How come there aren't any orange cars, aside from the General Lee?

Remember when there weren't any purple cars or hunter green ones? Remember when yellow and white trucks were all the rage? Remember when powder blue Oldsmobiles rocked people's worlds?

What's the cycle for car color trends? What colors would you like to see? Which ones aren't so attractive?

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

Answers

The school bus yellow Beetles are ugly, but I really like the Vapor color and that limey green color.

I don't know why there aren't orange cars anymore.

I do remember the people I envied most in high school were the ones whose parents bought them really cheap cars and then they were allowed to paint it and decorate it any way they wanted to.

I would love to have a Barbie Pink Mustang.

I think purple is a gross color for a vehicle, and the green that Honda uses for their delSols is frightening. Otherwise, I have no opinion.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I think there should be more red cars in the world.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

when I was a kid, I used to want to work for Mary Kay so I could get a pink cadillac. They're a really nice soft pink. I love that. I also wonder what happened to all the brown cars. Used to be, there were lots and lots of brown cars... and two-toned cars. What happened to them?

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

I have always wanted a green car. I have been unsucessful thus far, but one day, rest assured, I will have it.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

My last car was a green car, right in the middle of the green car craze. Remember when all of a sudden practically every other car on the road was green? Technically, my little Mazda was "Tropical Emerald", but still.

I remember seeing orange Pintos and Gremlins. And for a while recently, every new Chrysler was that "Champagne" color. And oh, every new Toyota Camry was Champagne... I don't know if you could even get one in another color for a long period of time.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

Paul, it is funny that you mention all new Chryslers being champagne colored - last November when I told my mother that I was thinking about getting a Chrysler the first thing she said was "Just as long as you don't get one in champagne - everyone has that color and I'm sick of it!" We got it in burgundy. Now we have two burgundy cars - is that tacky?

A few years ago my aunt got suckered into leasing a bright purple Mercury. We called it the purple people eater. She got a lot of compliments from little kids.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2000

Volkswagen put out Golfs last year in THE most putrid shade of "gold"-- it looks like baby barf, no joke. I can't believe people actually BOUGHT them. Heave!

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

I would love a purple car.

The Formans on That 70's Show have an orange datsun.

I drive a black Olds which has been dented and scratched to an extreme and now I want to turn it into an art car. I think I want to paint it in some cool design, or figure out how to wrap it in a leopard or zebra skin print.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

A woman that used to work here got a car cheaper than she was expecting because the dealer offered to sell her the only one he had left... a lime/fluorescent green. She's not exactly the target market for that color; she was at least 55. But she figured, what the hell and wound up paying at least $4000 below sticker. Then she kinda fell in love with it, because, as she says "how many bright green cars are there gonna be? I always know where my car is!"

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

General Motors actually has a colour, availible to the public, called 'Mary Kay Pink'. I think it is only for the pricier models.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

Now Ford has a new car...can't remember the name right now, but it's a litle 2 or 4-dr sedan...that comes in a kind of metallic burnt orange. Also, the Sidekick comes in that color, too. So, orange is back, but not bright carrot orange. It's more an earthy orange.

I thought I'd hate the PT Cruiser in white, thought it would look like an old ambulance, but it's actually quite classy when I saw it in person. But I think I like it best in burgundy. I'm a PT Cruiser lover...loved it since they first brought it out in late 1999 for 2000. Can't afford it, though. Already have a new car with attending payment. Oh, and it's a hunter green Mazda Protege. Like all the other hunter green 4 dr sedans out there.

Car color I am reeeeally tired of -- silver. I definitely want to see more browns. I like brown. The PT comes in a taupe, but it's not brown enough. It looks too gray for my tastes. Chrysler also has a green that is totally fab, it's like a sage. Really classy. But I'd buy an olive green car as long as it didn't go over the line into baby doo color. Very tough to get it just right.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

I like navy with a nice clear coat -- more what Ford calls "Midnight Blue", I guess. And I love the slate blue Jags. I think we need more muted tones. I've been seeing sage cars lately. I think sage is so, so overplayed, but it's nice to see something new.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

That's what my station wagon is, a very dark metallic blue with a glossy finish.

My wife's car is a metallic graphite color that's just so cool. When you look at it up close it looks liquid, as though the paint's still wet. I don't know how they acheived that effect, but it's sweet.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 2000

The reason there aren't many brown cars around is becasue a few years back the feds bought a lot of brown cars because someone thought they were "unobtrusive." Other people quit buying them because of it. I mean, you drive over to someone's house and all the toilets flush and people start bailing out the windows, you know? (And that's just at MOM's house.) I knew a guy who had a brown Ford LTD and he also has a cassette tape of a siren he'd slap in the stereo and crank up when he pulled into a friend's place. I agree with Gwen, though. Blue is the only way to go. I kinda like those ice cream colors (from Plymouth/Doge?) but I wouldn't own one.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

I like timeless colors. Red, White, Black, dark blue. I LOVE the purpleish color of old Honda Accords. My first choice for my car was blue, but they didn't have a nice one this year, so red it is. (what really happened was I saw the car I bought, and went "oh my god! I want that one!")

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

I despise the muted non-colors of many cars these days. Smoke, charcoal, taupe, fawn, all those boring generic understated things that blend into the woodwork. Cars should have more color variety than pantyhose, for cripes' sake.

Believe it or not, there are still people who believe there's a "red car" surcharge on your auto insurance. I worked in the industry for quite awhile, including the substandard market, and I promise, there's no insurance penalty for driving a red car. So pick a real color!

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

I'm sorry, Mary Ellen. But I promise I like muted colors for themselves, not because I was trying to perpetuate the red-car-charge myth.

Paul W., your wife's car sounds totally bitching.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

It is totally bitching, Gwen. I just washed my car this morning, and it looks good, but I'm looking forward to washing my wife's car Saturday. It never fails to make me do a double-take when I think the paint looks molten.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 2000

You can come wash my car. It looks kind of cool where the paint's been rubbed off during repairs. It's...um...sort of like a greeen beetle with gray spots or something.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

Ooh, please! Yes! Can I, can I? :-P

No thanks, Gwen, but I appreciate the gesture. BTW, I washed my car yesterday morning and this cold front came in sooner than I expected and my car was rain-spotted by noon - by 6pm it was ready for another wash. :-(

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

I wish I could remember more details, but the weirdest paint job I've ever seen was a high-end custom job that looked like the colors in an oil slick. There's a type of paint called "interference" that, if seen from one direction, looks one color, and from the other, the complimentary color. I've had interference gold, with violet undertones, interference green with red, interference blue with orange, etc.

This car looked mostly orange, but when you looked at it from different angles, it appeared blue, red and green. I don't have a clue how they did it, and it wasn't perfectly solid, you could tell it was the paint creating the illusion so it wasn't ever a solid color changing into another, but it was a really cool effect.

Definitely not an Earl Scheib paint job.

(Earl Scheib may be a local phenomenon. Taxi companies and people who are strapped for cash get the Sheib job, and you're lucky if they remember to tape over your windows and headlights first. Their stock colors are Gnat- Encrusted White Chunk, Puckery Taxi Chrome Yellow Blop and Dirty Dukes of Hazzard / Safety Cone Orange Smudge. Purty, y'all. But better than Primer Grey, I suppose.)

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

I just saw some of that paint on a TLC show on custom motorcycles. They said it cost $2400 per gallon. yikes! (Earl's spinnin')

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000

$2,400!!!?

*plotz*

Geez. No wonder you don't see that paint job everywhere.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2000