ND Miata comes in non-colors?

DirtyBird222 wrote:

As for why the cars only come in stupid, boring colors, it's because that's what most people want to buy.

This exactly. We always wonder why there aren't mini vans and wagons with manuals and turbo motors and why we can't buy cars in bright and interesting colors. It's because no one else wants them but us here. Next time while sitting at a light look around you at the vehicle colors. It's a sea of silver, grey, black and white. Even the vehicle shapes are mostly the same anymore. Local Kia dealership has rows of Souls for sale. The two bright yellow ones have sat there for months, all the others sell. Having said that, in gerneral performance cars seem to sell better with the brighter colors. The Hellcats sure do.

It's a conspiracy by people in black turtleneck sweaters meeting in secret. For real, and no, I'm not kidding about this.

SOME NPR NEWS REPORTER PERSON said: But who comes up with the color trends that are evident on the catwalk? People in the fashion business say trends are rarely decided by individuals. Instead, they are decided by committee. One of the most influential committees is a group of 10 people whose names are a secret. They meet in Europe twice a year — May and November — at the invitation of Pantone, a company based in Carlstadt, N.J., whose only business is color. In fact, Pantone has a hand in the color of roughly half of all garments sold in the U.S., according to NPD, a market research group. Meeting In A White Room Publisher and designer David Shah, who runs the meeting, said he seeks opinions from a broad swath of industries. "I have people who work in the car business, who work with big store groups," Shah said. "I can't tell you the names. They're involved with everything from furniture through to clothing and knitwear." The group meets in a room with white walls so everyone can clearly see the objects their colleagues have brought as inspiration. "One of our committee [members] came last winter, and he came with a basket full of onions and chopped up all the onions to show how the beauty of the color of an onion is," Shah said.

A berkeleying onion?!?! Really? No wonder we have ceramic colored Miatae. Yeesh.

Ceramic is not a terrible color in the metal. Personally, I'd order mine in black and respray it Lexus Ultrasonic Blue.

As for "why can I not get any possible color", there's a lot of R&D involved in making sure the paint ages well on different materials. That's why Porsche will charge you more for some random color than they will for the colors that have already been tested and approved.

IIRC the original NA Miata had one interior color and three exterior colors available. 25 years later we have a car that is reported to be better in in every measurable and intangible way for the same price (inflation adjusted) with a choice of 5 exterior colors and two interior colors.

What to you want? A wide array of fashion colors or a lightweight, fun, well designed, well developed sports car?

Well, the three original exterior colors were fun ones, that's for sure. But the NA body works best in bright primaries, while the ND seems to prefer darker metallics to show off the curves.

Flame suit on.. I just don't want to ever own a red one. Red is my least favorite color and by the car gods EVERY deal I get on a car is red.

I would argue that a car's color and its design should be in balance. Boring hatchback? Loud color. Sports car? Loud design.

• from the guy with a Meteor Gray NC

Keith Tanner wrote: 14 As for "why can I not get any possible color", there's a lot of R&D involved in making sure the paint ages well on different materials.

Sure, I get that. But if a CX-5 Sport Automatic can be had in blue, there's no reason a CX-5 Sport Manual can't be blue. The chassis doesn't care what transmission is in there.

Agreed.

chief8one wrote: Flame suit on.. I just don't want to ever own a red one. Red is my least favorite color and by the car gods EVERY deal I get on a car is red.

I'll stand by you. Standing joke with my wife if i text her "Hey Honey! Just found this CRAZY deal on this awesome car!"

My reply always is "...But it's red?"

And 90% of the time she's right. And i hate it. At one point earlier this year i had 4 red cars and it made me go to work every day pissed off at the world because the first thing i saw when i went out the front door every morning was that sea of red.