[HN Gopher] Why do new cars look like wet putty?
___________________________________________________________________
Why do new cars look like wet putty?
Author : ramimac
Score : 144 points
Date : 2022-12-06 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.blackbirdspyplane.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.blackbirdspyplane.com)
| angarg12 wrote:
| Offtopic, but I find the sassy and judgy tone of this article
| incredibly irritating. I don't love matte car paints either, but
| I don't shit all over them or the people who like them.
|
| Is this style supposed to be funny? maybe I'm just jaded and
| cranky.
| bityard wrote:
| I'm usually quite critical of campy or exaggerated writing
| styles, but I thought this wasn't too bad. I like sarcastic and
| blunt writing for entertainment, but only when there's a
| legitimate point to be made. The only things that bugged me
| were the "subscribe to my newslettar!" pop-up and the fact that
| the author uses swear words but then... censors their spelling?
| Like, why?
|
| Also, I've been meaning to write an article wondering why the
| front-ends (particularly headlights) of all cars look like an
| angry face.
| buran77 wrote:
| The author discovered non-metallic paint in pastel colors,
| doesn't like it, and has some really strong opinions about it
| and the people who do.
|
| The irony of presenting all this drivel on a page with a
| dull, pastel greenish-yellow [0] background, almost identical
| to the (quote) " _putty-lookin ' a** whips_" on the pictured
| Volvo was surely lost on the author. The article's language
| serves to replace the missing intellectual value.
|
| [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rgb(242%2C+242%2C+227)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Also, I've been meaning to write an article wondering why
| the front-ends (particularly headlights) of all cars look
| like an angry face.
|
| Yeah, what's up with that? Is it just a cultural reflection?
| Is it because the automakers think we want to appear angry to
| other drivers? I miss the happier cars of decades past: the
| MG Midgets, VW Bugs, original Miatas, etc.
| sammalloy wrote:
| I love this particular topic, and it's been something I've
| been following for a while now. It became mainstream to
| talk about it around 2014 or so, but I first noticed it
| emerge as a cultural trend in 2002. My personal pet theory
| is that the vicious, aggressive car style emerged out of
| the post-911 era after the buildup to the War in
| Afghanistan and the eventual Iraq War. In other words, I'm
| convinced that this car style arose in the 2000s out of the
| cultural militarization in response to 9/11, which led to
| beefed up and weaponized hardware for military and civilian
| vehicles in these conflicts. When these conflicts first
| began, I remember seeing firsthand how this war aesthetic
| began to bleed into popular culture. One of the first films
| I recall seeing minor, but aggressive car mods prominently
| used on screen reflecting this aesthetic was "Equilibrium"
| (2002). I think from there, it proceeded to spill out into
| the commercial car market.
| em-bee wrote:
| they look like an angry face to make others turn away. i'd
| love it if cars had friendly faces as if they are from the
| "cars" movie, but i'd be afraid of others trying to approach
| them for a hug or a kiss
| themitigating wrote:
| Aggressive headlights and frontends are part of a trend in
| car design to cater to those awash with masculine
| insecurities or being told by the media they need to be
| more "manly"
|
| Take a look at the previous generations of Mazda Miata's
| compared with the current.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Hey. I had an old Miata. A friend said it looked like a
| jellybean. Maybe that's feminine; I don't know. I also
| haven't seen any current ones, I don't think.
|
| An awesome car. A MG Midget / Triumph but with great
| engineering.
| CocaKoala wrote:
| The current Miata (ND) has some fairly aggressive
| headlight styling but still maintains the wide grin
| "mouth" for the front grill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wik
| i/Mazda_MX-5_%28ND%29#/media/Fil...
|
| They look pretty neat in person, it's a very nicely
| designed car.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| There was a safety reason why they got rid of the flip-up
| headlights.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mazda-mx5-miata-
| history/
|
| still, those were super-cool. You could flip them up
| without turning on the lights, and one Miata driver would
| greet another one in the oncoming lane by doing that.
| themitigating wrote:
| When people complain about modern car complexity I think
| of headlights with electric motors and I realize their
| hypocrisy
| buran77 wrote:
| Today more women than ever before are buying cars, and
| more cars than ever before are designed (also) with
| women's needs in mind. Some models are designed to look
| intimidating, the typical customer for an Escalade or an
| S-Class probably wants something imposing, aggressive
| looking. But the generalization in your analysis seems
| oddly personal.
|
| Design changes so much because people expect a new look
| to motivate a new purchase. Making designs that will look
| obsolete as soon as the new one comes out is a huge part
| of selling the new model even if the technology under the
| hood (literally and figuratively) may not have changed
| much.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do you have evidence that cars are purposefully designed
| to be obsoleteM
| buran77 wrote:
| > Do you have evidence
|
| Ironic request given the lack of _any_ evidence in your
| previous very definitive statement that it 's:
|
| > part of a trend in car design to cater to those awash
| with masculine insecurities or being told by the media
| they need to be more "manly"
|
| But if you now tell me (below) that it's just "your
| opinion" and not a matter of fact then it's perfectly
| fair to call it "projection" (taking your personal
| feelings and generalizing them to others).
|
| This isn't a PhD thesis. But fine, every other aspect of
| product design has been proven beyond doubt to be subject
| to planned obsolescence. It's not only reasonable to
| assume that aesthetics won't be an exception, it's also
| the best area to do it as it cannot be regulated in any
| way. It appeals to people's inherently subjective tastes.
|
| You can probably find even better resources than these a
| short internet search away:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence#Percei
| ved...
|
| https://uxdesign.cc/planned-obsolescence-in-aesthetics-
| ad73c...
|
| https://www.motorbiscuit.com/car-companies-use-planned-
| obsol...
| themitigating wrote:
| I don't have to provide evidence of my opinion about
| design. You have to provide evidence when you claim that
| a company is doing something for a specifc reason
| spockz wrote:
| What are "woman/women needs" in a car???
| buran77 wrote:
| For example women are shorter on average than men (and
| subsequently have shorter arms, legs, fingers) so
| everything has to be sized and placed appropriately, like
| seats and seat belts, steering wheel, stalks, buttons,
| pedals, etc. This is not a given especially in big cars.
| The dash and pillars also have to be designed to maximize
| visibility for short drivers.
|
| Then there are the smaller things like storage spaces,
| being able to pull open the door handle without breaking
| longer nails, or to get in and out of the car even when
| wearing a tight dress. Things along these lines.
|
| Ask any woman who was driving 20+ years ago, they
| probably have a more exhaustive list.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Is this sarcastic?
| themitigating wrote:
| No, why do you think people buy lifted pickup trucks?
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Have you also noticed the hot colors are all military
| these days. Navy gray, desert khaki, marine corps green.
| I see it as little more than a trend, but it does offer
| you more ammo to diss.
| em-bee wrote:
| cars in china have huge grills. i heard that is becauee
| drivers there want their cars to look intimidating.
| officialjunk wrote:
| what do you mean? they don't look abnormal
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
| selling_automob...
| em-bee wrote:
| maybe it's a regional phenomenon. i definitely remember
| seeing more cars with large grills in my neighborhood in
| a smaller 3rd tier city.
| dag11 wrote:
| One of the main reasons I'm super into Rivian's aesthetic
| -- which is super controversial! I love the R1 front end,
| it just looks like it's happy to be there :)
| em-bee wrote:
| interesting, never seen that before
| subsubzero wrote:
| I agree, it really made me stop reading it. Excessive profanity
| and dumb slurs make the author seem really uniformed. Surprised
| the author talks like that and then uses a really interesting
| title for his blog like its engineering focused.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| What really irritated me is that the person has no idea about
| what they're talking about.
|
| - The color most closely tied to this trend is Nardo Grey, to
| that point that cars that don't come from the brand that
| brought it out (Audi) still get referred to by that name:
| https://touchupdirect.com/blog/what-is-nardo-grey/
|
| - It already has a more suitable disparaging name than "wet
| putty look", it's the "primer look": Because the cars look like
| someone covered them in primer, then clear coat, and skipped
| the paint to save a few bucks. Of course that's not _actually_
| how or why it 's done, but if you're going to write an article
| with half empty angst about it, at least use the one insult
| that actually kind of checks out.
|
| - Murdered-out doesn't mean "matte black" at all, it just means
| most of the car's parts were made black (by
| tinting/plastidip/wrap/paint, etc), regardless of if it's a
| metallic black, flat black, or matte black. They kept on using
| such a simple to look-up term wrong and it just really grated
| my nerves each time.
|
| There's a bunch of smaller things that just scream "I googled a
| bunch of random words, didn't quite get the meaning, but I'm
| still going to act like I know a lot about this".
