mmarshall

Probably the only production car to have anything even near this in significant numbers was the DeLorean stainless steel gull-wing car built in Northern Ireland about 25 years ago...after John Delorean left GM. Its finish, while pure unpainted metal, was a much lower-gloss brushed-metal. And we all know the rest of DeLorean's story......getting caught by narcs with a suitcase full of drugs trying to raise enough money to stay in buisness.

CleanSC

::grates some cheese on the fenders::

mmarshall

That's just Electric Blue with an Italian name (Lambo)........and Electric Blue was one of my originally posted top 10 colors.

mmarshall

While we're on the subject of paint colors here, one interesting point that has yet to be brought up on this thread is just how much the average car buyer today is really getting screwed when it comes to color choice. A perfect example is the upcoming Chrysler 300C SRT-8...sources say it will be available only in silver or black. Excuse me?????...this is a high-performance sport sedan, not a funeral hearse.

Years ago....in the 50's, 60's, and to a lesser extent, 70's.....you could literally have your choice of DOZENS of factory colors....even on non-luxury cars. Two-tones.....even THREE-tones....were everyday occurances....both outside and inside. A single-shade car, or a car with dull colors was condidered "square"....you weren't "with it" inless you had an Impala SS or a Ford Galaxie with orange, white, and turqouise combined, or pink, white, and rose.....you get the picture. Plymouths and Dodges in the late 60's and early 70's had as much as 36 different colors to choose from. Then, sometime in the late 70's, the bean counters decided that they could save money by limiting paint and interior choices....and the rest is history. And while I have a generally high opinion of both Honda and Subaru, they are two of the worst offenders here......some of their models only come in a couple of paint colors, period, especially with interior color matches.

CleanSC

Actually I was referring to the cheese grater on wheel arches.

I love the color. hehe

LexFather

Wow. Maybe cause the paint has to be water based now as well?

mmarshall

Good point...I had forgotten about that. It's not so much that the paint had to be water-based, but around 1990 or so EPA changed the auto paint formulation rules...that was part of the Clean Air Act of 1990. It mandated a change from volatile paint that had fumes that would evaporate up into the ozone layer to paint that would not do so....which, as you point out, basically meant water-based paint. That increased costs even more....and auto manufacturers had problems for several years in the early 1990's with premature peeling paint, until they had the new formulas perfected. From what I remember, Ford, Chrysler, and some Mazdas especially had this problem. Sometimes it was " covered " ( no pun intended ) by extended paint warranties or if a customer complained hard enough.

LexusQuest

Laguna Seca blue

Spyder187

That graphite or titanium greyish colour. Not sure I'm saying it right, but it's a darkish grey with the nice shiney sparkly clearcoat.