Seriously, Mazda...

dculberson said:

I saw a bright orange ND the other day and it looked fantastic. 

That's the 30th anniversary edition. They sold out basically immediately. The only thing that sets them apart from a normal ND is basically a set of wheels and so much orange. But that's what people wanted! Color!

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Black, white, a lotta gray, a few tan, red. Almost no Blues, greens, or yellows.  
 That's all the colors I'm seeing on the road lately. 
      Bright colors just aren't out there.  Sorry I'm not talking about just Mazda. 
  Then look at houses.  It's seems like most houses are versions of Gray.  Some white,   a few pale yellow.  Just boring colors. 

Agree with what's being said. The hardtop ND is one of the best-looking cars Mazda has ever made. (FD RX-7 still holds the crown), it deserves more distinctive paint.

My better half just bought a Subaru. She said that she'd be damned if she'd ever buy another Silver or grey car. This is what she came up with. The world needs more audacious colors:

Bright colors should be considered a safety feature on small cars.

I think we all know it's because of resale value. It's easier to sell a silver car than to wait and find someone who likes yellow. Same thing with houses as mentioned by frenchy, people aren't thinking of keeping their house long term, just long enough to build equity and sell it for a down payment on a bigger one.

frenchyd said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

  Then look at houses.  It's seems like most houses are versions of Gray.  Some white,   a few pale yellow.  Just boring colors. 

A friend lived in a historic community with a postcard downtown. She tried painting her house an interesting color scheme and the city gave her a cease and desist, saying that there was an ordinance that prohibited all colors besides white in the historic district. She went to bat, showing them pictures of the same community with bright colors. The city backed down. She's a big, bawdy woman with a black husband and a high-powered lawyer. City council never knew what hit them

The ND has the lines to pull off a lot more interesting colors than Mazda has saddled it with.

bluebarchetta said:

I suggested in another Miata discussion that they should bring back one NA color every year and sell a certain number as a Heritage Edition.  Mariner one year...Sunburst the next...BRG...the M-edition colors...etc.

Maybe we should just be grateful the ND exists at all and hasn't been replaced by an MX-50 hybrid crossover.

That would be pretty rad. Black over red, please. (Or BRG over tan.)

David S. Wallens said:

bluebarchetta said:

I suggested in another Miata discussion that they should bring back one NA color every year and sell a certain number as a Heritage Edition.  Mariner one year...Sunburst the next...BRG...the M-edition colors...etc.

Maybe we should just be grateful the ND exists at all and hasn't been replaced by an MX-50 hybrid crossover.

That would be pretty rad. Black over red, please. (Or BRG over tan.)

A Mazda insider told me the ND body style does not look good in BRG. But if Lotus can make it work on the similar Elise, Mazda should be able to make it work.

I think you can get black over red today. Maybe not in the US, but I've seen red leather interiors on some pretty unusual exterior colors in Canadian NDs which makes me think you can (could?) do any combo you wanted. Such as Eternal Blue over red, which is for sale in Ottawa right now if you want one :)

And they did a black over red LE in France. Seriously, this is an easy one Mazda. You've got the parts.

https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/mazda-mx5-miata-nd-eunos-edition-france/

Ok those are some nice pics Driven5 showed so lets discuss what other strong colours/colors might look, I know keith is partial to metallics but how about Willow Green:

j_tso said:

Bright colors should be considered a safety feature on small cars.

I think we all know it's because of resale value. It's easier to sell a silver car than to wait and find someone who likes yellow. Same thing with houses as mentioned by frenchy, people aren't thinking of keeping their house long term, just long enough to build equity and sell it for a down payment on a bigger one.

Silver once it's a little dirty is just gray. And you're making my point for me .  Who wants to spend all that money to own a car for resale?  Don't we have things misplaced?  
  What about buy what you like?   Not what the next guy down the line will accept. 

I always go to Lotus because 1) they do awesome colors and 2) the Elise/Exige share a similar body type to the ND. Not "two seater sports car", but "curvy with some chines that like metallic highlights".

This picture would have been very helpful to me in 2002 when I was trying to identify a specific color. I decided it was "Cobalt Blue" (not shown here), but it was really "Magentic Blue". Our race car would have looked a lot better if I'd figured that out. I've used Laser Blue on an NB Miata (not to be confused with Mazda's Laser Blue) and Chrome Orange on my Locost. Oh, and Chili Red in person is absolutely spectacular.

Lotus does do a good job with colors. Also, the Elise looks good in anything. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And Aubergine Purple, please. :) 

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And Aubergine Purple, please. :) 

Agreed, currently looking at a graphite over red 2005, I'd pay a good amount more for a better color (I only like the gray because it's over red)

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Or green. I've never had a green car and would love one. 

I think the old Corvette electron blue would look great on a ND.  The stormy mica blue from the NC would work too, but electron blue has more pop.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

It seems that almost no manufacturer offers green.

M2Pilot said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

It seems that almost no manufacturer offers green.

Ford has bright green on the bronco and mustang, and dark green on all the suvs. Porsche has bright green on most of their cars and of course a bunch of green paint to sample options if you can manage to get one of those. Honda used to have a green option on the civic but it looks like they've dropped it now.

M2Pilot said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

It seems that almost no manufacturer offers green.

From memory of a certain Audi Fox build, green is remarkably expensive because of the pigments required.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Also talking to a guy on the body team at work who had been at another OEM before, he said the previous company dropped green because no one bought it. 

Out driving around today I was reminded that Chevy used to have a green option on at least the spark or sonic or whatever that tiny car is. But looking at their website now they don't offer it on anything. I think it's a difficult and polarizing color. The good greens look really good but it's not hard to screw it up.

dps214 said:

Out driving around today I was reminded that Chevy used to have a green option on at least the spark or sonic or whatever that tiny car is. But looking at their website now they don't offer it on anything. I think it's a difficult and polarizing color. The good greens look really good but it's not hard to screw it up.

I thought that was an awesome color.  I mentioned it to the ex Chevy dealer guy I work with now and how I'd love to have a Spark in that color, and his basic response was, it doesn't have a V8 so who cares. 

Can't think about green without thinking of this car.

I remember when Jack bought it and the E36 M3storm that unfolded on quattroworld, how he "ruined the resale value" of his S5.  He has said enough on the subject for me to not need to rehash it.

Color is '73 Carrera.  Audi will paint your new car any color ever used by anyone in the VWAG umbrella.

I love this thread because it's among my biggest annoyances about everything on the market these days. But I don't think it's as much the idea of resale value--it's that dealers are conservative with ordering colors, customers largely buy from what's on the lot, so it's the dealers choices that matter. Repeat this over years and decades, and it's no wonder the color choices look like they do. It's exactly what dealers tend to buy. Of course, the pandemic has thrown a lot of this off, and maybe we'll see a new pattern in the future.

A few years back, I was buying a new road bicycle, and narrowed it down to two: a Felt and a Cannondale. I already had two Cannondales, and really liked the design of the Synapse, but it was matte black with a red stripe. Every group ride is like 75% black bikes, and the rest tend to be red. The Felt was Battleship Gray (kinda like Nardo Gray from Audi or the cement color from Toyota). I love it--it stands out everywhere I go.

I absolutely will not buy a gray or silver car; there are too many already. Our current garage is a red Toyota Venza, blue Pacifica, and Solar Yellow Elise (see above!). The Elise stands out everywhere I go too.

Mazda colors are the best!  I know this because I said they are dull and uninspiring a few years ago here and I was told I was wrong.  SUV colors are perfect for sports cars!  You'll get SUV colors and you'll love it!