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| idk where you run but in my city murdered out absolutely
| means all matte black finish and has for years. I don't care
| what urban dictionary says or whatever that's how it's used
| in person out there, so this read correct to me.
| seacarrot wrote:
| Like many things in life the difference between a murdered
| out car and just a black car is in the details. a matte
| black car without tinted windows is just a black car.
| uni_rule wrote:
| Would you consider a factory Grand National or Marauder
| "murdered" or would such cars also need tinted everything?
| [deleted]
| BoorishBears wrote:
| People who murder out cars with matte black wrap all the
| time, but people also murder out cars that already black by
| adding black wheels, wrapping the trim and slapping on 5%
| tint all the time. Call it being cheap?
|
| I've never been in a city where isn't a "murdered out M5"
| (except maybe if someone wants to gatekeep because they
| didn't black out the actual M5 badge):
| https://i.ytimg.com/vi/15PsYVXhMgE/maxresdefault.jpg
| AlanYx wrote:
| >What really irritated me is that the person has no idea
| about what they're talking about.
|
| Absolutely... I'm also surprised no one seems to be
| commenting about how he's just kind of wrong in the technical
| explanation.
|
| He says "flake" is "the tiny metallic flecks that car
| manufacturers have been mixing into paint for decades" and
| that new cars have less "flake". But that's kind of wrong...
| the type of cars he's complaining about generally have
| mica/pearl flecks, which are ceramic/silicate, not metallic.
| Mica/pearl paints are a little less flashy to the eye than
| metallics, and manufacturers have dialled down the amount of
| mica just a little in addition to that.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| Isn't the tone of your comment the same as the article?
| cirrus3 wrote:
| I don't think they are the same at all. Agree with OP.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >maybe I'm just jaded and cranky.
|
| >What's with all these pussy-ass lookin whips
|
| No, I don't think those two are the same. Agree with OP, it's
| cringe.
| tadfisher wrote:
| You misread "putty".
| z3c0 wrote:
| "putty-ass" isn't any less cringe-worthy. Depending on
| your chosen vernacular, it may even be more-so.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I was going to rewrite that this changes nothing for me.
| I went to the article looking for an answer and found
| someone with a dollar store blog post.
| themitigating wrote:
| Does it matter? One's an opinion piece and the other is a
| short comment on a forum.
| chc wrote:
| So one is a person expressing their opinion in an informal
| manner, and the other is a person expressing their opinion
| in an informal manner? That doesn't seem like much of a
| contrast.
| photoGrant wrote:
| Yeah it's an editorial style that I don't like either, but I'm
| sure garners plenty of readers and happy head nodders. I
| wouldn't put too much into it!
| cinntaile wrote:
| That's how you get engagement and as we can see, it worked like
| a charm.
| d23 wrote:
| I found the misspellings and shortenings ("yr" instead of
| "your"?) to be distracting. It also made me immediately
| question whether the author would have any knowledge-based
| insight beyond what just reading the question in the title
| would give me.
| triyambakam wrote:
| Yeah exactly. The use of "yr" and "ppl" in the article seemed
| otherwise so out of place. Am I reading a lazily typed text
| message or what?
| acarabott wrote:
| For context, this is a fashion newsletter so the writing style
| reflects that world
|
| > [...] the newsletter's intense voice, which may read like a
| parody of a neurotically online men's style writer
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/style/inventing-a-new-lan...
| coliveira wrote:
| I thought the rule of HN was to avoid comments like the above,
| that are baseless and devoid of content, derived purely from
| subjetive feelings about other people's opinions.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I love it. The author has earned confidence in their subjective
| aesthetic judgements, and the tone relays that confidence
| without being condescending or dismissive. It's miles better
| than the "hyperrational dispassionate contrarian" stance that
| is standard here imo.
| snoopy_telex wrote:
| They earned confidence? What did they do to earn the right to
| say "I don't like this color"?
|
| Personally, I find the whole thing condescending and
| dismissive, taking swipes at "Gen-X-ers and Millennials"
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| So what else is new? There's people on here second-guessing
| expert authors about every damn topic from science to the
| economy.
| trgn wrote:
| I love when people are confident in their judgements.
| Especially when it comes to style and taste, it's great to
| see people drive a stake in the sand, and do so with
| emphasis. It feels almost, I don't know, liberating
| perhaps.
|
| > What did they do to earn the right to say "I don't like
| this color"?
|
| Everyone has this right. The author just claimed it.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| lol they aren't randos. One is a long-time culture writer
| and interviewer with a solid reputation and bylines
| everywhere. The other is an industrial designer for apple
| and used to be _literally a color forecaster for a major
| fashion brand_.
| mcguire wrote:
| Neither of those earns any particular confidence from me.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| I'm jaded and cranky too, but thats why things don't bother me
| from a stylistic perspective. Relatively, fake politeness is
| more irritating to me.
| themitigating wrote:
| Professional and mature writing isn't the same as being
| polite. Also, if you see "polite" writing how would you know
| it's fake?
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Its not that hard to write the same article in 5 different
| ways. The author wrote it this way simply because they
| wanted to. People respond to tone, words, style, slang,
| crudeness, emphasis in different ways, and writing is an
| art form. I believe that diversity in writing styles is
| good.
|
| >Also, if you see "polite" writing how would you know it's
| fake?
|
| You develop your own detector after being "trained" on the
| dataset of prior comments.
| themitigating wrote:
| The only way you can confirm someone is writing in a
| "fake polite" way is the author telling you so.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Okay, that is your view, it isn't mine. There isn't any
| reason to believe someone is going to be truthful or
| untruthful. For me, the best way is to develop your own
| detector. I don't have all the answers, so YMMV.
|
| To the larger point, this isn't about absolute certainty
| - which is a red-herring and an unattainable ideal.
| groggo wrote:
| I was surprised to see this newsletter on HN, and even more
| surprised that no one else was commenting on it's bizarre
| style. I heard about it a few weeks ago on Twitter. Then there
| was a NYT article about it
| (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/style/inventing-a-new-
| lan...).
|
| I also didn't really get it at first. And I think it's mainly
| about fashion, which I'm not really interested in.
|
| But I subscribed just to get follow along and get some
| diversity of ideas. The writing reminded me of A Clockwork
| Orange.
| cirrus3 wrote:
| I felt the exact same way. I get that it's a writing style and
| I won't complain about that, but when applied to an argument as
| subjective "I don't like that color, I like this color", it
| doesn't work so great.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I thought it was hilarious and greatly enjoyed it.
|
| When the subject matter is style, an opinionated tone of voice
| seems appropriate to me.
| [deleted]
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Nit, but these aren't matte. They do have a clear coat, but the
| color underneath is subdued. You don't see very many
| reflections in those fancy matte paint jobs, like the bimmer
| pic.
|
| But yeah, this article reads like a stop-liking-what-I-
| don't-like! rant.
| TheCapn wrote:
| I'm almost willing to go out on a limb and say that bimmer is
| a wrap job. I actually like the look of it, but that _style_
| is very typical for wrapped cars.
|
| EDIT: And if i'm not mistaken, I've found the source for the
| image and it is indeed a wrap job
|
| https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=705282
|
| https://www.e90post.com/forums/album.php?albumid=6823
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| I don't know if I agree with you or not since I never saw the
| article underneath all the ads and popups.
| bhaney wrote:
| Install an ad blocker?
| z3c0 wrote:
| As a user of multiple layers of ad-blocking, I still don't
| understand why we can't hold people to the standard of not
| make shitty websites anymore.
| chc wrote:
| If you're seeing ads and/or multiple popups on this page, I
| think your computer has some malware. There should be the
| standard Substack "Subscribe to this newsletter?" box that
| comes up and that's it.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Well I'm on mobile and at the point where less than 10% of
| my screen was showing the article itself I bailed out.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| You can look to long on render models in red clay sculpting and
| finally convince yourself that this is what looks good.
|
| The tools defaults destroy the aesthetics sense of the artist and
| thus the artist.
|
| Finally, colour-pickers offering pallets. Have one color you
| like? Get the default from the tooling too. So download the red
| clayed car, color pick and out pops the whole pallet of modern
| car. Its based on aesthetic theorys thus, it automatically has to
| be a good choice for all scenes.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Zigurd wrote:
| Saab used to have an "herbal toothpaste" pale green. I thought it
| was nice. Might not work on larger cars.
| threeboy wrote:
| Never thought this was a new trend but an old trend making a
| comeback. Glossy non-metallic.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This article confused me because of the connotation with "new
| cars." All car paints used to look like this until more and mare
| cars started selling "metallic" colors in recent decades, often
| for an extra cost. Look at old Volvo 240s for example, and very
| few of them have metallic colors, and usually only the higher end
| models. White, black, and red typically have always been and
| still are usually non-metallic colors.
