Why this is interesting: Why are people going crazy for flat-coloured cars? I’ve long had a theory that tries to explain this, one that hinges on our fears and our hopes.
First, the image and the question that prompted it:
A cream-coloured Jaguar I-Pace. Image: Grant McCracken
Drew, I was talking to Ric Grefe last week, trying to figure out why we are seeing a new kind of color on cars. I said, "I know just the guy to think about this!" The color in question is featured on very late model Volvos and some luxury brands, including this Jag, though I have to say this photo diminishes the color in question. Would be very grateful for any thoughts! Thanks, Grant [1]
And now, my response (edited a little for clarity and with images for illustration):
The whole “wet putty” look?
My sense is that these colours have come to represent a kind of comfortable nostalgia, with two different themes.
As the Spyplane piece points out, Nardo Grey at Audi and Chalk at Porsche seem to be the progenitors of the current movement.
I find it interesting to hear people refer to Nardo as “battleship” grey, and when you note that it’s typically applied to Audi’s most aggressive RS-badged models — as is putty mid-dark grey when typically applied to other manufacturers’ cars — I wonder if there’s something of a war footing about that thread of the movement?
As for the non-grey putty colours — the pastel creams, blues, greens, pinks and teals — they are the colours of a post-war genteel, functional, optimism. They’re enamel dishes, a nice ceramic jug, a new, coordinated bathroom suite. They’re the automotive embodiment of the shop Labour And Wait in London. They’re colours of gentleness to tone down aggressive forms [2].
We‘ve been here before in more colourful form, with the New Beetle in 1998 and the 2002 New Thunderbird whose signature colours were flat yellows and, in the case of the T-Bird, mint green, too [3].
I find it interesting that, more broadly, in the lead up to the previous economic crisis and this one, the industry has retreated to either retro colours or retro forms and I’ve long had a theory it’s out of a desire to project the comfort and safety of earlier days.
[1] Back in the days of my old blog, DownSideUp Design, an anthropologist by the name of Grant got in touch. He was curious about a piece I'd written about the ways in which the American car industry had failed to understand, to its great cost, youth culture. Over the years, we went on to form an email friendship and we sometimes help one another answer some gnarly question or other about culture and our work in it. Recently, I received just such a question from Grant and, having responded, he suggested I share what I wrote.
[2] I've talked around this perspective in my piece on the prevalence of the millennial aesthetic in Gothenburg, Sweden.
[3] I was operating from memory when I wrote this, and got the mint green T-Bird wrong. The other signature colour was Thunderbird Blue, a mica turquoise, but the colour that best illustrates the point is Coral, which was introduced on the 007 limited edition.