Color is clearly an important factor when it comes to choosing a car, but can it make or break a purchase? We have friends who will accept a car in any color, as long as it’s a model they like, but others who will absolutely refuse a bucket list car if it’s the wrong color. Other times the car may not be a bucket list buy, but the color is just so charming you can’t help it. Would a 1979 Mazda GLC wagon be as desirable in silver? With older cars, when there’s a dwindling pool to choose from and beggars can’t be choosers, but color can still be a dealbreaker.
Have you ever bought a car (or not) because of the color?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What do you do with your stickers?“.
Sticker collectors seem to fall into two camps. Those who are saving them and those who are sticking them.
Among the latter, as daniel said, they represent the car’s history, so it would make logical sense to put automotive stickers on a car. But where? For Laurence A Simmonds the ideal location is the trunk lid. We’ve also seen it under hoods as well. The days of putting a roll call along the fender or door seem to be over. The most popular place is the rear window, as Negishi no Keibajo, Ian G. and Jonathon avow.
If the stickers don’t end up on a car, a toolbox is another popular spot, according to TheJWT and Joe Musashi. Or, you could put them on the side of an old CRT television, as Jonathon does.
Those that haven’t been peeled yet have fewer options. Random Rascal keeps them in an album, Jonathon in a folder, and Negishi no Keibajo in an envelope. That can present a problem if you want to see them, so the TheJWT framed a bunch and hung them on the wall. Joe Musashi put them under a glass desktop, both good solutions.
However, last week’s winner was kuaygfnya, who came up with a idea we haven’t seen before but is ingenious. It lets you decorate something like a toolbox or fridge but also rearrange them if you choose to:
The ones I want to keep I make magnets out of. Most of them are stuck on my file cabinet. The ones I don’t care about I give to my nieces because stickers are fun for kids.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
I’m not so picky when it comes to my cars, but for my ’96 Suzuki GSX-R 750, the classic Suzuki blue / white was a requirement. That was the one I always wanted as a kid!
I agree with you that factory race colors for bikes are usually best, Yamaha’s Speed Blocks, HRC’s white, red and dark blue and Kawasaki’s kawasaki green and of course your Suzuki blue and white!
And all of these look absolutely wrong on another make!
Speed Blocks are cool, but Yamaha Blue by itself is a gorgeous color.
nopes, most cars i buy are rust brown anyways.
but i like the blank canvas white cars are so when given the chance i choose that!
All the time. Paint is expensive to change. Usually, if I’m looking for a car, I have colours that are preferred, colours I won’t accept, and then the acceptable ones if the price is right. This extends to interior colours as well. Last year, I got my wife a new car, and the exterior was neither the colour we preferred for that model nor a colour we wouldn’t accept, and the interior was one of the preferred colours. We got it for a price we couldn’t say no to, so totally willing to compromise on the exterior colour.
I was looking for the replacement for my 1997 M Edition which I had decided to sell in Spring 2008. While scouring Autotrader, I spotted a blue Miata on a lot in Florida. It wasn’t just any blue Miata. It was one of the 150ish 2002 Laser Blue Miatas in the US Market. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know any of that. I just knew it was the coolest blue I’d ever seen. I turned to my wife and told her that this was the one. I drove my M Edition from Cincinnati to Knoxville, sold it to a friend, then hopped a 13 hour bus ride to Ocala, Florida, where I bought the car essentially sight unseen. I had had a local look at the car for me, but he had missed the fact that the muffler had a crack around both ends, 3 of the 4 tires were bald, and the 4th had a nail in it (or at least it did by the time I drove the car to Atlanta). The suspension was also blown and the car was exhibiting the characteristic “bucking” at speed caused by the failure of the Cam Position Sensor that most of the NB fleet had not aged enough to encounter. My thread on Miata.net was one of the first journeys into the discovery of the problem.
