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Oarch 14 hours ago

Like wet putty

https://www.blackbirdspyplane.com/p/why-do-new-cars-look-lik...

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klik99 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Good article, though I do like some matte paints and some of the dulled color looks. The problem for me is not that these aren't good paint choices by themselves, but how uniformly dull every car is. Most cars come in 3-4 shades of grey or a dull red, if there is color more often than not it's that wet putty look. I legit felt sad a couple of times looking at a big parking lot and the total lack of color. If people had a variety of color cars, then a few of those wet putty dulled out versions would be part of that variety.

There's almost certainly strong market and logistical reasons for this trend, and I bet some HN reader knows why to an unreasonable detail (I'd be interested to hear it!), but it still bums me out.

	▲	shiroiushi 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think there's two parts: 1) A lot of car buyers worry about resale value. For the same reason a house with a purple and pink paint scheme won't sell at top price, a car with strong colors won't either. You might like seeing cars in a variety of colors like bright orange, bright green, etc., but those colors will absolutely turn away a significant fraction of the potential buyers, thus lowering resale value. If you could just press a button inside the car to change its color, it wouldn't be this way, but as it is, repainting a car is prohibitively expensive. 2) Just look at the way people dress these days. Boring colors are in, bright and bold colors are out and generally associated with the 1960s. We're in a very bad time now as far as color palettes and styles go.

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chongli 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is that writer from Philadelphia? Very quirky and colourful writing style!

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telcal 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Was it the jawn? That article was by Jonah Weiner who grew up in NYC.

	▲	chongli 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yep!