|
| A few years ago I suddenly noticed that non-metallic paint became
| so rare that it looked striking, when in the past (mid 90s or
| earlier) it had been the opposite- metallic paint was rare and a
| car with it would really stand out.
|
| I strongly prefer the non-metallic look, and think it holds up
| better over time as well. It looks cleaner and simpler to me. I
| also prefer the look of Cellulose based paints used on mid-70s
| and older cars, which were even less glossy than modern non-
| metallic paints.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| It's not just about flakeless paints, it's about gray (and
| desaturated colors) used for flakeless paints. Cherry red and
| bright yellow flakeless paints don't look like putty.
| marmetio wrote:
| Were there similar articles published back when everyone decided
| that car paint should be metallic?
| LightG wrote:
| The only reason I'll agree with this article is because what it's
| talking about is so common now ... I hate it. 100% boring.
|
| But when I first saw it, I kinda liked it.
| ilyt wrote:
| ...I still prefer it that boring silver.
|
| I mean I hate it, I just hate boring silver more
| technothrasher wrote:
| I recently bought a Porsche Macan in the "Chalk" color they
| mention in the article, because I liked it (obviously). It
| seems that about half the people who comment on it hate it, and
| the other half love it <shrug>.
| tyingq wrote:
| That makes sense to me. Part of the reason the initial
| popularity of enthusiasts painting their own cars in a flat
| color was just that it was unusual. The novelty is gone once
| manufacturers start shipping them that way.
| ghaff wrote:
| In my experience, car dealers are more likely to inventory
| "boring" neutral colors that most people will tolerate to get
| something on the lot rather than more polarizing bright colors.
| suprjami wrote:
| Why do new websites start with a blurb about the site, then a
| flyover to nag you to sign up for their mailing list? Whatever
| this article had to say is lost, I just hit the Back button.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| That's substack (the platform many people use).
|
| Its a fucking cancer.
| nluken wrote:
| Don't mind the "wet putty" look specifically as much as I hate
| the related lack of color available on cars these days. What
| happened that made everyone want bland, boring colors on
| everything? Liven up, people!
| macintux wrote:
| I wrote about my experiences driving a very non-neutral color.
| Life is too short to be that boring.
|
| https://opposite-lock.com/topic/52688/tuscadero
| threeboy wrote:
| People vote with their dollars and right now this look shows
| that they seem to have more dollars.
| patrickthebold wrote:
| nevertheless, one can lament the situation: With all the mass
| production and economies of scale, any desire off the beaten
| path becomes either extremely expensive or unobtainable.
|
| Hey, it's more profitable to sell junk that doesn't last very
| long, to have a closed platform, to make a smart tv that
| tracks you.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| you can always have your car painted or wrapped. No reason the
| car has to come from the factory in a more interesting style
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=amazing+car+wraps&source=lnm...
|
| Also, I suspect it won't be long before you can get an LCD wrap
| or an e-ink wrap. Have already seen backpacks with animated
| displays.
|
| https://pix.style/
|
| https://cdn.shopify.com/videos/c/vp/d80e3679bac8476b9ee137ce...
| babypuncher wrote:
| Re-painting a car is expensive. It would be nice to have some
| better color options from the factory.
|
| Wraps can be a cheaper option, but they also have a very
| different look than automotive paint.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Novel and unusual colors are more expensive to repair (fewer
| parts with matching colors) and thus bump up insurance
| premiums. Fewer color lines are cheaper for both the
| manufacturer and customer.
|
| If it was important enough to a large enough group of people,
| you'd think manufacturers and dealerships would jump at the
| chance to offer another high margin markup line item. I
| personally wouldn't mind a less neutral color, but I'm not
| interested enough to pay more for it myself.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Very few parts come pre-painted to the body shop. If you find
| yourself in need of one, you'll find that they'll need to
| paint the panel they're replacing and do blending on the
| adjacent panels. As good as they are at matching color, they
| aren't perfect.
|
| Also, UV fades the paint. Even if you could get pre-painted
| panels, they wouldn't match a car that's spent much time in
| the sun.
|
| I had a rattle can tinted to match the factory color on my
| hood. It wasn't even close on the 12 year old car. On the
| outside of the hood. The inside of the hood would've been
| pretty damn close.
| zdragnar wrote:
| It depends on if you're getting a new or a used part, no?
| Most times for cars over a few years old the shop can get a
| used panel off of a scrap car for much less than buying a
| new part, and in that case it might already match... Unless
| they are stripping and re-painting those, I have no idea.
| nluken wrote:
| I know rationally why a manufacturer would want to limit
| their color palette. I just wonder why people were more
| willing to pay for color in, say, the 80s than they are now.
| Look at the paint colors available for an early 80's Corolla
| [1] compared to the same car today [2]. Perhaps I'm
| overanalyzing but I think it's a symptom of an increasing
| tendency to emphasize things like insurance premiums and
| resale value over any kind of humanity or personality.
|
| We see the same thing in modern interior design. Just like
| many of today's cars it's black, white, and grey. If you're
| lucky, maybe a neutral color or two. Inoffensive, but
| soulless.
|
| [1]: http://importarchive.com/toyota/corolla/1980-1983/paint
|
| [2]: http://importarchive.com/toyota/corolla/2014-2018/paint
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > I personally wouldn't mind a less neutral color, but I'm
| not interested enough to pay more for it myself.
|
| And thats the thing, those that are interested enough can
| still go and get their car repainted, without making it more
| expensive for the rest of us that aren't as concerned with
| having their cars be a unique color.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| Taking a brand new car to a paint shop right of the lot
| doesn't seem mighty efficient.
|
| The premium manufacturers usually offer colors other than
| neutrals at a premium, and what the OP is pointing at is
| that economy brands don't offer that option at all. Why
| can't we have both cheap neutrals and color options?
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Why can't we have both cheap neutrals and color
| options?
|
| No one wants to bear the extra costs for color lovers.
| Dealers don't want to be stuck with the banana-yellow
| cars for months on end, and manufactures don't want to
| switch their painting booth paints for colors that are
| <1% sales when they can crank out 5 more white cars in
| the time it takes to switch colors.
|
| Wraps are cheaper alternative to repainting, so those who
| love bright colors can get an electric blue wrap right
| off the parking lot.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| It might be less efficient for the few consumers who do
| want custom colors, but it is by far more efficient for
| the rest of consumers and the company to limit their
| color choices. Their manufacturing processes aren't set
| up to do very small runs of specific colors, and for
| those premium brands that do offer custom colors, the
| further away from the standard offering you go, the more
| you pay. Custom colors on some of the premium brands can
| easily run into the thousands of dollars, largely because
| they're doing effectively what I suggested -- doing a
| custom paint job towards the end or after assembly.
|
| Not to mention that even supporting the pipeline of being
| able to order custom colors, with all the logistics that
| entails after manufacture, might not be something the
| manufacturers want to support.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > you'd think manufacturers and dealerships would jump at the
| chance to offer another high margin markup line item.
|
| for whatever reason, paint and detailing work tends not to be
| the strong suit of a car dealership. a lot of enthusiasts
| will even refuse a complimentary wash when they get their car
| serviced.
|
| the higher end manufacturers do offer additional paint
| options. but it's really expensive (Porsche charges >$20k for
| true paint to sample) and it takes even longer to get your
| car delivered. it's hard to justify at any price, but
| especially for the vast majority of cars that cost under
| $100k.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Resale market is higher for 'neutral' colours.
| nluken wrote:
| Is it really though? Logic would dictate that while the
| market for a non-neutral color might be smaller, supply would
| also be smaller which should cancel the demand side out.
|
| Anecdotally, and this might be a poor example because it's an
| enthusiast car and not something that most people are going
| to be encountering, I was looking at used Porsche Boxsters
| earlier this year, and the more interesting colors actually
| commanded a premium over silver or black cars because they're
| much harder to find. I do wonder how that translates to
| something more practical, but I have a hard time believing
| that it would negatively impact resale value to a huge
| extent.
| lmm wrote:
| > Is it really though? Logic would dictate that while the
| market for a non-neutral color might be smaller, supply
| would also be smaller which should cancel the demand side
| out.
|
| Logic would dictate that the smaller markets will be less
| liquid and have wider spreads.
| nluken wrote:
| Another good point. Might be fine for a private seller
| but I could see how it would be difficult for dealers.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > interesting colors actually commanded a premium over
| silver or black cars
|
| Because someone paid more for that in the first place.
|
| Every dealer is going to have a white, black, and
| silver/grey at 'stock' cost. After that the price goes up.
|
| People by a car in a color because they like that color and
| are willing to pay more for it. People buy a car in a
| neutral because they want a car and don't care about the
| color.
