colour – Driven To Write

A Stroll Through Zurich (and Other Places)

Visiting different places is always an opportunity to see different cars. This is obvious when going to other countries or even continents, but even a one-hour journey to the nearest bigger city can prove interesting.

After having lived for twelve years in an Alpine setting, I know that the taste for cars here is rather conservative. You will find the most mainstream brands (which nowadays often are the ‘premium’ ones) and everything that offers cheap four wheel drive. Colour-wise, people will stick to greyscale, blue or red. When I recently had some time for a walk in Zurich, I wondered if I’d Continue reading “A Stroll Through Zurich (and Other Places)”

A Green Car – Without Even Hunting

I was browsing through Citroën’s configurator, when very unexpectedly, I found this:

ds3_green

Continue reading “A Green Car – Without Even Hunting”

Still Out Of Favour

This item appeared at Car Design News. Among the interesting findings was that yellow is not much in evidence.

One wonders about these colour consultancies. They have no special access to the future yet are willing to guess (or is it propose) what it might look like. Presumably the consultancy has a lot of software to link economic and social indicators to colours. But it works the other way too. Colour affects our mood, acting to provoke a moment of “wow” or what Kant would call a pure aesthetic moment. So as well as the social mood influencing what colours we want perhaps colours can be selected to affect the social mood or even just to find people who are not in tune with it. Thus, the colour consultancies could push a colour and be pro-active in their predictions. One can review the data from now to say what might happen. One can also head off those trends by taking action. The time is right for yellow, I say. Let’s not give in to boring old trends but shape the future and ask for yellow cars.

LA Motor Show Shorts 2

Very short this time. While everyone else is wondering if this three-row, seven seat leviathan can crack the US market for VW, I am wondering if…

…VW has a thing about gold metallic paint. Looking past the attractive paint, I notice they have chosen to give it a curious-looking feature line down the side, one paralleling the wheel-arches which are very nearly squarish. The headlamps and grille are styled to look rational – is this what the SUV buyer in the US actually wants? I had argued they want something quite ugly and butch-looking. I mean that buyers of SUVs who use them to cart junk and do heavy work probably don’t care a lot for Bauhaus geometry. The people who do will buy a Q7, I would have thought.

Micropost: Mid-Greens

My search for green paints in current cars didn’t turn up much. This and this and this, only. However, these. These are properly green.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Today I saw this 2006 Ford Fiesta and a Skoda Felicia. These are the greens that are now in short supply. If you really want to

Continue reading “Micropost: Mid-Greens”

2016 Cadillac Escala Concept Car Interior

Last week I mentioned a bit of news from Cadillac and promised I would return to that when the car had been revealed. That happened. Here is my response.

2016 Cadillaci Escala interior: source — 2016 Cadillac Escala interior: source

As you might recall the teaser photo drew our attention to the spangly OLED technology which is going to grace Cadillacs in future. I expected the follow-up news to deal with a new exterior form-language for Cadillac. Much of the commentary dealt with that, with less on the interior. Previous Cadillac show cars at Pebble Beach included the well-received Ciel of 2011 and the Elmiraj coupe from 2013 and people expected something more production-ready. They discussed that too. Continue reading “2016 Cadillac Escala Concept Car Interior”

Micropost: 1999-2005 Toyota Yaris

This is about colour. Toyota also offered the Yaris in a metallic mint green. Later years seldom saw such personal colours.

The Yaris is a car that I feel has been around for longer than it has. Why is that? The first one had a zany Europroduct appearance which has gone direct from fresh to “period” with no intervening awkward phase. The dusky pink looks pinkier when you Continue reading “Micropost: 1999-2005 Toyota Yaris”

Theme: Colour – Red Micropost

We’ve been talking a lot about red. Here’s a 2016 Mondeo in Hilti red. It’s a quite terrible photo …

2016 Ford Mondeo (or is it the 2007 car?)

….but if you had a chance to photograph a unicorn you’d take a shot, regardless if the sun was behind the unicorn and Lord Lucan was slightly in the way.

Theme : Colour – Signature Colours

Most cars are some kind of grey today, a fact we have mourned often here at DTW…

zz_01-05 — Signature colours – white to black

But every now and then, a manufacturer decides to market a model in what I call a ‘signature colour’ – one that is closely linked to a car model. Now this definition is somewhat fuzzy, and subjective, too. But as a hint, think of a colour the car was presented in on press photos, a colour that was only available for a single model, or a model / trim variant that was only available in a single colour. Rather than an in-depth essay, I’d like to present a small colourful gallery with some comments. Continue reading “Theme : Colour – Signature Colours”

Theme: Colour Micropost

We haven’t quite got around to exploring this so much.

In mitigation, I’ll present the interesting colour combination of the Opel Agila “Njoy” special edition. Critics of my Opel bias can roll their eyes if they wish. However, in keeping an eye out for bright, distinctive colours while roving around Germany it’s been Opels (Corsas, Merivas, Astras) that have been most likely to have characterful paint jobs. Continue reading “Theme: Colour Micropost”

Theme : Colour – Introduction

All Cars Are Grey In The Dark

Colour. What a minefield that is! From your playground days, you might remember angry debates as to whether you had a right to nominate Green as your ‘favourite colour’. And, unlike many other childish foibles, the irrational and excessive reaction to colour doesn’t go away.

As you can see from the above collage provided to me by Sean Patrick, some people agonise over colour. Some years ago, the poor boy went to great lengths to decide which colour to respray his car though he tells me that he is still not sure he made the right choice. Personally speaking, I favour grey, which is not strictly a colour, or, if I must nominate actual colours, those shades used by the military. I am more liberal concerning the choices of others. Unfortunately, the motor industry is not. Continue reading “Theme : Colour – Introduction”

Received Wisdom

The received wisdom is that large cars don’t look good in bright colours. I think the truth is that some people like bright colours and some people don’t.

In the same way, coffee is more popular than tea. That doesn’t mean tea is “wrong”. This stridently yellow Tesla T is, in my view, rather wonderful. Let us all now wax lyrical about mustard coloured Mercedes and Mimosa Yellow and Chrome Yellow. Continue reading “Received Wisdom”

Official 2017 ICPPA Colour Palette

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.

Variety and originality in modern paint colours.

We are also pleased to report that on occasion of the conference, Henry Ford was elected posthumous honorary member of the association.

Be Careful What You Wish For II

In December 2014 we ran an item about the changing styles of luxury car interiors.

2017 Lincoln Continental interior in its Rhapsody form. — 2017 Lincoln Continental interior in its Rhapsody form: caranddriver.com

A year or so later we find someone answering our calls.

In an article about how Lincoln do not want to copy the Germans, there is also discussion of the Lincoln Continental’s blue interior option. Here is a chance then to see if blue interiors are something that appeal to anyone other than automotive design commentators. My impression is that this is a welcome bit of bravery on the part of Lincoln. The all-blue colourway creates a very pleasant atmosphere that manages to Continue reading “Be Careful What You Wish For II”