What vehicle colors will be hot in 2010 ? . . .
05-29-06, 08:30 AM
#1
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What vehicle colors will be hot in 2010 ? . . .
Take a spin as the color wheel turns
May 29, 2006
BY DAN JEDLICKA AUTO WRITER
It's difficult predicting the future, so one of the toughest jobs in the auto industry is determining what colors will be hot several years from now. And color is so important when buying a vehicle that consumers tend to reject a car or truck within 90 seconds if they dislike its color, says a major color industry study.
"The fashion industry is working on colors for 2008, but General Motors already is working on 2010 vehicle colors," said Christopher Webb, GM's manger of color trends in North America. Webb thus has the lead role in selecting exterior colors for its Chevrolet, Saturn, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Hummer vehicles.
"Representatives from such diverse industries as clothing and appliances visit GM to see what colors it feels will be popular four years from now," said 30-year-old Webb. He was a fashion student at the University of Brighton in England when recruited by GM in 2001.
By the same token, GM keeps an eye on colors and color combinations and contrasts -- besides complementary color shades of various products, even shoes and cell phones.
So what vehicle colors will be hot in 2010 ?
"More metallic colors. Bright blues and oranges, with silver blends, will be among the most popular," Webb said here in a recent interview. "Also look for more paint jobs with colors that change their shades, depending on lighting conditions, such as a teal that seems to shift from green to blue. Our Buick Lucerne and Cadillac CTS now offer such colors as options.
"Silver now is the most common color and won't go away any more than white will vanish. But new technologies will let us use more adventuresome metallic colors for paint jobs that hold up under tough environmental conditions."
New metallic finishes help bring out a vehicle's shape, which Webb says is "a definite plus."
I told Webb I tested the rakish new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with bright silver paint that really emphasized the car's racy lines.
"There you go," he said with a knowing smile.
"We're designing vehicles that elicit more emotions, and color plays a definite role with them," Webb said. "But we must be careful. The smaller the object, the more color it can 'carry.' A bright color that looks sharp on a small car can look awful on some large vehicles."
The wildly optimistic 1950s in America were known for splashy two- and three-tone paint jobs for U.S. cars, but that paint soon faded because autos lacked today's transparent "clear coat" paint-protecting finishes, which are being constantly improved.
Webb gave the dramatic retro-style 2003 Cadillac Sixteen auto show car 29 coats of luminous metallic paint, which gave it incredible color. The average car or truck only has two paint layers, partly for economic reasons.
"Many show cars have nine to 10 coats of paint. But you couldn't touch up such a paint job if it were scratched -- you'd need to repaint the entire vehicle," Webb said.
Really wild paint jobs were seen on 1950s custom auto show cars, which were never driven outside enclosed display areas because weather soon would have caused the finishes to fade badly.
Fading finishes now would be disastrous for an automaker. To prevent that, GM has such facilities as a "paint farm" in Florida where new colors are tested for two years under the burning sun to see how they hold up. Webb said every new color costs GM $1 million to develop, and that it introduces 22 new colors each year for its U.S. vehicle brands.
"Americans are more conservative about vehicle colors than Europeans because they're in a more [conformist] 'ready to wear' society, with designer knockoff clothes and such," Webb said. "Also, the mood in the country was more sober after 9-11, and it wasn't proper to be too colorful. So we saw more white, black, silver and beige.
"Americans are becoming adventuresome again about colors because terrorist fears are receding, and more folks are traveling overseas and being exposed to more dramatic colors in, for example, European countries. The world has gotten smaller. And, with the economy strong, people are more likely to try different things and to be more expressive."
Webb said kitchen appliances long were "just aluminum, just metal, just white, but now there are refrigerators in baby blue, baby pink. Things often go in cycles. In some ways, we're returning with color to the 1950s, when there were brassy red Buick Skylarks."
GM has found that people in sunny, "brighter" climates such as California's or Australia's are more receptive to brighter colors.
However -- and this might surprise some -- Webb said young vehicle buyers currently prefer more conservative colors.