| nluken wrote:
| You make a really good point, and while the color-price
| discrepancy remained true in my story for the 'stock'
| cost yellow and red vs. neutrals, my sample size is 1
| model of car so it's hard to say how true that stays
| across the board.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| It's a feedback loop problem. Most cars that dealers order are
| not for a specific customer, so they choose bland colors that
| most people can live with, which makes those cars easier to
| sell. Then the automaker looks at orders and sees that most
| orders are for white/gray/black (in that order for NAFTA). The
| OEM stops offering the unpopular colors because they're data
| driven. Then customers who don't mind waiting for a car to be
| ordered want a fun color, and the choices are very limited.
| macintux wrote:
| And some automakers actively discourage factory orders.
|
| The other problem is that while both partners in a couple may
| like bright colors, they may like _different_ bright colors,
| so something neutral becomes a reasonable tradeoff.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Because people realized that glaring saturated colors
| everywhere is garish overkill, and that you don't need to
| scream personality with every square inch of the objects you
| own.
|
| We've (thankfully) moved to a world that is primarily more
| neutral tones, that allow you to selectively choose color
| _accents_ that are more easily and economically swapped out
| depending on your mood.
|
| When you're next to a car or getting out of it, it's much nicer
| for the color accents to be coming from your clothes than from
| the giant car. That way they highlight _you_ , not a big piece
| of machinery.
| nluken wrote:
| I mean, I'm not exactly advocating for everything to be neon
| yellow and pink everywhere all the time. I'd just like
| something to break up the colorless-with-accent (usually
| something desaturated as well!) monotony that's everywhere,
| lest the whole world end up looking like Mirror's Edge. It's
| a balance.
|
| Where the pendulum lies might just be a matter of fashion.
| janeerie wrote:
| The trend of gray tones in consumer goods brings to mind the
| Puritan rule of wearing only "sadd colors." Perhaps we are
| experiencing a new wave of Puritan chic?
|
| From the book _Albion 's Seed_: "The taste of New England ran not
| to black or gray, but to "sadd colors" as they were called in the
| seventeenth century. A list of these "sadd colors" in 1638
| included "liver color, de Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French
| green, ginger lyne, deer colour, orange." Other sad colors were
| called "gridolin" from the French gris de lin ("flax blossom").
| Still others were called puce, folding color, Kendall green,
| Lincoln green, barry, milly and tuly."
| micheljansen wrote:
| You joke, but we you are not wrong:
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/04/the-sad...
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@sadbeige
|
| https://www.instagram.com/officialsadbeige/
| leetcrew wrote:
| I wasn't aware this was a trend; I thought it was just
| practical. a gray coffee machine may not make for a striking
| kitchen centerpiece, but it doesn't clash with anything either.
| if you're KitchenAid, by all means, go and make 12 different
| colors for a stand mixer. but if you only want to make one
| color, it might as well be gray.
|
| I always get my cars in gray for a similar reason. I like cars,
| but I don't want mine to stand out on the road. don't need the
| extra attention from cops, thieves, etc. plus, a gray car in
| the right shade looks clean for a long time between washes.
| janeerie wrote:
| The trend the article discusses is using colors that are
| tones, meaning a hue mixed with gray. So it's not just that a
| lot of things are gray, it's that even the things that are
| colored have a gray-ish cast.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I admit I didn't read past all the pictures of cars in TFA.
| I see what you mean with kitchen items now. weird trend,
| but I think my original point still holds? desaturated
| versions of otherwise incompatible colors clash less, to my
| eyes at least
| janeerie wrote:
| Oh, I agree. And I'll take muted colors over no colors at
| all.
|
| I do love me some bright Ikea-style colors though, even
| though they are more difficult to coordinate properly.
| djur wrote:
| There was a time when the point of the neutrals trend in decor
| was supposed to be that everyday things could fade modestly
| into the background to let the colors of clothing, food, art,
| etc. stand out more. But I don't think that's the way the trend
| has gone. Kim Kardashian has a completely beige house, in which
| she and her children have been photographed wearing beige
| clothing, etc. It seems very exhausting. And the flip side is
| that youth culture seems to remain interested in bright colors,
| at least for now.
| cleandreams wrote:
| It turns out there is a world wide trend towards grey, white,
| black, and colors in products of all kinds are decreasing. Some
| say it is the averaging influence of AI data analysis of consumer
| prefs. An overview here: https://craft-theory.com/blogs/news/are-
| colors-disappearing
| ouid wrote:
| The answer to the why part of this question, I think, is that
| this is what computers are capable of rendering. These are
| exactly the paintjobs that the GTA cars have.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| How is "schmesla" not being mentioned? They aren't always grey
| but they are always metal-flake-free, yet varnished I guess, and
| I don't personally like it.
|
| I do like matte finish.
| branon wrote:
| Any paint job that doesn't reflect multiple agonizingly-bright
| pinpoints of sunlight into my eyeballs is fine by me.
|
| Down with the flake, in with the putty. Matte finishes are the
| best thing to happen to cars since the assembly line.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| The reflections are overwhelmingly a result of glass. The paint
| is basically anecdotal by comparison.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| The only true matte finish on a normal car that I know of is
| the Hyundai ionic 5. The wet in wet putty is the glossy
| coating. On matte paint, there is no gloss. It's also a pain to
| maintain https://manuals.plus/hyundai/ioniq-5-matte-finish-
| paint-manu...
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Most of the luxury brands offer true matte paint finishes.
| For example, if you want matte paint ("Frozen" as they call
| it) on a BMW, you can order through this program:
|
| https://www.bmwusa.com/innovations/bmw-individual.html
|
| Like you said, these true matte paints don't have a clear
| coat, so they are a pain to own.
|
| On the other hand, these "Putty" finishes that the blog is
| talking about are likely an attempt by the paint companies to
| offer a matte-like look that is still easy to maintain, and
| that's why they do employ a clear coat. The PPG paints use a
| special matte clear coat, and axalta paints use a matte
| additive to the base color and a matte clear coat product.
| Those are the two main automotive paint suppliers, but I
| expect the other suppliers have a similar approach.
| evan_ wrote:
| > always test products in a hidden area
|
| maybe they should provide you with a 1'x1' square of painted
| metal to test on, I'm not sure where on a car is hidden and
| still painted.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Open any door and you'll find plenty of spots. Including in
| under the hood or behind the fuel door.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Exactly this. I don't have many opinions or preferences on car
| finishes, but the now-standard retina-searingly-reflective
| finishes ought to be illegal for safety reasons. If TFA is
| complaining about a move away from that, then I hate TFA.
|
| [EDIT] I'm not 100% sure _what_ TFA is complaining about
| because I 'm pretty sure I haven't seen this in the wild yet.
| Must be a regional trend. Coasts usually get stuff way sooner
| than us so maybe I'll know what it's about in a couple years.
| pwinnski wrote:
| In the Dallas area, not quite a coast, this trend has been
| bugging me for roughly a year, and the 2023 models of many
| cars seem to feature non-metallic colors even more than 2022
| did.
| binarymax wrote:
| Double edged sword - less annoying during the day but now
| they're harder to see at night.
| z3c0 wrote:
| Hopefully the lights mounted on every side of the car will
| combat that.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I swear to god, this is such a prototypical comment for HN.
|
| There is no angle in which you cannot see the headlights of a
| vehicle.
|
| If the vehicle is parked, there is no angle you should be
| using that wouldn't illuminate the vehicle.
|
| driving without your lights on after dark is illegal and
| black colored vehicles have existed for years without these
| problems.
| echlebek wrote:
| Every visible angle of a car has multiple lights on it so I
| don't think that's actually a double edged sword???
| rob74 wrote:
| Multiple lights that can all be turned off - except for the
| so called "daytime driving light", but that's also a double
| edged sword: many drivers seem to think that if they have
| these they can get away with leaving the "real" headlights
| off for longer, but forget that there is _no daytime light
| at the rear of the car_. So yeah, a murky-matte-gray car in
| murky gray weather at twilight is the worst situation for
| visibility I can think of too...
| jessechahal wrote:
| I only really see this issue on old vehicles. Most
| vehicles have lights set to automatically turned on when
| it gets dark. I very rarely see a new vehicle that
| doesn't have this enabled and/or daytime running lights.
| Even newer Honda civics have a feature to automatically
| turn on high beams when no oncoming traffic at night
| macintux wrote:
| That's not the only setting. I've seen many modern cars
| running around after dark with only DRLs.
|
| In my case, I frequently bump the light knob with my knee
| as I'm entering or exiting.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Cars are also festooned with retro-reflectors in case the
| lights are off, including the license plate.
