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An azure blue Jaguar concept car at the North American International Auto Show caught the attention of Kenneth and Kimberly Dobson. The paint color has a shimmery, changeable quality. The auto show runs through Jan. 23.Color makes a comeback
Brighter hues in autos, fashion and appliances may signal optimism
This Sears Kenmore washer comes in Sedona orange.
It had to be hue
Silver is still the No. 1 color in North American automobiles, but it’s fading a bit in popularity. What car color catches your fancy?
What does your favorite color say about you, whether it's cars, fashion or blenders? Color experts such as Lee Eiseman are paid to figure such things out. Here Eiseman describes what car color reveals about an owner's personality. The colors are listed in order, according to DuPont Automotive's ranking of the most popular automotive colors in North America:
1. Silver: Elegant, loves futuristic looks, cool.
2. White: Fastidious.
3. Vibrant Red: Sexy, speedy, high energy and dynamic.
4. Deep Blue-Red: Some of the same qualities as red, but far less obvious about it.
5. Light to Mid-Blue: Cool, calm, faithful, quiet.
6. Dark Blue: Credible, confident, dependable.
7. Taupe/Light Brown: Timeless, basic and simple tastes.
8. Black: Empowered, not easily manipulated, loves elegance, appreciates classics.
9. Neutral Gray: Sober, corporate, practical, pragmatic.
10. Dark Green: Traditional, trustworthy, well-balanced.
11. Bright Yellow-Green: Trendy, whimsical, lively.
12. Yellow Gold: Intelligent, warm, loves comfort and will pay for it.
13. Sunshine Yellow: Sunny disposition, joyful and young at heart.
14. Deep Brown: Down-to-earth, no-nonsense.
15. Orange: Fun-loving, talkative, fickle and trendy.
16. Deep Purple: Creative, individualistic, original.
KitchenAid now offers its stand mixer in grape and other hues.
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Hey you over there, in the chartreuse green sweater. Turn off that bright blue Apple iMac computer, put down your pink iPod, and when you're done mixing dough in the red KitchenAid mixer, grab your fuschia purse and let's take a ride in your almost entirely colorless, silver car.
What's wrong with this picture? As Americans enjoy an explosion of color in their lives not seen since the avocado green and harvest gold '70s or the aqua blue and poodle pink '50s, we're still driving cars with scarcely any chroma on the sheet metal.
Chroma -- that's saturated color, what makes an object something other than silver, gray or white.
For the past several years, our cars have been frozen in an elegant but icy Age of Silver. For several years before that we lived in a purist white period.
But according to Karen Surcina of DuPont Automotive Systems in Troy, although silver is still the most popular car color in North America (followed by the not-so-daring white) many car buyers actually prefer shimmering blues and flaming reds. And with vivid hues popping up on the runways and in the computer and appliance aisles, can brighter roadways be far behind?
"Silver is still the No. 1 color in the market, but it's leveling off from where it was last year," says Surcina, color programs manager for DuPont Automotive. "Some people actually prefer more vibrant colors, but they don't always buy them."
That's because silver is perceived by buyers as a safe resale color, although that could backfire if everybody in the world tries selling their silver cars at the same time.
While the German and Japanese displays at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center look like acres of gunmetal, silver and navy (except for a splash of color over at Mazda), Surcina sees "a recurrence of color" at the auto show.
"You still see a lot of silver, but there are more chromatic reds," she says. "And bluer reds for the luxury cars."
Fashion colors are one factor influencing automobile colors -- look for aqua and greenish-blues in the spring 2005 fashions, as well as in cars.
The fashion-to-car cross-pollination doesn't always work though. Pink is still hugely popular in women's clothing, but unless you're one of Mary Kay's top-sellers, you won't be driving a pink Cadillac.
High-tech automobile paint finishes actually can influence the look of home appliances.
KitchenAid mixers have been offered in a variety of colors for several years, but a new metallic copper offered this year looks like it came right off a 2004 Pontiac. And Sears is offering a Kenmore washer-dryer in a reddish orange called "Sedona" that's all over the auto show.
The reason for the return of color: A sunnier American mood, Surcina believes. "There's a more optimistic outlook now," she says. "Silver is safe and conservative; we were going through some difficult times and it worked then."
Red is one of the strongest colors at the auto show, and Denise Fleckenstein of Bloomfield Hills doesn't have to be convinced, she's all about red. Cranbrook's director of planned giving drives a burgundy red Lincoln LS. There was a red Nova and a red Thunderbird supercoupe in her past.
"I feel sportier in it, and it's a rich looking color," says Fleckenstein. "I've always liked red cars. I have red clothes. It's a good color on me."
At Friday's Charity Preview at the auto show, another red beauty stole her heart.
"That red Mustang," she says with a sigh, of the redesigned Pony Car.
