Help with Aston Martin Interior Leather Reds

[PaulC14]

Hi All,

Is there anyone who can help me sort out in my mind what colour the various red leather colours Aston Martin use?

I think they are something like this (roughly from light to dark):
Californian Poppy - more orange than red?
Vivid Red - a bright orangy red
Spicy Red - a bright red (something like a red chilli or pepper)
Chancellor Red - a slightly darker red (hint of brown?)
Lords Red - darker again, a cherry red?
Red Oxide - a rust / brown colour?
Eclipse Red - quite dark burgundy like?

Without being able to see two cars with the different colours at the same time, it is difficult to get a feel of them (and then you have to know exactly which colour each is). And so many photos lie - I have seen Chancellor Red look a pure mid red in photos and also a dark cherry red close to burgundy. So descriptions much better than photos (unless the photo genuinely shows the right shade).

My preference is for a pure red (in Porsche paint terms - Guards red without the orange or Carmine Red without the blue - those I have seen together, so can visualise the difference). Therefore, I think the ones I have seen that I really like are probably Spicy or Chancellor.

[PaulC14]

BlackWidow13 said:

PaulC14 said:

And so many photos lie - I have seen Chancellor Red look a pure mid red in photos and also a dark cherry red close to burgundy.

This issue here is that it is notoriously difficult to capture red accurately with a digital camera. Ambient light can either blow out or dull a red tone much more markedly than any other colour.

Absolutely true. I have a red car that can look brown or orange in certain lights and only rarely looks red to the eye, let alone the much less complex digital camera. Only red colour I have seen lot of that always looks good is Mazda's Soul Red. No matter the light, it looks good. A rich cherry red in darker lights and bright red in bright light, but never anything other than red.

[PaulC14]

AdamV12V said:

I dont recall ever seeing Vivid Red, but the others you list all exist but I suspect Spicy Red and Chancellor Red are the least rare of them. That said 99% of all astons have black or grey interiors so any red will be very rare. Spicy Red is the most red of them all, postbox red - like Carrera Red leather from Porsche.

Best way to see them is to visit your local AM dealer... they all have a wall full of paint, leather and stitch samples to help customers spec new cars.

Love the description of postbox red - really easy to relate to. At least in the UK.

Don't think I've seen Carrera Red in a Porsche. I've seen Garnet Red and know they use Bordeaux Red now.

Good idea to visit at dealer, but it is a bit of a trek to my nearest dealer and I don't like to waste their time by just nosing around trying to improve my understanding of the brand. Besides which, there would be a lot of temptation if I did visit - thankfully they were closed when I was in Chichester and ended up stopping when I saw the AM dealer. Sitting in their parking lot, they had a lovely late V8 Vantage S in a glorious metallic red with a mix of red/black leather. Could have ended up costing me more than I really have to spend right now. I need to make sure they have no VH model cars in red before I go!

[PaulC14]

shuzzy said:

I know you said photos may be not particularly helpful here, but hard to describe. I had chancellor red previously and that is quite a bright red and I liked it. I wouldn't want to go any brighter such as spicy red. I now have lordes red and that has a more of a maroonier hint to it, but still looks clearly red. I have pictures of both with the same camera in similar light and the pictures look quite accurate to reality.

Chancellor


Lordes

Thanks for posting these. Chancellor does indeed look more of a proper red in this photo. Nice to have confirmation it really is a proper red. So unlike the AM configurator which shows it to be much closer to your Lords red photo.

[PaulC14]

Just a thought, but could the confusion around a leather colour that may or may not be similar to Black Cherry or more a rust colour be because we've been talking about two different colours?

Iron Ore Red is a different colour to Red Oxide (at least in some Aston documentation), but people have been talking about both as if the names are interchangeable. Understandable as Red Oxide pretty much describes Ferric Oxide (or rust to some people). So both have you thinking iron and so rust in discussions on red (though technically Iron Ore is usually a dark grey to black colour).

I found a book listing Iron Ore Red as up to 2015 (so VH cars) and Red Oxide as 2019 onwards (so C21 cars). In the same book, Black Cherry was listed as up to 2009. Iron Ore Red was described as a very dark red (possibly the colour being confused with Black Cherry?). Unfortunately no description of Red Oxide listed.

To add more confusion, I found a colour called Red Fox apparently available up to 2008. I have never heard of that before.