Fresh from the annual ICPPA (International Car Paint Producers’ Association) Conference, Driven to Write brings you a preview on next year’s vibrant new shades.
We are also pleased to report that on occasion of the conference, Henry Ford was elected posthumous honorary member of the association.
Driven To Write 
I must say, there are some very exciting new colours there. The CPPA is really pushing the boat out. But is the fourth from the right ‘Winter Melancholy’, ‘Total Despair’ or ‘Why Bother’?
Not quite Sean, I think you’ll probably find it’s ‘Wordless Scream’. Easy to confuse them…
Remember, all cars are black in the dark.
As you might notice on the photo, it was a little foggy today, so there was no sunlight to bring out the charcoal highlights on ‘Despair’ or the deep anthracite lustre in ‘Melancholy’. Therefore, I was not able to distinguish them from ‘Why Bother’ which was described to me as ‘a very profound dark grey with a hint of soot’.
There’s a lot of variety there in those blacks. I like “Easy resale graphite” (second from right) which is a bit cheerier than “Leasing Deal Charcoal” (centre) though that colour is good for hiding dents below the side rubbing strip. I wish these wacky greys and dark, dark black colours would be more popular though. Metallic light grey seems to be everywhere. I hear you can also get mid-grey in some markets. It’s like dark grey but not as dark. I guess some people would find it okay for a small car but not for a large car.
On re-reading the Bardsley Issigonis biography this evening, I was reminded of the mildly curious fact that Riccardo Burzi, Austin’s long-serving stylist, was colour blind.
This made me wonder if colour blindness was more prevalent among designers of three dimensional objects than among the general population. Drawing in blacks and greys on a white background; sculpting in monolithic materials; the much-ridiculed monochromatic garb of architects.
The more I think about it, the more the notion seems plausible.
Apart from their dress, architects used to be notoriously averse to colour, though that has changed to a degree post post-modernism, Their attitude came from the old modernist thing of despising embellishment and the old brutalistt and classical thing of using natural materials. For that reason, when they were forced to work with colour, some architects could become uncharacteristically indecisive.
Another thing is that most people design with a specific colour, or usually a lack of colour, in mind. Changing the colour changes the way we view a design, so the designer loses some control. I never found again the quote I read from (I think) Pininfarina about silver being the best colour to paint a car because it let you appreciate its form. This before everyone else in the motor industry read the quote and implemented it to distraction.
In a way, choosing the correct palette for a particular car should be part of the original designer’s job, but those decisions are usually made elsewhere.
That might also explain why some car designs are terribly colour sensitive.