No, it’s not green but a very excellent yellow called Solar Yellow Metallic.
Here is the Ford Ka colour palette. The blue is greenish but not a pure green.
Ford’s stalwart comes in 12 colours in Germany. I have picked Torino Brown Metallic. Ford deserves a big cheer for this excellent, if greenless, range of shades.
Driven To Write 
Volkswagen´s Cross Caddy has a very vital viper-green – that makes even this car a little bit beautiful….
The green looks better on my iPhone than on my laptop.
That is rather good! I wish both of these cars were a bit more Spartan – aren´t they almost too good to get dirty? I had the use of a Transit Connect in 2004 and I really liked its rough and bash-tolerant nature.
Wow that’s a very bling looking van-based MPV (the VeeDub). Does no one want a purely functional looking car anymore? As you write, Richard, these cars look best wearing a hair-shirt, not Gucci accessories. I saw that the Berlingo was given a “lifting” by PSA at the Geneva show: what have they done!? The interior, with infotainment screen added looks horrid trying to be something it wa never designed to be. Still, the public gets what it wants/ deserves, or so it seems.
Having used Kangoos and Berlingos as work horses since the start of this Century, I find the current versions greatly disappointing. The Mark 2 Kangoo we’ve had for the past few years is stodgy and I realise that, when I need to go somewhere, I tend to drive anything but it. I even take my Audi (as I’ve just done) despite its appalling urban fuel consumption rather than sit in the Kangoo. This was not the case with any of its predecessors, especially the Mk 1 Berlingo which was a pleasure to drive around town or distances. I realise its part NCAP but, taking SV’s point, does the public really want these bloaters?
Sadly, our Kangoo is silver. I think.
I’ve driven almost any type of van available in NL in my years as a driver at the Dutch mail (1998-2010). I honestly think the Mk1 Berlingo/ Partner is one of the best looking small vans ever designed (I like the Citroen front best), later iterations (starting with the remodelled Mk1 front) don’t look half as good. It’s a pleasure to drive as well, as is the Caddy. Never liked Kangoos, I have fond memories of its predecessor Express/ Extra/ Rapid though. I agree with Richard that it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a van to be a bit spartan.
I have to disagree with some of the earlier comments. There’s nothing wrong with some shiny paintwork and a few gadgets to make it more pleasant in every day life, particularly if it was acquired for non-professional use. Why should it feel any less spartan (no capital ‘s’ needed – I would use the term ‘honest’ instead personally) if you want it to, as it should after all remain true to its utilirian roots, regardless of any added creature comforts.
I recently got to drive a VW Caddy and found it very pleasant, though maybe not as good to drive as a Vauxhall Combo I had at my disposal a few years back – that was light and straightforward without feeling crude, which made the job at hand all the more enjoyable.
It is often not capitalised but you can capitalise if you want, even when not referring to people from Sparta.
And I believe it is mistakenly capitalized because of confusion between the proper adjective ‘Spartan’, and the common adjective ‘spartan’ that was derived from the former. So there.
I’m a masochist.
Is not the Dacia Dokker the right car for spartanic people?
Apart from the Sandero, all the Dacia cars have that bashable quality I liked in the Tourneo. In Denmark the Dokker only comes as a van, with no rear side windows. They have a lot of van-like vehicles, don´t they? The Dokker comes in two colours: white and blue. One more colour, please. Yellow? Bright green? Cheerful aqua? Still, yes, Dacia have the rubber boot car sector sewn up. Good work, Markus!
Sam: not so fast. While I think the matter is ultimately arbitrary, I would argue that just as I would say a clothing style looked French and an architectural style look German, I would say a hotel room might look Spartan. For most publications this kind of dispute is solved by reference to a style guide. If I was an editor I’d opt for a capital but respect your argument for a lower case (but make sure your reporting career stayed in the small claims court of Chipping Campden).
And I disagree on the basis that once the adjective refers to a notion instead of a specific point of reference. It might seem trivial but as it stands your example would refer to the actual syle commonly found in Sparta (just like your other examples involving French and German styles), as opposed to the generic, made-up notion of what the Spartan lifestyle (presumably) entailed, which is your intended meaning. So while it may not be of much importance here as the meaning is understood in spite of the confusing capitalization (but only because the concept is better known/understood than actual life in Sparta, be it now or in 400 BC), it can be key in other situation where capitalizing or not may actually be key to the meaning of the sentence. I rest my case.
Vigourously argued and I will award points for that. However, since my life generally offers no opportunities for the indiscriminate abuse of authority, I must use a chance offered here to dismiss your views out of hand and insist that the DTW style guide demands the use of a capital.
That said (serious hat on now) when you say something looks French or Armenian are you not also using it to refer to something notional as in “That hat looks kind of Armenian” Would you write his hat looked armenian (when we know it was made in Holland) and that it looks Armenian (because it was made in Armenia?). Is it true that in French one uses lower case for this type of adjective? “`C’est anglais”. (Sorry if that´s not written correctly). I feel that if I want to say Jeremy´s house looks a bit Spartan inside then that´s as valid as saying it looks a bit Italian or Welsh.
As I said, this is undecidable and that´s why style guides exist. Great debate! You don´t find that at Autocar!
Good point about the way adjectives derived from proper nouns are treated in French. I don’t necessarily agree with it but it is likely to taint my judgement somehow.
My take on this is that it depends on how far removed from the proper noun the adjective has become. For me once it becomes a standalone concept which does not require any specific knowledge of the particular person, place or object it is derived from, it shouldn’t be capitalized e.g. ‘Shakespearean studies’ and ‘events that are taking a shakespearean turn’.
A friend of mine is chief sub-editor for a magazine here. I’ll ask him what his style guide says on the matter.