"Toyota's small, youth-oriented Scion models are popular among young drivers, but Scions generally don't offer bright colors," Webb said.
Webb was here recently for GM award presentations to winning designers at the fourth annual GM-sponsored "Imagine 2006" International Academy of Design and Technology student fashion show at Union Station.
Students at that Chicago school created unique fashions that "captured the essence" of hot new GM cars and SUVs. For instance, a modern dress with lightweight fabrics complemented the open-air design of the sporty Pontiac Solstice roadster. And a quilted jacket had stitching inspired by the Cadillac Escalade's signature grille.
Winners and vehicles that inspired them were Barbara Ketonen (Lucerne), Ana Carolina Cantillano (Escalade), Kristen Lee Arividson (Chevrolet HHR), Anna Van Essen (Solstice) and Rachel Bommer (Saturn Vue Green Line).
And does Webb dress colorfully? As with many designers, most of his wardrobe is blue or black. He even drives a black car. Go figure.
source : chicagoredstreak.com
May 29, 2006
BY DAN JEDLICKA AUTO WRITER
It's difficult predicting the future, so one of the toughest jobs in the auto industry is determining what colors will be hot several years from now. And color is so important when buying a vehicle that consumers tend to reject a car or truck within 90 seconds if they dislike its color, says a major color industry study.
"The fashion industry is working on colors for 2008, but General Motors already is working on 2010 vehicle colors," said Christopher Webb, GM's manger of color trends in North America. Webb thus has the lead role in selecting exterior colors for its Chevrolet, Saturn, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Hummer vehicles.
"Representatives from such diverse industries as clothing and appliances visit GM to see what colors it feels will be popular four years from now," said 30-year-old Webb. He was a fashion student at the University of Brighton in England when recruited by GM in 2001.
By the same token, GM keeps an eye on colors and color combinations and contrasts -- besides complementary color shades of various products, even shoes and cell phones.
So what vehicle colors will be hot in 2010 ?
"More metallic colors. Bright blues and oranges, with silver blends, will be among the most popular," Webb said here in a recent interview. "Also look for more paint jobs with colors that change their shades, depending on lighting conditions, such as a teal that seems to shift from green to blue. Our Buick Lucerne and Cadillac CTS now offer such colors as options.
"Silver now is the most common color and won't go away any more than white will vanish. But new technologies will let us use more adventuresome metallic colors for paint jobs that hold up under tough environmental conditions."
New metallic finishes help bring out a vehicle's shape, which Webb says is "a definite plus."
I told Webb I tested the rakish new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with bright silver paint that really emphasized the car's racy lines.
"There you go," he said with a knowing smile.
"We're designing vehicles that elicit more emotions, and color plays a definite role with them," Webb said. "But we must be careful. The smaller the object, the more color it can 'carry.' A bright color that looks sharp on a small car can look awful on some large vehicles."
The wildly optimistic 1950s in America were known for splashy two- and three-tone paint jobs for U.S. cars, but that paint soon faded because autos lacked today's transparent "clear coat" paint-protecting finishes, which are being constantly improved.
Webb gave the dramatic retro-style 2003 Cadillac Sixteen auto show car 29 coats of luminous metallic paint, which gave it incredible color. The average car or truck only has two paint layers, partly for economic reasons.
"Many show cars have nine to 10 coats of paint. But you couldn't touch up such a paint job if it were scratched -- you'd need to repaint the entire vehicle," Webb said.
Really wild paint jobs were seen on 1950s custom auto show cars, which were never driven outside enclosed display areas because weather soon would have caused the finishes to fade badly.
Fading finishes now would be disastrous for an automaker. To prevent that, GM has such facilities as a "paint farm" in Florida where new colors are tested for two years under the burning sun to see how they hold up. Webb said every new color costs GM $1 million to develop, and that it introduces 22 new colors each year for its U.S. vehicle brands.
"Americans are more conservative about vehicle colors than Europeans because they're in a more [conformist] 'ready to wear' society, with designer knockoff clothes and such," Webb said. "Also, the mood in the country was more sober after 9-11, and it wasn't proper to be too colorful. So we saw more white, black, silver and beige.
