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Comment by macintux | Hacker News Reader

I purchased a pink (well, metallic fuchsia) Jeep Wrangler this year, and reactions are wildly positive. I get compliments from random strangers at least once a week.

I think people appreciate color, they just don't want to buy something that they perceive as harder to sell because of it. (Plus, of course, a couple buying a car may both like bright colors but like different bright colors.)

Update: I should link to a piece I wrote about the Jeep and reactions to it, inspired by a Bob's Burgers episode.

https://opposite-lock.com/topic/52688/tuscadero

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Back in college I bought the only car I could afford at the time, a '69 AMC Rambler station wagon painted pink with purple stripes on the hoods.. This was mid 90's in Atlanta and I got all kinds of positive comments about that car. Which was weird, being the introvert I was. My wife still says she's glad she met me before seeing my car, lol.

While there are almost surely economic forces that incentivize colour choices, as others have pointed out, and the article points to a gradual trend over time ... I think fashion trends tend to swing in both directions as well.

I remember the 80s being colourful and vibrant. Big hair, bold colours. Especially in women's fashion. Then the 90s pulled back from that quite a bit. Hair styles got flatter and straighter, colours toned down. In the 00's I remember 80s fashion starting to come back a lot. The last 10 years have been felt grey and "flat" again.

I'll occasionally see cars like that - bright pink, or some other bright colour, and they always make me smile. I've taken to describing them as "a car that I'd never want to own, but I'm really glad it exists". Like the pink camo-wrapped Dodge Charger that I occasionally see tootling around town - do I want to own a Charger and do it up in pink camouflage? Absolutely not. Am I glad that the option exists and somebody has availed themselves of it? Absolutely yes.

I gotta admit, when I bought my sports car (2022 BRZ) I specifically ordered it in white. It wasn't a resale value thing (I don't think I ever plan to sell it!), I just thought the various colors were a bit too garish -- it already has a pretty striking profile in white.

I kind of see what the article is saying, but if I'm perfectly honest I can't say it bothers me. I sort of like having beige carpets and beige walls, sometimes too much color just feels visually noisy.

The pictures from the 1970s kind of amuse me; I've always contended that the 1970s might have been the (visually) ugliest decade ever. It's colorful but not in a good way..

Last week I was stopped next to a bunch of ladies in a black and pink Wrangler with cancer ribbons on it. First time I’ve ever felt the need to comment on a car. It was meaningful and very tastefully done. They were delighted for the compliment so I must have managed not to sound creepy.

Wranglers seem to be a popular form of self-expression, I suppose because they're very customizable and obviously include a lot of flat surfaces (and still mostly steel, so magnets work).

To me it seems more of a cult that popped up around people who don’t care much for the wellbeing of others, road manners, or their gas mileage.

I personally dont find this to be true, its not only resale value, this might apply to expensive things, but other more daily things like phones, phone covers, etc, always have black/white as the most selling color.

This IMO is just a social change, people just like monochrome colors.

I wanted a yellow in the used car I was looking for. It was incredibly hard to find and because the color was rare, you have to compromise on everything else. I believe the resale goes up but it takes longer to sell.

All of my cars have been silver or grey because those were my choices buying off the lot and I didn't want to pay extra and wait to get one from the factory in a more interesting color.

Offtopic: I really like the UI of that forum.

The curators have put a lot of work into it to make it resemble our old home. A very friendly UI and community.

It's the successor to a Kinja site that used to be closely affiliated with Jalopnik, before it was detached (when one of the contributors misrepresented themselves as a Jalopnik author for borrowing cars for reviews); eventually all of the unofficial boards were entirely kicked off Kinja by the new G/O Media ownership.

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