| randcraw wrote:
| Reflectors glow only when somebody else lights them up.
| Background-colored cars makes it a lot easier for two
| unlit fools to connect. Head on.
|
| Black suffers from this somewhat, but less since
| backgrounds on the road are rarely black until the hour
| when headlights become essential. Muted grays are a
| handicap all day long in any form of suboptimal weather.
| wiredfool wrote:
| The ones that are also blacked out?
| [deleted]
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Plus tons of reflectors that manage to work well at night
| without also blinding people during the day.
| waboremo wrote:
| Don't worry, everyone is using massive high beams as soon as
| the sun sets now so you'll spot them a mile away.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Daytime too curiously enough. Though I suspect some of it
| may be the proliferation of cheap LED replacement "bulbs"
| being put into housing meant for halogen bulbs and never
| being aligned/aimed to mimic the factory cutoff.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| For the most part, the cutoff is in the reflector.
| However, you can be really obnoxious with bulbs that are
| too bright.
| jgalentine007 wrote:
| Well I think the author makes a good point - the flat finish
| looks a lot better with more interesting colors (and more
| gloss). The abundance of de-saturated blues and green will age
| like milk.
| rob74 wrote:
| > _The result is faintly but palpably uncanny, almost as though a
| computer-rendered object has somehow infiltrated the real world,
| beholden to a slightly different set of physics..._
|
| The impression these cars make on me is slightly less alien: they
| remind me of the drab utility vehicles I saw in my youth in
| Romania, painted with whatever paint was available (definitely no
| sparkle included).
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > We are talking, e.g., ~2014-era Dwell house pictorials, Heath
| Ceramics jawnz, Kinto thermoses, a bunch of the new Technivorm
| Moccamasters, Mepra flatware, and "popping" PVC kicks from Crocs
| to Bottega Veneta Puddle Boots, etc., etc.
|
| Crocs are the only brand I've heard of from that paragraph. None
| of these words are in the Sears, Roebuck catalog.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's a fashion newsletter. You're likely a step or two away
| from these influences but not the intended or expected audience
| of the products themselves.
|
| It's like how your favorite musician's favorite musician is
| often someone you've never heard of and sometimes not something
| it's even easy for you to like. Their entire professional life
| is in experiencing and evaluating these things, so they get way
| "out there" compared to people who are not focused on it, like
| us.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not complaining. It's amusing, if anything. And
| while in fiction coming across brand-heavy paragraphs might
| be irritating, it can also be evocative- cyberpunk novels
| love to namedrop a ton of fictional brands.
| dekhn wrote:
| Huh. I've noticed many recent cars had a sort of saturated pastel
| (I call it "creamsicle") and I think this might be the same
| thing.
| ComputerCat wrote:
| I like this, it feels calming to me, not attention grabbing or
| distracting.
| seszett wrote:
| To me this kind of grey used to be Volvo's signature paint, but
| it's been more common recently indeed.
|
| Either way, I don't think it's anyone's business to tell people
| what colour they should use for their cars? This blog article
| seems a bit weird.
| waboremo wrote:
| The handful selection of home goods (and one house) picked in
| attempts to illustrate the point that it's affecting more than
| just cars and is some generational effect is hilarious.
|
| Sorry to whoever wrote this blog, but vases will always come in
| a sickening plethora of colors and patterns.
| ryeights wrote:
| This is incorrect. These sorts of matte, washed-out pastel
| colors are _absolutely_ a trend in all sorts of designs
| targeting Millenials /Gen-Zers.
|
| Browse through this catalog and you'll see what I mean.
| https://www.urbanoutfitters.com/home
| machinawhite wrote:
| Just think of the Web 3.0 aesthetic, or even Microsoft's
| Fluent design. It's putty all the way down
| LastTrain wrote:
| I didn't know painting cars with non-grey, non-metallic paint was
| a lost art.
| nathias wrote:
| everything has to be emptied of everything potentially offensive,
| we are creating a beige future
| naikrovek wrote:
| so now we've moved from Medium to substack, I guess? And now I
| have to click "let me read it first" once per article for the
| next 5 years?
|
| _sigh_
| d23 wrote:
| It's a good forcing function to make me consider whether I
| should even bother or just leave the site when I see that
| popup.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| "Oh don't post evergreen material to Medium! Who knows where
| it'll be in 5 years!?"
|
| "Oh, let's just use this slightly worse version with an
| overlay!!"
|
| For all the talk about federated bla, I see few people putting
| their money where their mouth is.
| avalys wrote:
| Because it's a trend, just like orange metallic was a few years
| ago, and matte wraps a little more recently.
|
| Yawn.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| Lots of designs use black plastic as a contrast color. This works
| nicely with uni carpaints, less so with metallic paint. Not a big
| deal.
| mywittyname wrote:
| This isn't a new thing at all. This is how cars all use to look!
|
| This isn't some huge statement on how millennials want to be
| grownup and childish at the same time, or some other pop-
| psychology drivel. It's just the normal change of fashion over
| time. Non-flake paint jobs stand out a lot in a sea of cars with
| them.
|
| In fact, I've already noticed a shift back towards paints with
| contrasting metal flake now that even the most pedestrian
| Japanese cars are coming with simple glossy paint. BMW has this
| new sparkling copper grey that's a cool grey in low light, a warm
| light grey in direct light, and has reddish specular highlights
| and it has this very 90s color changing vibe to it.
|
| > UPDATE: A few ppl have also mentioned the important role of the
| "Nardo Grey" paint color from (Porsche-owned) Audi in this
| timeline -- a wet-putty hue that came out in 2013 and became a
| car-head phenomenon.
|
| Grabber Blue came out on the Mustang even earlier and is a
| throwback to the 70s color of the same name. Voodoo Blue and Army
| Green on the FJ Cruiser is also a simple glossy color on an even
| older car. I'd argue this kind of paint was popularized by the
| retro-modernism of the 00s mixed with the cool grey trend of the
| 10s.
| djur wrote:
| Yeah, my friend's mom drove an old Lark convertible when I was
| a teen, and it had a cadet green paint job that looked like
| this. I always thought it looked particularly classy,
| especially compared to the glittery cherry red Studebaker she'd
| previously owned. More saturated hues with this finish feel
| "retro" and less saturated hues make it feel "futuristic". I'm
| personally a fan, even though I'm really down on the gray
| neutral trend in design in general.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _In the context of wet-putty whips and other contemporary
| consumer products, though, this strikes us as a hedged, half-
| stepping, and underhandedly infantilizing approach to color
| design all the same -- a way, basically, to sell millennials
| "grown-up" toys within a smokescreen of ersatz refinement._
|
| You're mileage may vary of course, but in some way this reminds
| me of modern superhero movies. Sure, you're still watching
| Batman, but its gritty and serious now, acutely aware of the
| wider societal implications of delegating the fight against
| organized crime to a guy in a bat costume.
|
| Nothing against enjoying childish things as an adult, but it's
| notable that those movies do a lot to pretend they are actually
| thought-provoking culture pieces dealing with current issues -
| and not the latest adventures of characters which were invented
| almost 100 years ago to amaze children.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > Nothing against enjoying childish things as an adult, but
| it's notable that those movies do a lot to pretend they are
| actually thought-provoking culture pieces dealing with current
| issues - and not the latest adventures of characters which were
| invented almost 100 years ago to amaze children.
|
| This is particularly notable with the recent Batman movies vs.
| say Batman Returns (1992). That was not a "gritty" or "serious"
| movie but still earned its PG-13 rating.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Your*
|
| sorry
| natdempk wrote:
| Clearly designers have gotten influenced by the clay modeling
| process used to prototype cars and now expect the real cars to
| look similar. (half-kidding)
| conductr wrote:
| Flat paint became popular in house interiors first. Then matte
| finish became a trend in autos but it's insanely difficult to
| keep the dust off; especially the textured variety that is
| popular. I think the manufacturer's are trying to find a happy
| medium between the trend and the realistic maintenance.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| A car-passionate man talking about this:
| https://youtu.be/AMB9xt6M1Us?t=1705
| xrayarx wrote:
| I was wondering, maybe this has to do with all the assistance
| systems in cars? Maybe all the radars, cameras and lidars work
| better on mate colours?
| randcraw wrote:
| While the gray (especially the matte finish) might cause less
| specular reflection, any color that makes the car stand out
| better against the background would improve a light camera's
| ability to detect and track the object. Given a typical gray
| and green background, a distinctive color (e.g. yellow, bright
| red, purple) would make the car stand out most (just the way it
| does to the human eye). (BTW, I work in the image analysis and
| object detection space.)
| xrayarx wrote:
| Interesting! So what is your take on 'only stereo cameras'
| and what do you think of volvos new lidar? In terms of car
| assistance systems.
| HPsquared wrote:
| In short: they are grey and shiny.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Neutral colours - maybe we are being exposed to so many opinions
| and conflict through mass media, that we prefer to surround us
| with neutrality?
