What ever happened to brightly coloured cars?
Discussion
Jawls said:
Some great bright colours in this thread. Love the Boxster in lava orange.
My old Audi was in boring Daytona grey, but when upgrading to my Cayman I knew I wanted an exciting colour. But vast majority of second hand market seems to me black, white, silver. Barely any racing yellow out there.
Do like the bright orange Focus RS’ you used to see as well.
Focus ST usually orange wasn't it? Focus RS in the bright green? My old Audi was in boring Daytona grey, but when upgrading to my Cayman I knew I wanted an exciting colour. But vast majority of second hand market seems to me black, white, silver. Barely any racing yellow out there.
Do like the bright orange Focus RS’ you used to see as well.
RobM77 said:
SidewaysSi said:
RobM77 said:
For me at least, it's about being discreet and blending in. This particularly applies to performance cars that you want to drive briskly sometimes. This has become more and more prevalent as road rage has become more of an issue over time.
Totally agree. If it's something like a Caterham, a bright colour is fine as most people won't envy you. But in anything remotely expensive/desirable, I prefer something more subtle.My old Cayman GT4 was in bright red. Nothing too OTT but I did feel a bit on display and some of the attitudes from the general public wasn't worth it.
To enjoy and truly use niceish cars, I go for something subtle so the next GT car will probably be black, grey or silver!
When I was 21 I had a Celica Carlos Sainz in red. I had a few road rage incidents directed at me, one pretty nasty, and from listening to their red faced rants it quickly became apparent they thought the only reason to buy such a car was to show off. My next car was an MR2 in dark blue and I didn't have one single incident. And yes, my first Caterham arrived a few years later and that was viper blue with silver bonnet stripes, so quite noticeable, but everyone just thought I was a beardy guy in a kit car and left me alone. From owning different cars and driving different hire cars over the years a pattern slowly emerged. People don't understand our love of cars - they think fast cars are purely for going fast or for showing off and that's it. If you don't want any trouble, you therefore need to drive at a sensible speed and buy a car that's in a discreet colour and spec. For me that doesn't impact my enjoyment of cars at all, but what it does do is get these idiots off my back.
To properly use a remotely sporty car i.e. go shopping, park it anywhere etc., I want it to be in a dull/boring colour.
SidewaysSi said:
To properly use a remotely sporty car i.e. go shopping, park it anywhere etc., I want it to be in a dull/boring colour.
My Elise is a daily driver in a brightish colour (it's BRG but has bright yellow stripes) and I've never had any bad experiences with regard to how people react to it. Quite the opposite usually. Jawls said:
UTH said:
Focus ST usually orange wasn't it? Focus RS in the bright green?
They definitely made at least some RS in orange, but you might well be right as regards which was more common. Either way, think the bright green was a great colour too!
But agreed, both the orange and green were/are awesome.
My wife had a bright metallic green (Vertigo?) 2000-year Renault Megane. Don't think it was a standard colour in England - car had been imported from Eire. Easy car to find in a car park. She now has a metallic blue (Brilliant Blue?) Clio. All my cars, for the last 20+ years (apart from a short time in a very dark blue Accord) have been silver, black or a shade of grey. As I buy used cars my colour choice is severely limited.
DoubleD said:
SRT77 said:
You can't beat a bit of Liquid Yellow. The downside is that it's not exactly under the radar. 
I cant think of a colour that I like more than this. Someone recently painted a Caterham in liquid yellow and it looks fantastic. The red they used for the later models is also rather fine.
kambites said:
SidewaysSi said:
To properly use a remotely sporty car i.e. go shopping, park it anywhere etc., I want it to be in a dull/boring colour.
My Elise is a daily driver in a brightish colour (it's BRG but has bright yellow stripes) and I've never had any bad experiences with regard to how people react to it. Quite the opposite usually. SidewaysSi said:
kambites said:
SidewaysSi said:
To properly use a remotely sporty car i.e. go shopping, park it anywhere etc., I want it to be in a dull/boring colour.
My Elise is a daily driver in a brightish colour (it's BRG but has bright yellow stripes) and I've never had any bad experiences with regard to how people react to it. Quite the opposite usually. In 8 years of Elise and 4 years of Caterham ownership I never had road rage once. I know people with Porsches who barely drive them due to the horrendous road rage though...
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