On the bus ride, before I ever laid eyes on the car in person, I gave the car the name it has worn for the last 18 years: The Tick. Laser Blue, as it happens, closely resembles the color of the suit worn by the comic book superhero. It’s mistaken for any number of other Mazda blues depending on whether it’s clean, dirty, in the light, or in the shade. My goal for the car has pretty much always been OEM Plus: the car that Mazda could have believably sold off the showroom floor if the technology (like Android Auto, for example) had existed at the time. Its modifications include a Bikini top, adjustable coilovers over factory Bilsteins, 15×8 FFD Evo 1 wheels (a near clone of my first dream wheel, the ATS DTC Comp), a rollbar, and a steering wheel spacer. I even rebuilt the car after a 2017 accident at Miatas at the Gap.
All this for a blue car I spotted on Autotrader and just had to have.
Spoooooon!
I blame my older brother. He introduced me to the character even before the animated series debuted.
In 1993, teal or turquoise pearl was quite the popular color choice. So when it was time to get a ’93 MKII MR2 in ’03, I had to get one in Turquoise Pearl Metallic (only year for that color) since it was so fitting.
Fast forward to 2020, when it was time to buy an NB Miata, I always thought that Classic Red is the way to go along with the tan top and interior. Thought it was so iconic.
I was at the Toyota dealer getting recall work done and they had a TRD edition (with body kit) FR-S in Yuzu Yellow. I’m glad it was my least favorite color because it took away any temptation to buy. This yellow reminds me of bananas. I also don’t like lime green and candy apple red, which seem to be a favorite for customized cars.
I was going to buy a 2018 Honda Jazz to learn manual. It was a color I detest, though; metallic grey, that not-black, not-grey, not-charcoal, they call it “Modern Steel Metallic”. I’m not a big fan of the metallic range. I had a booking to test drive it and when I rocked up, a woman was signing the papers for it, so we quickly found a similar alternative – 2013 Honda Civic in red. Much better.
I am too much of a cheapskate to worry about color, plus I like rare stuff. My nostalgic car is flat single-stage brown dulled by the years (it will not be beautified until it is proven reliable) and my motorbike is burnt orange, which I despise, but I was lucky to actually find one for sale so… Both factory colors, so I guess both look good from driving position!
I haven’t had this problem yet. I quite like my cars in the colors they came in. That hasn’t stopped me from thinking about alternate color possibilities if I did get them painted at some time in the future.
For example, if I had the ’88 Conquest TSI painted a different color, I’d have to go with Jeep’s Bikini Pearl Metallic.
My ’86 300Zx I want to keep in Thunder Black, but if I had to go with an alternate color, a really dark purple I think would suit it well.
The xB…well, I haven’t given it much thought for the xB. My original plan was to keep the exterior color stock. (1D2 Thunder Cloud Metallic) and do up the interior street style in blue with yellow bits and bobs and trim (at least the front half).
After reading reports that over 80% of cars are either black, white, or silver/gray, I decided the car I was looking to replace my 2010 Mazda3 (in white) would have some color. I had taken a fondness to a friends Honda Fit and when I saw one in Mystic Yellow Pearl I instantly knew what I was going to buy. I ended up buying a 2015 EX (manual 6-speed) and am absolutely in love with its versatility. I won a bet when my friend said the two 30 gallon water barrels I just purchased would not fit in the car. They did in the back seat.
On a side story about ten years ago I purchased a 1998 Volvo V70R in black. At the time my wife and I were looking for one in Saffron but as they sold in such few numbers were hard to find, at least in good condition. When I went to look at the black one we ended up buying, the owner mentioned that he originally was going to buy a Saffron but that the dealer told him it would have a bad retail value so he opted for the black. I told him my story of hard they were to find and that one in similar condition to his black actually was worth more. When I went to pick up the car he told me that after we talked he did some research and found that Saffron indeed was getting a premium. Lesson learned, buy the color that makes you feel good and don’t listen to the dogma of others.
I refuse to own a silver car, that’s my number one rule when buying cars. The obvious reason is that it’s NOT a colour, and most cars do not look good in silver, except for a few German cars. It has (somewhat) kept my fleet at a reasonable number, but I had to pass up a lot of interesting cars, even if they are good deals and can be flipped. A couple of Preludes, an SMX, FTO, E30 baur etc…
I’ll make an exception to this rule if the silver car happens to be a good condition NSX. But even then I feel like I’ll paint it