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It reminds me of how movies don't try new things and keep
| playing it safe with sequels. Everyone is afraid of trying
| something new like a bright red car and failing. I have my
| doubts how good their data is though. It could just be
| groupthink and hivemind everywhere thinking that.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/a-brief-history-...
|
| The tldr from the article-
|
| TL; DR Version
|
| * Everyone remembers their favorite car's unique color, so when
| did we fade to black?
|
| * Yellow, green and teal cars may fetch you a higher resale
| value due to relatively few of them
|
| * Cars were first painted like carriages, color was expensive,
| didn't last
|
| * Henry Ford offered cars in black asphalt enamels because that
| color dried the fastest and was more durable than oil-based
| paints
|
| * General Motors and Dupont partnered up for Duco, a new paint
| that made it easier to apply colorful paints that dried even
| faster than before
|
| * Car manufacturers started color advisory boards to suss out
| trends in popular culture and report back
|
| *Everyone got wacky on colors for a while, including in the
| '60s and '70s
|
| * We're boring these days, choosing mostly black, white and
| gray/silver
|
| * The recession scared people into a neutral colors phase,
| giving rise to the popularity of black, white and silver/gray
|
| * The future is bright once again, however, as experts see
| colorful paint jobs coming back
| codazoda wrote:
| This is off topic but I've wondered why cat panels are designed
| in a way that makes them so difficult to fix yourself. It would
| be nice if I could patch em up or change the color myself, like I
| can with my walls at home, without making my machine stand out.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| This is a deep topic. But the short version is that let's take
| a paint called PR4 from the factory. If they were spraying this
| color in the morning in the winter, and or afternoon in the
| summer, even at the factory it won't perfectly match. Now give
| the recipe of PR4 to a body shop and it doesn't matter, they'll
| need to match it anyhow.
|
| As to why panels aren't replaceable. It's cost and weight. If
| your panel just unbolts, you have the weight of bolts and
| fasteners, durability of it becoming loose, assembly time at
| the factory, etc. For modern vehicles, a lot of the class-A
| body panels you see are structural components. Without these,
| you would need a stiffer unibody or frame. Cost and weight top
| to bottom.
| jstarfish wrote:
| There have been a few attempts at user-removable body panels
| for color-swapping.
|
| The BMW Z1 is the only one I could find in 2 seconds
| searching, but I could swear Pontiac or someone tried this
| too.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Everyone has tried it here and there. Honda elements have
| replaceable fenders iirc, but it doesn't change the math.
|
| You can be lighter and cheaper if you don't plan on
| swapping panels out.
|
| Body shops are pretty good at what they do.
|
| Fancier cars like McLaren go the entire opposite direction.
| Some panels have no way of coming out at all they are part
| of the carbon tub, other panels must be cut out with a
| knife because they don't bolt on anywhere.
| biftek wrote:
| Trends in paint are fun. Flat colors were last really common in
| the 90's, which is retro cool in its own way now, although then
| it was generally done with single stage paint and the gloss/wet
| look came from the occasional polish and wax, not a clear coat.
| Metallics have been the more popular choice for a couple decades
| now, with flats usually being reserved for base models and
| usually only in white or black.
|
| I think it's cool to see flat colors return.
| kazinator wrote:
| I call the look "vintage file cabinet".
| SamCritch wrote:
| Mica is the main component used to give auto paints their
| metallic look. Mica is mined in sometimes terrible conditions in
| India and Madagascar. I wonder if Porsche joining the Responsible
| Mica Initiative has anything to do with the reduction in metallic
| finishes?
|
| https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2020/company/porsche-joins-r...
| dmurray wrote:
| Weird, mica is extremely plentiful here - there's actually a
| scandal here where concrete blocks to build houses were made
| with too much mica, up to 14% in some cases. (It's not good for
| the structural strength of the concrete). It feels like you
| could walk into any field in some parts of Ireland and pick up
| enough mica to last the worldwide auto industry for years.
| simple10 wrote:
| "Wet-putty cars is part of a broader mainstreamification of gray-
| shaded consumer-good colors heavily targeted at younger Gen-X-ers
| and Millennials." Basically, it's a design trend from
| architecture and consumer products that bled into car colors,
| according to the article.
|
| I've been wondering about this for years. At first, I thought it
| might have something to do with new paint manufacturing
| techniques or environmental concerns with traditional paint jobs.
| But probably just a design trend.
| cirrus3 wrote:
| It's a trend and fashion, and not a particularly new one. Why is
| the author so annoyed by it? I got strong "old man yells at
| cloud" vibes from what seems to be a very young person. Strange.
| danielodievich wrote:
| I drive a 2002 bright yellow Mini (official color name Eggyolk
| Yellow), which is showing its age a little from the dings in
| front but still shines up nicely and makes it easy to see in the
| parking lot.
|
| The other day our family and some friends of us were driving in
| the family SUV somewhere downtown and saw another, newer Mini,
| with a totally custom paintjob, it was a pearly, shiny, electric
| pinkish-purple, kind of like a fancy candy wrapper. I think they
| cranked their flake content up to 11. The entire car OOOHHed and
| AAHed and asked to slow down to gaze it at. Great color, great
| statement, wish more were like that.
| BulgarianIdiot wrote:
| The real question is... why the hell should a car be shiny?
| mauvehaus wrote:
| A high gloss surface is easier to clean. You see gloss used for
| interior trim in houses that gets a lot of touch and wear for
| that reason.
|
| Walls, which get comparatively little touch, get a lower sheen.
|
| If you aren't referring to sheen and are referring to the
| sparkle of metallic paint instead, I don't know either. I'm
| betting that it hides imperfections in the underlying surface
| better, but I really couldn't say.
|
| I have read that white and yellow are super forgiving colors as
| well, which could be why you see a lot of non-metallic white on
| fleet vehicles.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Bird shit, tree sap, and road tar.
|
| Getting the above off a shiny waxed surface is easy. Getting
| those off a matte surface is hell.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| I stopped reading at "focus on mad-cool developments in clothes
| and home jawns"
| themadturk wrote:
| The first time I saw a car like this, my reaction was that it
| looked like the classic Packtra 'Namel enamel paints I used on
| plastic models in the '60s.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Damn, someone is salty. I like that color when I ordered my car
| because there weren't that many cars in such color...now I want a
| "normal" color because everyone is sporting the same color.
| xrayarx wrote:
| Does anybody know, what the flakes, that the article mentions, is
| made of? It made me wonder, because they also state, that the
| colour is used everywhere, not just cars. Also made me wonder,
| what the real reason might be? Cost? Availability? Environmental
| protection legislation?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| It's been a long time since I did automotive body work. But the
| fillers and flake in most modern paints are not metal at all.
| They're glass, ceramics and polymers.
|
| There was a steel coated flake I saw at an auto show that used
| magnets in the process to put effects in before drying.
|
| I know I saw a titanium at some point, but I wasn't doing the
| work. So I don't know much other than "metal flake" is largely
| an effect and not always ingredient.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Mica is one of the more common materials for adding flakes to
| premium colors
| brianm wrote:
| glitter
| taco_emoji wrote:
| FINALLY. I've been trying to Google this phenomenon for the last
| couple of years since I noticed it. I wasn't sure if it had
| something to do with supply chain stuff or just what, but now
| that I think about it, the "dull shiny" aesthetic is all the rage
| in lots of consumer goods.
| flenserboy wrote:
| These have become particularly noticeable. However, it looks more
| like exterior housepaint with a clear coat over it than "wet
| putty".
