Hyundai’s colour palette for the i10 has been enthusiastically received in my corner of Europe.
Here are as many as I can find. The boring silver is not a default for i10 customers. This one is non-metallic grey, not seen since the first Audi TT.
Here are more….
There isn’t a green one though.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a very new Octavia vRS in flat grey, with big diamond-cut ‘rimless’ wheels.
It looked excellent, very much like the car the Saab 9-3 could have been, but it’s a brave person who puts their money into that colour scheme in the UK.
I think some other manufacturers offer it, possibly in the VAG Reich. Others who idle their time on configurators may be able to confirm this.
It seemed as if no-one would comment on this delectible item.
I find the fashion for matte coatings regrettable. It looks wrong – often wrong is mistaken for interesting.
I have seen the same grey VRS and it is indeed a fine looking thing. The similar colour Focus ST also looks good; better than the rather crap orange. I also saw a late model 911 in a similar flat grey with tan leather interior; sweet Jesus, it was love at first sight.
Those non-metallic greys seem to boom at the moment. I just saw such a Focus yesterday. Fiat also has it for their sportier versions of Punto and 500. For the latter I’ve seen at least two different ones, a light one and a rather dark one, but I’m not sure if the latter has some slight metallic or pearlescent effect. I’ve never had the opportunity to look at it up close.
i10 buyers are spoiled in Europe. Here in the UK the choices are white, silver, grey-blue, dark grey and black, the only non monochrome outlier being dark blue. No orange. No brown. Not even a red. Poor.
That’s British conservatism for you. Danish design conservatism means dreary white and black interiors and clothes as limited in their palette as the UK’s cars. If you looked at a 2005 and 2016 copy of a housey magazine you’d find no difference.
Now now, Richard, I do believe you might have lapsed into received wisdom there. White, black and grey might be the most popular colours in the UK in 2015, but not by much. That is surely the influence of fleet managers protecting those all important residuals. Notably, blue and red are both more popular than silver. The rest of the top ten is rounded out by green (your favourite), brown and orange. As for the tenth most popular colour in the UK, would you believe it to be mauve? I can only think that Triumph have been clearing out their inventory of Stags.
https://www.carwow.co.uk/news/white-most-popular-colour-1675
That’s an interesting list, Chris. I was thinking that I certainly hadn’t seen that many mauvy cars in London to put it at number ten, but I see that the West Midlands is actually one of the most adventurous markets colourwise. So, at least we can look forward to a brighter roadscape post Brexit. Every cloud has a … mauve … lining?
A yellow and a lime green (flat) would be welcome in the range plus some kind of pink.
I tried to sell the missus on the merits of green/yellow when she was ordering her Ibiza back in the day. She ended up opting for white because it was a no cost option, plus she didn’t want a car the colour of post-Berocca piss. A shame, as I thought it to be one of the more handsome launch colours.
The conversation came up again when she was speccing a Kuga. I liked the Ford’s soft green, but she wasn’t sold on either the colour or the car, opting for a CX5 in the same red every other Mazda comes in these days.
Both look very nice. What colour is your car again?
Mine is also red, albeit flat scarlet. And they (Richard) say that British people don’t like strong colours?
I like the Kuga green too. It is a subtly glitzy, appropriately SUV version of an off-road sort of colour.
Yesterday a red metallic one drove past. They do exist but evidently not in great numbers.