The Ford Mustang is a bright red, a color that in sports cars will never go out of style. A trendier red at the auto show has orange undertones, and greenish blue is on the rise as well.
For anyone who remembers the '80s, the particular shade of greenish-blue known as teal screams '80s as much as headbands or leg-warmers.
But as color experts point out, those who've grown up since the '80s don't make that connection from having seen too many teal junkers on the road, or walking into a house and seeing a beat-up '70s avocado-green refrigerator.
"People of a certain age group, boomers or seniors, might say 'Oh, nooo, save me from avocado green,' " says color forecaster Lee Eiseman, author of "The Color Answer Book" (Capital Books). "But there are a couple of new generations that either weren't around, or were so young they don't remember. To them, that color looks very new and fresh."
Most greens are on the downswing, except for yellowish-green, especially the chartreuse that came back from the '70s and even popped up on the Pontiac Vibe in recent years. (Volkswagen's flower power-ish Cyber Green has the same kind of retro-cool appeal.)
Those yellow-greens (avocado, chartreuse) were out of fashion for a long time, and it took a while for them to come back, Eiseman says.
"Yellow-greens are not among the most popular choices," the color consultant says. "But when they start making inroads, when you start to see people wearing them, then there is a greater acceptance in other design areas. We saw that as far as computers with the Apple iMac."
Some of the more eye-catching hues at the auto show are the azure blues we'll also see on the spring runways. A few, like the Chrysler Crossfire in sapphire blue metallic, have a lavender sheen.
The silvery blue Crossfire was Jasmine Du Bois's favorite color. "I just can't take my eyes off it," says the Oak Park woman.
Over at Jaguar there was the usual green (try British Racing Green if you don't want Jaguar Racing Green), but the new Jaguar coupe was shown in a shimmering azure blue, the color of the sky after a light summer rainfall.
The blue Jaguar enraptured Kenneth and Kimberly Dobson of Toledo and Detroit.
"I love that color," says Dobson, eyes shining. "What would you call it?"
Color expert Eiseman describes it as having "that wonderful shimmery, changeable quality that captivates the human eye. You cannot not look at it."
Photos don't do justice to colors like the Jaguar's and the Crossfire's. They change as light washes over the finish.
"It's the pearlized finish that really does it," says Eiseman.
A color with a silvery sheen is sort of where silver is going in the future, color experts say. Instead of that plain pewter, silvers are going to be infused with green or blue tints, and even warm reds or browns.There's one age group that isn't as worried about the resale value on that bright orange or retro-futurist green car -- the youth market. Bright, saturated colors have always been popular on sports cars -- and with young people.
Bob Taylor, 49, of Bloomfield Hills sees that in his family. For himself, Dad likes nothing but black cars.
"Black, when it's clean, is the best looking color," he says. "It's both sporty and classy."
His wife prefers white. But when it comes to their teenagers, all bets are off.
"My kids like that movie, 'Fast and Furious' -- those cars were in real bright colors," says Taylor. "And they love to watch that MTV show, 'Pimp My Ride.' Kids will watch that and paint everything a bizarro color. Never black. When kids get a car, they want to be noticed."
Denise Fleckenstein, who owns this maroon Lincoln LS, fell in love with the new red Ford Mustang at the auto show.Henry Ford once said that customers could have a Model T Ford in any color, "as long as it's black." But in later decades, Americans took to bolder colors in all areas of life:
1950s: Two-tone Chevys and Studebakers in pinks, yellows and aquas roamed the earth, with pink the No. 3 most popular color in 1957, according to DuPont. The yen for pastels was also a trend in clothing and home appliances at the time and a sign of Eisenhower-era optimism.
1960s: In the early part of the decade, cars were more muted; the brown, turquoise or white of a Jackie Kennedy sheath. The youthquake of the late '60s, with its psychedelic colors, influenced fashion, but despite all those yellow Roadrunners and red Mustangs, the most popular car colors were gold, brown and green.
1970s: Earth tones were still in full sway, and the avocado green, gold, maroon and browns seen in laundry rooms and on maxi skirts were also on our cars. Silver blue surged in the late '70s.
1980s: Sure, teal and a bluish red were big in leg-warmer colors, and those old teal cars really stick out on the road, but gray actually was the most popular color during the middle part of the big-hair era.
1990s: Back to earth tones with browns, tans, white and especially greens, which ruled in the mid-'90s, as the minimalist Calvin Klein is big in fashion. Black is very big in fashion and car color, with a brief window of popularity for champagne-colored cars toward the end of the decade.
2000s: Always popular, white surged into first place after the turn of the millennium, until silver once again tightened its grip on the hearts of car buyers. But in home furnishings, electronics and fashion, bright color made a comeback, with Hollywood starlets eschewing the little black dress for pink, copper-brown and orange gowns on the red carpet.
You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall@detnews .com. Susan Whitall Susan Whitall
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