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| I like "Wet Putty" cars. I would ask "Why do all other cars look
| like shiny Christmas ornaments"?
| eweise wrote:
| Peronally I like non-flake colors. They remind me of cars from
| the 50's and 60s. Hope the trend continue but with more vibrant
| colors instead of gray gray gray.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Personally, I find these "putty" colors to be very nice looking -
| particularly the gloss grey. It is the polar opposite of the
| "look at me" red cars of the past. There is a common idea that
| red cars get more tickets - not sure if that's true, but I have
| always chosen silver as it is more nondescript and also you don't
| notice dirt on it as much.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| It's definitely more interesting than the overwhelming majority
| of silver cars in the past 10 years, although I'd really like
| it if we had more colors in the roads (and used car lots)
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I know there are serious logistical and maybe marketing
| considerations but I don't know why Tesla, and perhaps any
| other brands that are primarily ordered online, couldn't have
| a ton more colors available. Even if there's a significant
| fee a ton of people would jump in it.
|
| The last time I bought a car it was my Camaro. I wanted
| orange. They didn't have orange. They had orange-red along
| with two other reds. I would have loved a deep forest green,
| but all they had was a neon green.
|
| So I got white.
| dwringer wrote:
| The nondescriptness of silver cars is a pro and a con - when I
| first switched to driving one there was an immediate increase
| in the amount of time it seemed to take for other
| drivers/pedestrians/etc to notice me, and I've had to adjust my
| standard of driving defensively to compensate.
| labster wrote:
| Oh, I thought it was just me. I've come much closer to
| getting into accidents with gray cars, because I just didn't
| notice them at a glance, or see the movement. Silver seems
| like a good color if you want to drive a getaway car, and a
| bad color if you have kids.
| willio58 wrote:
| Neutral colors have the added benefit of being more easily
| resell-able (at a higher price), especially to private parties.
| BrentOzar wrote:
| > Neutral colors have the added benefit of being more easily
| resell-able (at a higher price), especially to private
| parties.
|
| Only for neutral cars. Flashy cars (like the Audis and
| Porsches described in the article) carry a premium when
| they're flashy colors. There are even whole events dedicated
| to unusually-colored Porsches (paint to sample).
| pixl97 wrote:
| Turns out there a lot more Camerys than there are Audis.
| xwdv wrote:
| Often this is because the paint itself is a more expensive
| option. In the end, neutral colors sell the fastest and
| most consistently. Colored cars have a smaller market based
| on the buyers tastes.
| matt-attack wrote:
| People took that stat to mean that cops can see the red better
| and so can spot the speeder more easily. I always took it to
| mean that people who buy red cars like to speed.
| WJW wrote:
| I mean, red cars going faster is such a common trope it has
| got its own page on TvTropes:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedOnesGoFaster.
| mc32 wrote:
| Or, conversely people who like to speed buy red cars more
| frequently than other colors so that the majority of speeders
| end up driving red cars.
| butlerm wrote:
| He is claiming correlation not causation in the second.
| Correlation is symmetric, the converse is indistinguishable
| from the original.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| There is a story in the UK that red cars get pulled over
| more often due to police playing 'snooker'. In a game of
| snooker you have to pot a red ball every other ball... when
| playing with cars it means a lot more red ones get pulled.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooker
| bityard wrote:
| Living in the rust belt, I have come to enjoy owning gray (or
| at least mid-tone) color cars. In the summer, we get dust and
| dirt which looks bad on light-colored cars and requires
| frequent washing. In the winter, we get road salt which looks
| bad on dark-colored cars and requires frequent washing. Neither
| is near as pronounced on gray, meaning I literally never wash
| the outside of my car. Rain and snow do it often enough for me.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| You should probably be washing off the salt regardless of
| appearances.
| silisili wrote:
| I'm convinced that's the only reason people buy that ugly
| champagne color on cars. I hate it, but judging by a friend
| who never washes her car, it does not show dirt.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Work friend from Britain bought his first car in California
| with a dark grey paint job so it wouldn't show dirt. And
| then found out that dirt in California is light tan not
| iron/coal dust dark.
| randcraw wrote:
| It's grey primer with clearcoat over it. How could that be a
| good thing?
|
| It's also as invisible as possible against the background of an
| asphalt road. Also a bad thing. Unless headlights come on
| automatically in fog or twilight, that aesthetic will likely be
| a deadly one.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Very good point, this removes one layer of paint then. All
| cars have three (or four) layers of paint. This is two layers
| only.
|
| The main reason could be to increase the profit for the maker
| (or reduce the market prize so they could compete). Should be
| also cheaper to repaint for the owner
| [deleted]
| frou_dh wrote:
| I'm not a car guy so am pretty oblivious to the trends, but I
| actually stopped and took a photo of an Audi with this a couple
| of months ago, because it looked fantastic IRL. Not sure how much
| it comes across in the photo https://i.imgur.com/9sQQwT2.jpg , it
| looked more matte in the flesh.
| matt-attack wrote:
| That's precisely the "wet putty" effect being described. It's
| quite striking. Often your first way of describing it is
| "matte" but it's clearly glossy.
| asciimov wrote:
| The kid in me believes all cars should come in Spectraflame,
| those bright metallic colors old hot wheels were painted, instead
| of the boring muddled colors available today. Cars today have
| lost all their individuality and character, and the lack of
| colors does not help.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| i was looking for a new car recently..
|
| And (in Europe) all car manufacturers offer only 5 colors -
| black, white, gray, reddish and bluish. Maybe 2 blacks. Or 2
| grays. Sometimes red or blue cost more than the others. But,
| essentialy - no-other-colors. (well, Porsches and Ferraris
| probably got more.. but.. not my sandwich)
|
| That's it. Then, i slowly started realizing it's been going for
| years... Looking now at any parking place around, the only
| colourful cars are some 20y old ones - if any. All else.. is
| either black, gray, here-there white, and few reds/blues.
|
| Color blindness.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Moist putty is more precise.
| jahnu wrote:
| Seems like a military style grey would compliment the trend of
| car designs that look more and more aggressive every year.
| etiam wrote:
| "Flat" "design" arrives at tangible consumer products?
| jschveibinz wrote:
| US readers: Slightly off topic, but why don't more people
| personalize the look of their cars? Is it fear of resale value?
| What if the personalization was easily reversible?
| NegativeK wrote:
| Resale value and cost.
|
| Well done car customization is expensive. Poorly done car
| customization ends up costing more money as you fix it.
|
| I also dislike having my car stand out, but that's a very
| personal thing.
| randcraw wrote:
| Customization also makes your car much easier to identify. If
| another driver is annoyed by you on the road and later
| recognizes your chariot parked somewhere, a distinctive look
| will make it a lot easier for them to do you damage.
| bityard wrote:
| This is the reason I don't have any window stickers, bumper
| stickers, or a vanity license plate.
|
| I tend to drive no more than 5 MPH above the legal limit
| and the road-ragers around here get SUPER bent out of shape
| about that. (Honking horn, flashing lights, whizzing past
| on a double-yellow, you get the idea.) The car I drive is
| very common in this area and don't need any reason to stand
| out to those idiots.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It is also a theft deterrent for the same reason. If
| someone steals your car and it has a unique paint job, it
| will be easily spotted, even with a fake license plate. So
| thieves will prefer cars that easily blend in.
| bhk wrote:
| Related...
| https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1551976102293372929
|
| Maybe it's due to PFAS :-)
| fallingfrog wrote:
| In my eyes, any car that's grey, white, or black is saying "I
| care more about preserving my car's financial resale value than
| expressing my personality", which is rather sad and pathetic. In
| my eyes. It's a move that says you've capitulated in some small,
| symbolic way. Give me green, yellow, blue- anything but white. I
| feel the same way about painting every room in your house white.
| Why make your home look like the lobby of a bank? You're going to
| take no risks at all now? Every place you live is just a longer
| term hotel? Ugh. Just stuff yourself and mount yourself on the
| wall and be done with it.
| jabl wrote:
| Because I have little desire to "express my personality"
| through my choice of car? I don't particularly like cars. I
| don't particularly enjoy driving a car. I hate traffic. Driving
| on a racetrack can be fun, I admit. But I have zero desire to
| accidentally run over some kid on a normal road in some
| testosterone-fueled show-off, and drive accordingly, which is
| responsible but effing boring. I have a car because it's
| convenient. As for car color, gray is fine because I can
| basically forget about ever needing to wash it, and it's easier
| to sell when the time comes.
| tedunangst wrote:
| And here I thought they all looked like electric shavers.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| I would guess that those 'flakes' in the paint make factory
| retouching far harder.
|
| Is it possible that the lack of flake is a cost-cutting measure
| (by reducing the scrappage rate) rather than a style choice?
| bjt wrote:
| Also guessing (my finishing experience is more on electric
| guitars than cars), but I would guess the other way. A purely
| flat color will show slight imperfections more than a paint
| with flake in it, because the flake provides visual noise that
| can hide imperfections.
| reneherse wrote:
| Grays have been a significant trend for years now, in everything
| from houses to furnishings to cars.
|
| In my city in the Southeastern US (and others from what I see on
| social media), the dominant colors for high end house remodels
| are dark gray or stark white. So it's not infrequent to see a
| charcoal gray house with a couple of putty gray cars parked out
| front.
|
| From the standpoint of reducing solar heat gain and fuel/utility
| usage, it's a terrible trend.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Every single one of these new colors screams "military" to me.
| That's not a negative or positive descriptor, to my mind; just
| the first word that pops into my head when I try and describe the
| trend.
| oynqr wrote:
| Back to the roots for some car makers, I suppose.
