Hooniverse Asks: What Was The Most Aesthetically Unsuccessful Factory Paint Color on Any Car?

By Robert Emslie May 4, 2016

Mercedes-Benz-A-Class_2016
The color, texture and fabric choices that the automotive industry uses is derived from the fashion industry, and typically follows that category by about five years. That’s why we saw so many brown cars in the late Seventies, a short time after Earth tones had fallen from favor in the halls of haute couture.
We all love brown cars, don’t we? I don’t know why it is but that Gaia-grain looks pretty good on pretty much any car you can so swath. May be it is a race memory, recalling our original evolutionary march out of the dirt.
Whatever the reason, it’s usually a solid choice for a car, although over the years there have been many other hues that have attempted to usurp Brown’s position, and have failed fitfully in doing so. What we want to know today is, which of those do you think was the worst, most abject, failure in a factory color scheme? Hopefully someone won’t offer your choice before you, making you see red, and then be green with envy until you feel blue.
Image: CarsGuide.au

0 thoughts on “Hooniverse Asks: What Was The Most Aesthetically Unsuccessful Factory Paint Color on Any Car?”
  1. I refuse to engage in this monochromatic agenda. More cars need to be painted in weird colours!

      1. Maybe, but then I don’t think of silver and such so much as a failure, as an unwillingness of the public to accept occasional failure.

    1. I know that feeling bro. I can’t even remember the last ti… Oh wait, you mean the car ?

  2. If you’re going to raise the issue, you should use a photo of a horrid color. That awesome green does not qualify.

    1. That awesome green looked best on 1980-ish Toyota Corollas, with the dual headlamps. On something as slick and lumpy as that Benz, it looks like someone 200 feet tall hocked a loogie onto the road, or a quadriplegic frog.

      1. I think that awesome green looked best on Chevrolets around 1970. “Citrus Green Poly”

        1. Yes, this is a case of, “My God! What is that car doing to that poor paint job?!?”

      1. Gold chains were extra though.
        I love Corvettes, but if someone gave me one of these to drive, I’d probably have to get out a few rattle cans and some seat covers before I would drive it. Maybe a plain white wrap.

        1. I think you could take the decals off. Like the purple isn’t that bad, though it’s definitely extremely late ’90s, but the yellow graphics are a bridge too far.

          1. The yellow wheels & seats aren’t things anyone should have to look at, either.

        1. Damn! That’s a hideous color combo. Guess that’s what happens when you buy paints from the mis-mixed bin at Home Despot.

      1. I know a guy who put Massey Ferguson decals on his. When we were out on a ride once a farmer said at a coffee stop that he didn’t know they did bikes. So we told him about Triumph TR2s and TR3s and he didn’t believe us.

  3. Thankfully the grape jam and teal colors that Ford was so fond of in the 90s are largely forgotten.

  4. I can’t find a satisfactory picture, but in the early 2000s Mercedes offered a weird and ugly greenish silver, seemingly particularly common on SLs.

  5. Not sure if taxicab or extremely faded actual yellow. Worse yet, it seems to have somewhat of an actual following among Volvo fans.

    1. The 850T5-R was the first to carry the turbo-torch after a tough period for Volvo. It was a good success and unprecedentedly Un-Scandinavian in its choice of colour. So it’s at least special.

      1. Is that a real ad? Almost looks like an uncanny valley of ’90+ Volvo dash font.

        1. Yup, I first thought of it because I have an old issue of Car & Driver with this ad in it (well, the first half, because it’s missing the back cover).

    1. Yeah, when I look out the window, all I see is: Gray, White, Black, Gray, Gray, Gray, White, Beige, Beige, White, Gray, White, Black, Gray…
      I’m kinda looking at funky fluorescent green Scion iMs these days…

    1. I had a Hyundai Excel in that champagne color. It was great because, as long as you washed the windows, the car looked clean because it was the same color as the typical Southern California dust!

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