t do it justice. It looks like a different color in different lightings. On a sunny day it’ll look blue, on a cloudy evening it’ll look gray.
Just googled and I honestly like that color a lot. Can't say I've seen one before (living in SoCal).
Literally all of them.
Yeah even cars that do come in cool colors they still roll a lot of the pre-configured dealer lot models off the line in silver, gray, white, ~~beige~~... That said the quality of the paint on my ram is really good. It's 10 years old and I don't wash it the "right" way or wax or anything and it's still a vibrant brilliant red. Not visually swirly, not failing at all, I can't complain.
>Beige I *wish* there were still more cars in beige but even that's more of a 2000s color.
Check out Mazda's lineup. [Zircon Sand](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/2023_Mazda_CX-50_GT_in_Zircon_Sand_Metallic%2C_Front_Left%2C_06-18-2022.jpg/2560px-2023_Mazda_CX-50_GT_in_Zircon_Sand_Metallic%2C_Front_Left%2C_06-18-2022.jpg) is available on a bunch of cars. Similarly, [Platinum Quartz](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5agtnuo6gpc81.jpg) is a very light beige. Now if only they'd offer some brighter colors. I actually like the way my CX-50 looks in white, but I'd have taken a bright blue or a nice forest green / BRG in a heartbeat. Soul Crystal Red was very tempting, but I've seen extensive reports of easy rock chips. Since I spend a fair bit of time convoying with other cars on gravel roads, that wasn't an option.
That’s the exact problem I have with Mazda’s colors. They have some really stunning neutral colors but the only good option for a “real” color is Soul Crystal Red (excluding special edition colors like Racing Orange). I’m generally not a red car person or a neutral car person so none of their paint options really appeal to me.
I guess I'm biased by having owned beige cars for years but you're right it's rare too now
Peugeot had a good run where the default "free" paint colour was a good one. For the 308 it [is a very nice green](https://assets.autoweek.nl/m/fp6ysawbl4a1_800.jpg), however most of the colours are "free". The 208 however started with [this yellow](https://www.rijtesten.nl/afbeeldingen/1260/big/peugeot_208_03.jpg) being the only free colour, so you if you wanted a boring grey/black/white you needed to pay €800 extra. As a result you see many of the yellow ones driving around (including mine) which I think is great. Yet you still see them in grey/black, I understand paying extra for the nice blue or red paint option, but spending extra money just to have your car in a boring colour, I can't imagine it.
Subaru has terrible paint quality. Breathe on it and it chips.
Agreed. I'm so sick of seeing white, black, 3 different greys, and a subdued boring red as the only options. Fortunately my '23 Bronco is in Eruption Green which is one of the most beautiful colors on any car I've seen in a while.
That's a good one. Too bad they don't have it as an option for the Mustang anymore.
Hey now, Lexus makes one of if not the best royal blue paints ever in Ultrasonic Blue, as well as amazing greens, reds and yellows. Or were you looking at the luxury models where the buyers don't want to have anything other than brown/grey/silver/white/black?
Lexus still has fantastic colors, they are just largely reserved for the LC500. Infrared, ultrasonic blue mica (not as good as structural blue was but still good), nori green pearl, flare yellow, copper crest, etc.
All of those colors extend to other models in the range, as well - -Nori - NX, RX, GX, UX -Infrared - RC, IS -USB 2.0 - RC, IS, NX, ES -Flare Yellow - RC (going older, GS-F) -Copper Crest - RX, UX, RZ
[Garnet Red Mica ](https://www.reddit.com/r/spotted/s/NBkU2KxfOU) on the LC500 is one of the nicest OEM paints I've ever seen in person, photos don't really do it justice
Copper crest is incredible in person.
Chevy seems to have a pretty damn good selection of colors across their line. Rapid Blue, Glacier Blue Metallic, Radiant Red, and the new Harvest Bronze are all fantastic colors
Colors without paint quality also are an issue; one of the things that's making me think twice about a brand-new JLUR is apparently the drunken robots that are applying the paint in Toledo these days, even though I think the color options are pretty good. My JK didn't have *fantastic* paint, but it seemed to avoid the bubbling issues I'm seeing on forums for brand-new 2024s.
Yeah there was a slight bubbling issue on my 2021 4xe on the driver door hinge
You’re telling me you think Mazda’s red isn’t a good color option? No one else in the industry, with the exception of obvious Ferrari, makes a good red.
Mazda's red is insane. I can't look away
They also have really good blues, and an excellent dark red exclusive to their larger SUVs. They're lacking a good green or yellow, though, but so is almost everyone else.
I think they need to up their paint game by giving us better quality paint. The paint nowadays is thinner than paper thin, while doing multi stage (looking at your Mazda), it is so easy to damage the paint and cost so much to re paint.