"Americans are becoming adventuresome again about colors because terrorist fears are receding, and more folks are traveling overseas and being exposed to more dramatic colors in, for example, European countries. The world has gotten smaller. And, with the economy strong, people are more likely to try different things and to be more expressive."
Webb said kitchen appliances long were "just aluminum, just metal, just white, but now there are refrigerators in baby blue, baby pink. Things often go in cycles. In some ways, we're returning with color to the 1950s, when there were brassy red Buick Skylarks."
GM has found that people in sunny, "brighter" climates such as California's or Australia's are more receptive to brighter colors.
However -- and this might surprise some -- Webb said young vehicle buyers currently prefer more conservative colors.
"Toyota's small, youth-oriented Scion models are popular among young drivers, but Scions generally don't offer bright colors," Webb said.
Webb was here recently for GM award presentations to winning designers at the fourth annual GM-sponsored "Imagine 2006" International Academy of Design and Technology student fashion show at Union Station.
Students at that Chicago school created unique fashions that "captured the essence" of hot new GM cars and SUVs. For instance, a modern dress with lightweight fabrics complemented the open-air design of the sporty Pontiac Solstice roadster. And a quilted jacket had stitching inspired by the Cadillac Escalade's signature grille.
Winners and vehicles that inspired them were Barbara Ketonen (Lucerne), Ana Carolina Cantillano (Escalade), Kristen Lee Arividson (Chevrolet HHR), Anna Van Essen (Solstice) and Rachel Bommer (Saturn Vue Green Line).
And does Webb dress colorfully? As with many designers, most of his wardrobe is blue or black. He even drives a black car. Go figure.
source : chicagoredstreak.com
05-30-06, 04:23 AM
#3
Lexus Fanatic
I can't believe some of the stuff in this article. No more bright colors because of 9-11? We can't do two and three-tone paint jobs just because it isn't the 1950's any more ? You can't paint larger cars bright colors because someone " thinks " they look better on small cars? Sunny colors just for sunny climates?
Please...let's get serious. No wonder auto marketing is so screwed up.
Please...let's get serious. No wonder auto marketing is so screwed up.
and White too .
05-30-06, 05:47 AM
#5
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quoted from the forst post :
"The average car or truck only has two paint layers, partly for economic reasons".
LMAO, atleast they admit that, cause most of new GM cars don't have enough paint on them to cover the primer, if you look close all the silver,gold, light blue metallic and other metallic colors show primer trough the clearcoat and basecolor, even the Cadillac DTS
"The average car or truck only has two paint layers, partly for economic reasons".
LMAO, atleast they admit that, cause most of new GM cars don't have enough paint on them to cover the primer, if you look close all the silver,gold, light blue metallic and other metallic colors show primer trough the clearcoat and basecolor, even the Cadillac DTS
05-30-06, 09:16 AM
#7
Lexus Champion
Originally Posted by Lexmex
"Americans are becoming adventuresome again about colors because terrorist fears are receding, and more folks are traveling overseas and being exposed to more dramatic colors in, for example, European countries. The world has gotten smaller. And, with the economy strong, people are more likely to try different things and to be more expressive."
The color of your car is related to terrorism. BUAH!!!
I agree with LexMex. Metallic Black sounds awesome. What I would really like to see i the
return of 2 tone paint jobs. Luxury car makers need to bring it back.
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05-30-06, 12:48 PM
#8
Super Moderator
Originally Posted by bruce van
What a crock of you know what! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
The color of your car is related to terrorism. BUAH!!!
I agree with LexMex. Metallic Black sounds awesome. What I would really like to see i the
return of 2 tone paint jobs. Luxury car makers need to bring it back.
The color of your car is related to terrorism. BUAH!!!
I agree with LexMex. Metallic Black sounds awesome. What I would really like to see i the
return of 2 tone paint jobs. Luxury car makers need to bring it back.
With my RX300, I actually had that two tone job with the black top and gray bottom panels...hated it and loved the Silversport look and painted the lower panels on mine to match.
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