| sorenjan wrote:
| The Nardo grey on Audis is what I immediately thought of, I
| definitely think that's what started the trend. The first car
| where I noticed this effect was the Lamborghini Reventon, which
| Wikipedia describes as "mid opaque grey without the usual shine".
| That was apperantly inspired by fighter jets.
|
| I like it, although like everything it gets boring when it takes
| over and dominate. A bigger problem is the lack of color, every
| new car is some variant of grey.
| standardly wrote:
| The author used the word jawn/"jawnz" 3 times in a relatively
| short article. I really cannot get past that.
| sigzero wrote:
| I actually do not like the color but I can also choose not to buy
| that color of automobile.
| z3c0 wrote:
| I'm in agreement. I'm amazed that they could come up with an
| entire blog posts worth of words depicting naught more than
| curmudgeonlyness towards a new trend. I thought maybe there was
| a really interesting reason behind the shift when they tapped
| in the Porsche designer, but nope - just whining about
| millienial trends.
| randcraw wrote:
| Why do new cars _drive_ like wet putty? Electric steering makes
| spirited driving as joyless as a 40 year old Buick. It 's like
| steering a jellyfish. And sport mode only manages to stiffen the
| jelly.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Because many (most?) cars have things like steering assist to
| keep you in your lane and not killing a bus full of children.
| Car design has been focused on safety and not joy riders
| looking to lose control and crash into something for some time
| now.
| amelius wrote:
| This is why I prefer a matte finish.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| wait is the issue here the color or the curves? the paint looks
| fine it's the rounded corners that are ugly to me.
| labrador wrote:
| I'm surprised the word "pastel" wasn't used in this article
| because the new car colors look pastel to me so that's the word
| I've been using.
|
| _...the origin of the word "pastel" in reference to "pale color"
| as it is commonly used in cosmetic and fashion venues_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastel
| azhenley wrote:
| I really, really like the "wet putty" look as well as matte
| finishes. No more gloss please.
| threeboy wrote:
| It's still gloss it just doesn't have the metallic flake.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| "I don't like this paint job, it should look like the one I
| like....wahhh"
| cirrus3 wrote:
| Yep. That sums up all the words of the post. What a waste of
| time it was to read that.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| On the bright side, I learned how much microscopic flakes
| contribute to paint detail. Overall, it was an absolute snark
| fest, a large amount of effort for a little opinion.
| julianlam wrote:
| I thought this trend came around the web dev scene with base16
| colours. Funny how it's hitting consumer products now.
| leobg wrote:
| Is it not a military thing? "Battleship gray"? Designed to make
| your car look more intimidating. Which is what people want when
| they are stressed and see life as a competition.
| jstarfish wrote:
| There is _nothing_ intimidating about gray-- it is as
| utilitarian as it gets, and just happens to be useful for
| camouflage at sea (hiding...not threatening).
| jabl wrote:
| While it's true that military ships (and planes) are painted
| gray in order to camouflage against a background of haze and
| clouds, it's also true that there's a civilian demographic
| that have some kind of desire to appear as tough manly men by
| adopting a military-inspired aesthetic and behaving in an
| aggressive and intimidating manner.
| cjoelrun wrote:
| As a millennial: I like these colors. They seem to make no
| statement at all and be unoffensive. The world around my seems
| very easily offended and the last thing I want to do is stand out
| with some sort of color opinion that might say something about my
| belief in anything at all. Putty colors sounds right to me. I'd
| like my choices to be moldable into whatever might be in fashion.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I don't like this reasoning, but I agree with it. These colors
| represent a passive emotional stance, a denial of individuality
| that's in tune with the post-COVID / post-Floyd / post-Trump
| zeitgeist. A retreat to safe homogeneity.
|
| The trend started showing up earlier than that, of course, but
| I think that's why these colors have found a larger, more
| enduring market than anyone expected.
|
| They may also be showing up more often because the mica flakes
| were considered environmentally unsound and had to be replaced
| with something more expensive or less effective, or something
| like that. Ask anyone who bought a $100K Porsche a few years
| ago and is now watching their interior adhesives and windshield
| seals fall apart.
| dmix wrote:
| How is this a denial of individuality?
|
| They look very tasteful and other car makers and individual
| designers in other areas seem to agree. The author even said:
|
| > The effect was sneaky but striking... the VW looked more
| uniformly smoothed, and as a result more visually dense, than
| yr typical car -- sort of like it had been formed out of wet
| putty. Paradoxically, the paint job was so "muted" that it
| drew our attention way more than any of the other regs-
| painted cars at the trailhead...
|
| There's nothing that indicates it's better at hiding or being
| 'inoffensive'. A brighter red or other glossy colours are
| just not very interesting but unless it's neon they still
| blend in with every other car because they're normal these
| days. A boring white/black design would be more inoffensive.
| scottyah wrote:
| I am also a big fan of the colors. I feel like I get enough
| flashy bright colors from my phone and job, and it feels more
| natural and calming. I think the calming bit also
| subconsciously gives me a feeling of more dependability as
| well.
| lzaaz wrote:
| I hope this is a parody.
| ericsoderstrom wrote:
| it is
| blitzar wrote:
| I havent purchased a new car in a long time but I believe you get
| to chose the exterior finish ...
| phil21 wrote:
| It's pretty much about a dozen shades of gray, and 2 or 3
| selections of black/white these days after car shopping. This
| may be slight hyperbole.
|
| If you want to paint a new car something other than
| white/grey/black it seems these days you are both paying
| substantially more from the factory, as well as dealing with
| unknown delivery times for your "custom" color car.
|
| Most folks seem to shrug and pick one of the many shades of
| grey.
|
| I've been commenting on this trend for a couple years now. My
| pet theory was society is simply moving towards a more dire
| mood the past 5-10 years.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Typically you can choose from a few colors in whatever the
| manufacturer considers a "standard" finish. Additional colors
| -- plus the glossier or more pearlescent finish options -- will
| be artificially locked in to a higher trim package. So, you'd
| end up spending (e.g.) $5500 to go from "red" to "glossy red",
| and you'd end up with a bunch of other options you may not have
| wanted. It's a great, consumer-friendly approach to
| customization /s.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Usually costs quite a bit more to get specifically what you
| want rather than what's available on the lot.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've never had an issue negotiating a decent price on a
| customized order over a car already on the lot. Just have had
| to wait a few months usually for it to come in.
|
| As for "any color you want", Audi has advertised for quite a
| few years that for $2500 (or so, it may be more now) you can
| have any color under the sun. But, when I actually tried
| this, I was told, "We don't know you, your dealer is too
| small, we wouldn't paint it that color, and we're booked up
| for a solid two years anyway". So, while they advertise it
| for anybody, they seemingly were only doing it for VIPs.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'm a little confused by this comment. You start by saying
| you've "never had an issue" customizing a vehicle order,
| but then a few sentences later directly give an example
| where you had an issue getting a car customized.
|
| Which is it? Did you once try to get a car customized only
| to be told they're booked up for a solid two years, or have
| you never had an issue and only had to wait a few months
| every time you've tried to get a car?
|
| Personally, I absolutely have had issues trying to custom
| order a car. The first time I tried to buy a new car I
| assumed I could easily go and order exactly the options and
| colors I wanted, only to be turned away from dealership to
| dealership for actually placing an order. Every dealer only
| wanted to sell the cars on their lots or search their
| networks to find similar enough cars to sell me instead of
| placing an order. The second time buying a new car dealers
| would agree to take my order, but wouldn't commit to having
| any kind of delivery even within a year.
| julianlam wrote:
| I used to think that all Toyota drivers were just boring,
| choosing the same colours for their cars. As it turns out,
| only the boring colours are available for no additional
| charge.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| That kind of effect can amplify the apparent popularity of
| various things. 40% want the boring colors but the other
| 60% are very-divided over what they'd like, so it ends up
| looking like 90% want the boring colors because most people
| won't pay (much) extra to get the color they want, and
| manufacturers favor not-offensive over actually-desired in
| a lot of cases.
| twism wrote:
| and wrapping cars nowadays are almost indistinguishable from
| factory paint
| timeon wrote:
| I do not find color off-putting but the shape. All the SUVs look
| disproportional. SUV looks to me like swollen version of a car.
| bityard wrote:
| I sometimes tell owners of SUVs that their car is a descendant
| of the station wagon.
|
| They usually don't like to hear that for some reason.
| sbaiddn wrote:
| Depends on the SUV. A Ford expedition, and other full size
| SUVs most certainly were not descendants of station wagons,
| but of covered full size trucks.
|
| Love my wagons, btw. Id love to have a subtle sport wagon.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| I have been noticing this style for almost 10 years. The recent
| uptick in cars with this style paint surely indicates that it
| will not be around much longer.
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