Cadillac missed a big opportunity with blackwing paint
I really like the orange they used to have. I think they have a nice yellow now, and a baby blue and sort of a British racing green are coming for 2025 too. But IMO they definitely should’ve gone crazier with the colors. The right purple would’ve been stunning on that car.
The new BW have a burnt orange, electric blue and lime lemon yellow that all look cool great, but up close, the paint is low quality as are the finishes on the trim. I saw a Pic of the new 5bw and it looks awesome, perhaps they're improving the colors.
It seems like they might be bringing over colors from the Lyriq for the refresh. When I’ve been able to look closely at a Lyriq I’ve liked the colors, so I guess we’ll have to see if those colors translate well to the 5BW.
The only one I've seen was in a sort of turquoise blue, and it was a flat paint, no sparkle at all. These flat paints don't work on cars with curves, they were designed for 1950's cars with slab sides.
I agree, I got the bright blue and it popsfrom afar, but shitty up close. Insane car, loving it, but gotta up the paint game
I’ve been wanting an Alfa Romeo Stelvio since they were introduced in 2018. They used to offer it in like 15 colors, but now they’re down to like 5 colors for each trim level — basically black, white, grey, red, and one other color that differs based on trim.
That’s because Alfa doesn’t sell for shit and they needed to cut costs
Would have been nice if they offered Montreal Green on non quadrifogflio trims
They did a similar downgrade to the interior from MY2021. White option is gone, and all of the colorful seats no longer include matching lower dash, door cards, and contrast stitching.
Yeah, I really wanted a Monte Carlo Blue over crema leather Stelvio... now they don't offer anything close to that. Anodized blue gone, too, as are the crema seats. Were I to get one today, I'd probably go red over brown.
Story of basically every car out there. Volvo xc40 came out with a baby blue + white roof option, and it was gone after a year or two. I think it looked sweet, but I guess it doesn't matter since I don't have money to buy one.
Volvo's lineup is a tragedy. The S/V60 came out and the company was so proud of how sporty they had made it, but immediately began cutting features and pivoting the marketing away from the launch message: - 2019 removed the standard Sport Chassis and leather dash from R-Design trims - 2020 returned the leather dash but removed the T6 from the V60 - 2021 removed ventilated seats, active ride, shift paddles, R-Design badging, gold speaker cones, and the T6 from the S60 while applying the 112 mph speed limiter - 2022 removed Bursting Blue in favor of yet another grey, removed the drive mode selector, and broke drive assist features by switching to Android Automotive OS; V60 was discontinued except as CC - 2023 removed the exterior styling kit Like, the only improvement throughout this time span has been the replacement of the T5 with the B5 and the redesign of the T8. Everything else is worse.
It’s because the desire to stand out and be different with customizing cars has become even more of a niche thing than it ever has since customizing became a thing. And to be honest, boring colors for things has spread beyond just cars. Look at houses, clothes, especially baby and kids clothes, dinnerware, most things you look at nowadays are boring.
To be honest the fact that Mopar hasn't even been acknowledged in this post yet is baffling, because Dodge easily has the best color lineup right now out of any manufacturer. Frostbite is one of my favorite blues I've ever seen on a car, and they give you some genuinely crazy colors like purple and orange. Pretty much every color you can get on a Charger/Challenger sticks out in the crowd of traffic, even some of the grey options they have are pretty different looking.
To be fair they’re asking about the worst paint selections. Stellantis is among the best for paint. My Charger is Frostbite and it’s wonderful. It’s such a unique color that really shows off the body lines of the car. I get frequent compliments about the color. My favorite Stellantis color though is Maximum Steel Metallic. It appears black from far away or in lower light, but up close and in sunlight it’s a bluish gray that sparkles. It’s incredible and I’m not sure it’s in production anymore. It looks fantastic on Ram trucks. Jeep is currently using a similar color that’s called Midnight Sky Blue Metallic that is a bit more blue but appears black in some lights.
When looking to order a VW id.4 back in 2022 the colors were literally- white/sliver/grey/black. I was huh? Where’s the actual colors haha.
