An aging friend of mine (a fellow I regularly swim with at the local County fitness-center in the Olympic-sized pool, and often go to lunch with) turned in his second leased ES350 for a third new one a couple of days ago......a leftover 2017 (he liked the former 2015 he had so much that he decided not to wait for any upcoming changes on the 2018). He actually turned it in a couple of months early, but he said the dealer gave him a lease-discount and incentive on the new one to do so.....they (apparently) wanted his old one to re-sell as a CPO, for which it easily qualified. (He doesn't pay off month by month like most people do, but pays the whole lease-contact off up front when he signs....he apparently gets another discount for that).

Anyhow, enough of the finances. After two Ho-Hum boring regular silver paint jobs (one with Black leather interior, and one with Ivory Leather), this one has a paint job that, though not a bright color, tends to open your eyes up...Atomic Silver. It's not the first time I've seen the Atomic Silver paint job, of course, and Dodge and Audi have offered a similar-looking light gray/Titanium Metallic shade in the past which looked great.....especially under the glaring lights of an auto show. The Atomic Silver (and the former Dodge/Audi Titanium) are just a little darker than your regular Ho-Hum silver, with a sightly more-pronounced metallic effect...it can be striking, especially in bright sunlight. Instead of getting the Ivory leather interior this time (which he chose last time because he thought the black showed too many scuff-marks).....he went back to the Black interior (even the Ivory interior had black wheel wells and lower-door panels that still showed scuff-marks).

The image I provided, of course, is a similar Google one (I didn't have my cell-phone with me when I first saw the car today)....but I'll try and get some actual shots when I do. I sometimes have trouble trying to up-load them, though....so, we'll see. His car, BTW, has two-tone polished black and gray wheels....not the light silver ones pictured in the image.

GM, unfortunately, doesn't offer that striking Titanium/Atomic-Silver shade, or else I probably would have ordered it on my LaCrosse. But it does, on a number of its different products, offer the Pepperdust Metallic, which is also a quite-classy color....depending on the sunlight, a light smoky gray in some angles, and a very light grayish-Bronze in others. I had little trouble selecting that color...especially after they cancelled four of the 2017 shades and substituted four new ones for 2018.

 

The dealer always has one in the showroom. Great looking color for those that can't handle the darker colors anymore (me). Think this will be my next choice.

 

Atomic Silver gained major popularity in 2016, after several Lexus models debuted it in 2015. Has a few different looks to it in different light.

 

Atomic Silver is my favorite color. But I'm biased...

 

Its a great color. Its funny, I was a little miffed because they didn't offer it on the 2015 LS, but did in 2016 and 2017. I saw an LS in it the other day at the dealer and I didn't care for it, but I love it on all the other models. I think it looks great on cars with some sharp lines and maybe its because the LS460 is mostly smoother looking? Odd.

 

One thing that adds to the Atomic Silver (as, of course, with all of the other Lexus colors), is the smooth, high-gloss quality of Lexus paint jobs. With the possible exception of Audi, few, if any, other manufacturers can match them.

 

i love how atomic silver's appearance is highly dependent upon lighting conditions much akin to matador red mica's. i may be a bit biased, though, as i own cars with both colors aforementioned.

 

it debuted in 2014 on the IS -- not sure about other lexus models.

 

Just on the IS. ES and GS saw it for MY2015 and it became more available in 2015 was my point. But yes IS got it first.

 

gotcha. didn't know if you were aware of the initial release or not. apologies.

 

Don't be, I appreciate the reminder

 

I'd say Atomic Silver is the best Lexus paint color out there, it looks even better than Ultra sonic Blue. Under bright sunshine even an ES looks stunning in Atomic Silver; an RX in the same shade looks like it dropped in from the 25th century. The paint doesn't just shine, it gleams like liquid metal.

Too bad the LaCrosse doesn't have a similar shade. I've seen a brownish metallic color that looks slightly similar to Atomic Silver but it's a lot darker and it didn't pick up the light the same way. I'm a fan of pearl white on big cars, it hides their bulk and accentuates body lines better than dark colors.

On a totally unrelated note, I was turning into a small village as a detour away from highway construction and I ended up in an impromptu convoy of three Starfire Pearl ESes - a facelift ES200 ahead, me in a 300h and an ES250 behind. Weird coincidence... And we were all headed the same way too.

 

I agree.
It's kind of like the millenium silver back in 01.

I love it , especially on the ES. Must be the commercial with all that glamour effect.
It looks just as good in person as it does in the media.

 

Starfire Pearl (now, on the ES, called Eminent White Pearl) used to look stunning, but they seemed to have changed the texture of it somewhat in recent years.....it doesn't have the semi-matte oyster-pearl-texture in it any more. Today, it basically looks more or less like a regular appliance-white with a slightly grainy texture to it. And a number of manufacturers charge up to $995 extra for it....fortunately, Lexus doesn't.

 

Last week I spent about 6 days with a '17 ES300h Luxury Atomic Silver and "light" color interior, it has 2 tones wheels as well. I did NOT care much for the shade BUT it is VERY INTERESTING color. I often looked back to take a second look at it. It looks rich and expensive to fix though.

Now, looking at the GS above I think it looks AWESOME.