Colorful cars are becoming a thing of the past | Hacker News Reader

Colorful cars are becoming a thing of the past

businessinsider.com

I'm not sure it's just due to cost-cutting. Certainly here in the UK there has been a very noticeable shift from bright colours of cars to multiple shades of grey and other colours which to my old eyes look drab and sludgy. My impression is that this is the current fashion.

Agreed.

I don't quite understand it, The 'individuality' of a car seems to be inversely proportional to its price.

People (who are presumably into cars / want to make a statement) who buy BMWs/Audis seem to be the worst, which I don't get.

You would have thought the people who just want to get from A to B would be least bothered about the colour.

Sludge is exactly right - they’re ugly. This is the best example of Dr Seuss’ story about Sneetches that I’ve ever seen in real life.

The auto industry occasionally goes through phases where they intentionally make cars ugly. I don't know why. I think we're in the early days of such a phase right now.

I dunno about early. Look at all the huge holes in the front of cars, fake grilles and black plastic everywhere - it’s been getting worse and worse for years.

I’ve also seen this in trainers. Heading into a shop it feels like 80% grey/black and the rest not really different.

There’s a correlation with car price I find. Lots of baby blue Porsches and bright green Lambo’s in my neighborhood.

Interestingly, the daily driver for these individuals seems to be a white Tesla model Y though.

I remember reading somewhere, that the predominant car colours of a certain time are associated or correlated to the economic outlook of the day. Maybe that's what's at play here?

I'd wager in bad economic times if someone can afford a new car, they would buy something more subdued as to not stand out. In good economic times they wouldn't feel that same social pressure?

Kind of like choosing an outfit for a funeral vs a birthday party.

Yep. Same for fall fashions. Muted colors on cars and for clothing indicate pessimism.

So the headline is misleading. It isn't like we'll never have brightly colored cars again, it's that consumers aren't buying them right now.

Posted right at the time of the release of the Renault 5, sold with the default color Iconic Yellow, and available in Green Pop (also very flashy)... :)

And turquoise kitchen appliances went out of style in the mid-70s along with shag rugs and leisure suits.

Styles and tastes change.

It's interesting to present as colorful cars. There are much fewer cars on the road these days as they are being replaced by large and expensive SUVs.

From the article:

>The culprit? Corporate cost cutting. As profit margins got tighter, automakers went looking for ways to make assembly lines run faster and cheaper.

I'm not so sure this is the reason. If you look at houses, current trends are black and white or a combination of the two.

I think it's more just current tastes than anything.

> I'm not so sure this is the reason. If you look at houses, current trends are black and white or a combination of the two.

> I think it's more just current tastes than anything.

I guess I was wrong about what I thought a trend was, because my understanding was always that the general populace dictates trends. When I go through neighborhoods where people have freedom to choose their exterior color, the new colors I'm seeing are not white, black, or gray, but a vibrant selection across the spectrum. I'd love to see these color choices backed up by actual data, because my unqualified belief (since we're all kind of doing that here) is that the people who are choosing boring colors for new construction are not surveying consumers to find out if they actually like those colors.

I'm not commenting on who makes a trend, only the patterns that emerge in new products for sale.

It's pretty easy to see. Go to redfin, go to any city, and then filter by new construction.

Random example, Atlanta: https://www.redfin.com/city/30756/GA/Atlanta/filter/include=...

White, off white, beige, black is the overwhelming color palette for non-masonry color choices.

Builders buy what people want. And people want the trends they see on HGTV and social media. Not my preference, just pointing out what is most common.

Exterior coloring on homes is actually an interesting thing to look at. There are some colors that won't blend in the neighborhood. Some colors affect heat profile. Yellow attracts wasps... On and on. It turns out there's a limited spectrum of "holds value, doesn't look stupid, won't have negative effects" colors for houses.

Buyers these days can go on the Internet and read about all of this. So can Builders, and you can bet Real Estate agents have numbers to tell them what sells for just-that-little-bit-more.

Crumple zone requirements are quite extensive these days which made cars both bigger externally but also consumed a lot of internal space.

So we went vertical to provide more comfort to occupants as well as to align better with things like airbags.

Most “SUVs” people complain about aren’t actually bigger than current sedans.

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