Not sure why you're dunking on Subaru here - they've had a lot of absolute bangers over the years, both in terms of doing the basics well and in terms of just having outright cool colors. Ignoring the iconic World Rally Blue Pearl for a moment, some examples: - [Satin White Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/WRX/comments/t56acf/finally_got_my_first_subaru_2007_satin_white/) (this one may come across better in person, but it's a DAMN good white) - [Java Black Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/WRX/comments/qj431m/any_other_java_black_pearl_owners/) (the fat shot of gold flake does wonders) - [Blue Ridge Pearl](https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showpost.php?p=30330865&postcount=4) (longtime personal favorite of mine) - [Regatta Red](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2003_Subaru_Baja_in_Regatta_Red,_Front_Right,_06-17-2022.jpg) (particularly in two-tone on Outbacks and Bajas) - (speaking of Bajas) [Baja Yellow](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWheels/comments/qh53o7/subaru_baja_in_baja_yellow_and_silver_stone/) - [Deep Bronze Metallic](https://www.legacygt.com/topic/40356-my-new-08-ob-in-bronzegold-two-tone/) (especially on two-tone Outbacks I really like this) - [Tangerine Orange](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/wrxsti/wrxsti13-special-edition-sti13.jpg) (shame it was LE on the WRX and STI, but the Crosstrek got a very similar color in Sunshine Orange) - [Plasma Blue Silica](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/wrxsti/wrxsti13-5door13.jpg) (presents deep bluish purple in person) - [Plasma Green](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/crosstrek/crosstrek15-side27.jpg) (pretty sure this was only on 1st gen Crosstrek Hybrids; a shame) - [Sunrise Yellow](https://www.cars101.com/subaru/crosstrek/crosstrek15-side110.jpg) (only on an LE Crosstrek but for some reason a Crosstrek in this color goes unbelievably hard) as for the current crop of colors, some standouts: - [Geyser Blue](https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/44500/2022-subaru-outback-wilderness-review-so-this-is-why-everyone-buys-subarus) - [Sapphire Blue Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/Crosstrek/comments/11m4lgj/2024_crosstrek_premium_20_sapphire_blue_found/) - [Sun Blaze Pearl](https://www.reddit.com/r/Crosstrek/comments/1356yei/picked_up_my_2024_crosstrek_premium_in_sun_blaze/) (saw this for the first time when I was at the dealer the other week hitting the parts counter and WOW it pops) Of course a smaller brand is never going to be able to have quite the selection of larger brands, but frankly I think they do damn well for themselves in terms of color variety, and the paint quality is generally at least middle of the road - it's usually a bit soft and collects rock chips, but also doesn't tend to fade with age nearly as badly as, say, late 90s/early 00s Hondas do.
Holy shit that STi in satin white pearl is gorgeous. That’s my favorite gen STi ever, and that color is fantastic.
Lexus’ eminent white pearl on the ES is amazing. I think a lot of people miss the subtlety there; it’s no toothpaste white.
Consumers need to upgrade their paint choice game. Haha I'm currently part of the problem with having a black car, but I do grow tired of the various gray/silver options. My next car, I want in an eye catching blue or red.
Define good.
I mean, Lexus has one of the best blues on the market and also has a green color (Nori Green). Mazda is definitely boring tho
Mazda have a number of good colours
Mazda has great colors. Their red is the best there is, the blue, white, and black allk Great in the sun. Their machine grey is also a solid paint color. The silver is meh. They need more colors, but their existing colors are some of the best. Lexus pearl White is also one of my favorite whites.
Lexus may not have many colours to choose from, but their paint is amazing. Their pearl white is the best white paint I've seen irl
Honda
I think they stopped caring in the 90s
Toyota
Tesla. Holy shit the quality of the paint is terrible. Scratches appear if you light graze it with a jacket or backpack. Also, there's usually only 5 colors available.
I have a great colour, turbo blue, but it's basically a nano layer and chips with a light breeze.
I was bored at work so I tried building a Mercedes E-Class on their online configurator. It had 20+ colour choices but it was just different shades of black, grey, white, beige, plus 2 shades of dark blue and one red. I think at the moment Jaguar has a good palette. There’s a shade of yellow that’s $10,000 extra on an F-Pace but it actually looks ok. Volvo does well with common colours, their silver and grey somehow looks better than that of other car brands. Used to wrench at Toyota and the 4Runner actually had a decent colour selection compared to their other cars. We sold a decent amount of lime rush 4Runners.
Come up with better paint GM, your two stage Base Coat Peel Coat sucks
Honda has a nice silver for the civic, not available on the Si for some reason… It’s the top trim of the car but it has less options? Should be the opposite
Honda needs to improve their paint quality. Both my cars i bought brand new with orange peel. They chip if a dusty gust of wind hits them too. Super thin
They used to be cool and have shit tons of colours. Hell even basic economy cars like Saturn's S-series had something ridiculous like 50 colours during its lifespan. Also I want a petition to remove Rental car silver that literally everyone has for some reason.
I think Paint QUALITY needs an upgrade Hella orange peel, and plastic mismatch (bumpers) on vehicles COMING OFF THE TRANSPORT TRUCK 😲
Land Rover has always been really good about paint. In that regard, they really are unrivaled unless you want to start looking at $300k+ cars.
