when did color become unacceptable to use on a car?

JtspellS said:

Would argue mid 00s when the actual monochrome came in to being. Other issue that has not been covered is when analysts started assessing and pushing "resale value" which was roughly about the same timeframe.

Heh.

In the mid 00s, a certain writer wrote a rant on our little corner of the Internet (forum centered on motorsports in Ohio) about how crazy it was that European cars sold in the US were all some form of dark gray, light gray, medium silver, or - if you were adventurous - dark blue.  But in Europe cars were all sorts of fun colors.

So he put his money where his mouth was, and took advantage of VWAG's "you can get any color we ever made for a small fee" and ordered a new S5 in a one year only, one model trim only Porsche color.

The "heh" is that this actually generated outrage from people on VWVortex, saying how irresponsible that was because of how much it would hurt the car's resale value.

Who cares about resale value.  Are you buying a car for you or for someone else?

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

jamscal said:

There is no worse color than yellow on an older car that used to be cool.

 

:)

 

 

I'd pick yellow before the popsicle green on those 914s.

I'd take either! 

Another friend wanted to have his project painted a certain green, maybe ten years ago.  Not that green, but a different green. What he found was that the yellow pigment alone added a crazy amount to the cost of paint (fuzzy memory says $800).

So, this may have something to do with it.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

So he put his money where his mouth was, and took advantage of VWAG's "you can get any color we ever made for a small fee" and ordered a new S5 in a one year only, one model trim only Porsche color.

"Audi Exclusive".  That's how I got a C7.5 S6 in Nogaro Blue. :)

Agreed on resale value.  Too many people optimize their cars for the next guy.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

 

Who cares about resale value.  Are you buying a car for you or for someone else?

Totally agreed about resale value. I was going to post something similar earlier. I also think that this idea that a bland greyscale color will help resale value is dubious at best.

I don't remember exactly where I saw it, but I remember reading an article sometime in the past year or two that dove into the idea that a white/grey/silver/beige/black would help resale value, and a bright color would hurt it. They compared sale prices of used cars, analyzing year/model/color to see what correlation could be drawn looking at pricing of different colors. I seem to remember that the two colors that commanded the highest premium over average sale prices of the same year/model were something like purple and yellow, or maybe purple and orange, and that grey and silver performed fairly poorly, probably due to such a glut on the market! You don't need to capture the fancy of a whole bunch of the average buyers, you just need the one who has the same taste as you.

This reminds me of some conversations I've had with friends about a somewhat similar scenario with used bicycles. I'm a bike guy, I like my high end bicycles, and I'm 6'2", so bikes that fit me well have bigger frames than most, and wouldn't work well for someone average height. I've had multiple friends that are 5'9" or so that say something like, "Man, I have no idea how you would ever sell one of your bikes on the used market! It must be nearly impossible to find someone else tall who will pay for an expensive used bike! Must be terrible for you..." They usually just about E36 M3 themselves when I tell them I usually sell at full asking price within 12-36 hours hours of listing a bike. All it takes is one tall guy who has been frustrated looking at endless ads for medium sized bikes for the last week, hoping to find an XL...

In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :

Heh.  There are a lot of sweet vintage mountain bikes on Craigslist.  I like sweet vintage mountain bikes.

However, they're all 20-21" frame and up. 

Mind you, while I do have a 35" inseam, I feel most comfortable on a 18-19" frame bike.   (The top tube just keeps getting in the way, can't get the saddle low enough, can't get the handlebars low enough, etc)  Those are rare as hens teeth to find used.

ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) said:

I seem to remember that the two colors that commanded the highest premium over average sale prices of the same year/model were something like purple and yellow, or maybe purple and orange, and that grey and silver performed fairly poorly, probably due to such a glut on the market!

Yeah, there's a fairly common theme of the option choices that were unpopular when the vehicle was new becoming the most valuable ones for used copies a decade later.  Manual transmissions, wagon bodies, or slicktops.  On the latter front, 20-some years ago I knew someone who had ordered his B5 Audi S4 with the sunroof delete option, because he was tall, didn't fit in cars with sunroofs, and while Audi technically made them that way there were zero available on any dealer lot in the country.  The dealer he ordered it through made him give them an extra large deposit because they were afraid that if he didn't buy it they'd be stuck with a sunroof-less car that wouldn't sell.

Two tone cars are rare, but chances are we'll never return to the days of three tone cars...

When I was a kid there were still plenty of 1950s cars running around with outrageous color schemes.  I think I may miss their wild interior color schemes even more, today you pretty much have a choice of monotone light grey or dark grey.

stuart in mn said:

Two tone cars are rare, but chances are we'll never return to the days of three tone cars...

When I was a kid there were still plenty of 1950s cars running around with outrageous color schemes.  I think I may miss their wild interior color schemes even more, today you pretty much have a choice of monotone light grey or dark grey.

When my mother was growing up, her uncle was high up at Ford and had the opportunity to buy show cars after they came out of rotation. My grandmother ended up with a 1956(IIRC) Fairlane convertible in a three-tone scheme very similar to the car you linked.

Dealers want to sell what is on the lot. Black, white, silver, etc are all pretty unoffensive colors. IE most people while accept them. While Bob might really want an orange car, a lot of people won't take it. So when ordering cars you get the most boring common denominator cars. It helps a ton with inventory management as you can hope to see any car on the lot to the majority of customers. A lot of people want them because of 'resale'

Ironically more bold colors have better value on the used market almost universally across all car types, but especially when dealing with more enthusiast categories. You won't do especially bad on boring colors, but the fun colors can have significant impact in value.

Here's the study

https://www.iseecars.com/car-color-study

I just don't want a boring car. I don't do it for the resale. My last car I had trucked halfway across the country to get a bright color.