Henry Ford is said to have said his customers could have any color they liked, so long as it was black. Well, what he actually wrote – in his 1922 biography, My Life and Work, was “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” This applied to the Model T from 1914-1925. Why did Ford paint all those cars black?
Because it was cheaper – and faster. Black paint dried faster, which helped speed along the assembly line. Ford was almost monomaniacal about reducing the cost of making Model Ts, so that he could sell more Model Ts. Today – 100 years later – it seems you can have any color you like, so long as it’s white. Or a shade of gray.
Your eyes are not lying to you about this.
More than a quarter (25.7 percent) of all new cars are painted white. More than 80 percent (80.4 percent) of all new cars sold are painted grayscale colors – white, gray, silver and black. That’s why parking lots increasingly look like the appliance aisle at Lowes or Home Depot. It’s apt, because the typical new vehicle is an appliance. A crossover or an SUV of some kind and for the most part, these already all look the same same. Why bother painting the same thing a different color?
Especially when it costs extra.
Ford didn’t charge his customers anything for the black paint and – today – the grayscale colors are also no charge. But if you want an interesting color – especially a metallic red or yellow or something like that – you might be looking at an option that costs as much as air conditioning used to back when most cars didn’t come standard with that. For example, if you want a new Subaru Forester in blue, it’ll cost you $395 extra. Jeep wants $595 extra for yellow or dark green metallic on models like the Compass. But the real heart attack comes when you find out how much it costs to paint a luxury-brand car something other than grayscale.
BMW includes black and white at no extra charge, but if you want your new 3 Series painted metallic black, it’ll be another $650. Red is the same – and if you want a really interesting color such as Tanzanite Blue Metallic it’ll add $3,600 to the car’s price.
It’s a weird thing when you think about it. Features that used to be options – and even luxuries, such as climate control AC – are pretty much standard in most new cars, even the entry-level ones. This column has mentioned on prior occasions that no one sells economy cars anymore. Economy cars were cars that did not come with AC – or much else beyond seats, a steering wheel and a heater. But you could usually get whatever color you wanted at no extra charge. There were a lot of options. Here’s an example. The 1980 Chevy Chevette – which was very much an economy car – was available in the following colors and none cost extra:
Can-Am White, Classic White, Polar White, Frost White, Linen White, and Yellow White), Silver Metallic, Charcoal Metallic, various Blue shades (Light Blue Metallic, Medium Blue Metallic, Bright Blue Metallic, Dark Blue and Dark Blue Metallic); Green options included Medium Green, Bright Green, and Dark Green Metallic. Yellow tones included Adonis Yellow, Yellow, Light Yellow, and Yellow Bird. You could also go with shades of Beige (Cream Beige/Frost Beige, Medium Beige, Camel Beige), Brown (Saddle Metallic, Dark Brown Metallic). How about Omaha Orange? Varieties of red included Scarlet Red, Cardinal Red, Claret Metallic, Dark Claret Metallic, Cinnabar Red, Red). You could also specify hues of Carmine (Carmine, Dark Carmine). Richmond Gray was also available.
The Chevette was vanilla – but you could get it in just about any color. Two-tones, even. The same was true for most cars in the Before Time – defined as before the early 2000s, which not coincidentally is when America became the Homeland. Before that happened, Americans didn’t have to worry about standing out. Now they do. We live in a surveillance state. Cameras are everywhere and everyone is being watched, everywhere they go. It’s not a coincidence that people want to blend into the crowd and what better way to do that than to drive a looks-like-everything else crossover or SUV that’s painted a grayscale color, like pretty much everything else?
It’s interesting to point out the truism that as a country becomes authoritarian, it goes grayscale. Everything begins to look the same, bleak and and gray-ish. It is a symptom of the crushing of the creative spirit. In its place, a dreary homogenous sameness that is as soul-less as it looks. It makes you want to look down, not up. It makes you want to scream, but you don’t because someone might see you and say something.
Best to just turn up the AC, keep your head down and be a Good Citizen, all buckled-up and safe.
. . .
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Regarding BMW’s Tanzanite Blue, to be fair, that paint is “formulated using actual crushed tanzanite gemstones, giving it an exceptionally deep, brilliant luster and crystalline sparkle.” Having seen it in the the show room, it is a beautiful color. Pigment itself is getting more expensive, especially with the modern paint formulations that have been foisted on us in the name of “preserving the environment”. Red is especially expensive. I sure do miss the non clear coated lacquers!
‘As a country becomes authoritarian, it goes grayscale.’ — eric
Bright colors to grayscale — in cars, clothing, home decor — goes in cycles tied to social mood. An extraordinary example, fueled by widespread availability of LSD, occurred in the mid to late 1960s when psychedelic colors were ubiquitous, including on hand-painted VW hippie vans. Peter Max Finkelstein [usually he omitted the surname], who is now 88 years old and tonto, personified the era.
Currently there’s a backlash against ‘millennial gray’ in home interiors, and probably soon against ubiquitous white farmhouse style exteriors. Excavated Pompeii shows that Roman color choices were garish by our standards.
AI claims that standardizing production on grayscale colors saves money for auto makers, reduces risk for dealers, and also reduces resale risk.
Colored dyes once were costly. Only royals were allowed to wear purple, the costliest. Periods of prosperity tend to encourage bright colors to accompany the bright mood. Whereas authoritarianism, often accompanying or following economic disaster such as warfare, promotes a somber social mood and muted colors. Artem Stisovyak, a Ukie boudoir photographer whose country actually is at war, shoots in muted colors on actual film.
It’s hard to read where the US is right now on a social mood scale. Stocks are near record highs, but consumer confidence is plumbing record lows, as the lions share of capital gains accrue to one-percenters like the MFOB [Monstrous Fat Orange Bastard] and the Tech Lords.
Official stats claim that we’ve had but two (2) months of recession in the past 17 years, an unprecedented run fueled by years of zero interest rate policy in the 2010s, and now by $2 trillion deficits. The next recession is gonna be a doozy. Likely it will kill off two-thirds of auto makers. Survivors will consolidate into Big Auto, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Gov. And like the late Amy Winehouse, we’ll be ‘back to black.’ Any questions?