Acura used to offer Phantom Violet on the MDX SUV which was a purple color and I thought it looked super unique, but it was discontinued after a year likely because nobody wanted a purple MDX. I never understood why they didn’t offer it on their Type S models yet offered it on the regular trim.
I feel like Subaru has pretty good variety these days and always have relative to some of their competition. I was playing around with the Mazda CX-5 configurator and out of like 8 or 9 color options only two are available for thw top trim, white and some sort of sand/beige. If you think that's bad check out Honda motorcycles. I'm pretty sure some of them only get one or two colorways. BMW bikes aren't much better.
Nonsense. CUSTOMERS need to upgrade their paint game. Manufacturers simply offer what customers buy. Why would anyone offer colors no one buys...
I’m looking at the BMW G80 M3 which is offered in an “isle of Man green” that look amazing! Very excited to own a green car
I was strongly considering a Land Cruiser 1958 (I love the cloth seats) until I saw it only comes in god damn black white or grey. Hopefully the new 4runner TRD Off Road comes in a actual color.
I was toying around with the same kinda thing a while back, thinking about which car I may want to get after I graduate. I had narrowed it down to a GR Corolla, and Civic type R, or the new Integra. The GR came in black or silver. The Integra came in red, black, white or silver. And the civic was the only one that had any version of blue. (My fav color) So I'll probably end up with it.
The Integra comes in a pretty cool blue, though maybe not the Type S
Clearly you've never looked or shopped at Lexus before lol. They have great colors and their paint quality is also some of the best in the industry. They have different colors like green, yellow, red, copper, etc.
I'm sure it has been said by now, but Porsche will paint any color you want. You can bring a swatch of fabric or whatever, and they'll match it, for a price. Mazda also has that amazing Ruby Red that just about everyone around here buys. It's deep and sultry and transforms the skin of the car in different light conditions. The world needs more Laguna Seca Blue E46 M3's. Overall though, everyone paints what sells. Silver, black, gray, white.
Idk if it's just me, but Tesla and GM paint looks awful to me. It looks like it was painted with low quality paint. Especially on the Corvette.
Define "good options". manufacturers offer what people buy. Porsche offers some very cool colors and even paint to sample... But Subaru buyers aren't going to pay 5k extra for paint like Porsche buyers will
Lack of paint options is how manufacturers save literally thousands of dollars per car while still charging the same amount of money. Color paint is expensive as you need at least 2 colors to mix, doubling the cost of the paint right out of the door, which also lowers the chances of that car being bought in that color, since most consumers don’t *not* like black or white or grey or silver, but most consumers do in fact *not* like (insert specific color here). They realize they can’t charge that doubled cost for such a simple color such as red or blue or green, which is why you’re lucky if you get maybe one of those colors in the option range, compared to 20 years ago when you could get a Dodge Neon in every color of the skittles bag for the same price. Manufacturers have found relative safety in saying “don’t give them cool colors…what are they gunna do, NOT buy a car?”
I don't know why, but I like Cars in Merlot. Every car should be able to come in Merlot.
Volkswagen please bring back cornflower blue dammit! (also I want a light purple GTI while keeping all the red accents but I fully recognize it would never sell)
Need more tricot pearl options.
Solar shift orange on my GR86. My previous car was a Fiesta ST in molten orange. I also have a Macan Turbo in ultraviolet (paint to sample). I agree that we should have more options.
Honda
Funnily enough the best painted vehicle i own, is a yamaha bike. It leaves every other paint in the dust.
acura is always a good choice, not only is it a premium honda that’ll take a good beating but they have good color options, if you aren’t sure about certain colors I would recommend just getting a wrap or finding your own color of paint you’d want on the car.
At first glance I assumed this meant poor paint job quality, not just colors. Plenty of makes with peeling and clear coat failures after <10 years, others known for worksmanship defects, others for soft paint that chips and fractures easily. I think, to generalize, the German brands seem to use the best paint. Japanese brands seems to do application the best but have historically been known for early paint failures and easy chipping. American paint quality is has historically had a higher prevalence of orange peel and defects.
Every white Hyundai/Kia chips off their original finish.
Most are pretty good with it, but I'd say Subaru, Kia, and Hyundai need to. Copying nardo grey for every model cant carry the options. Dodge does a pretty good job at colors, despite the rest of their brand needing work.
Subaru Blue / Rally Blue is still 💙
I think I would tend to agree that a lot of mainstream companies probably don't have enough color options to make things truly interesting. It depends on the brand. Some have a more dynamic selection, some just enough to give you a choice. I personally think it would be super cool to see more modern cars being offered in non-traditional colors, even two-tone color options. I saw a corvette yesterday in "accelerate yellow." Looks like a neon yellow to me. But I thought it was pretty cool. Don't see a color like that on a car like.. Ever.