Brown overthrows the Rule of White and Silver

For more than a decade Silver ruled the world, then Steve Jobs revolutionize
white by using it in Apple products but it seems both these colours have become monotonous to the eyes as is claimed by Sandy McGill, BMW Designworks' lead designer in color, materials, and finish. Later on Light blue's ascended because of its omnipresence in clear skies, clean water.

Now new paint technology may finally allow fashion's passion for fluorescents
to flow from the runways onto the highways and the colour that has emerged as the most enticing color trend, from our perspective is brown. After all, what could be more compelling to unicorn-riding Rainbow Brites like us than the hue derived — as any child left too long at an easel will readily demonstrate — from combining every shade in the visible spectrum?

As recently as 2008 articles and experts were prognosticating the "extinction"
of brown as an automotive exterior color: it was too rooted in the malaise of the 1970s, it blended in too well with the scenery, it lowered resale value. Even the aesthetically-bereft American Automobile Association (AAA) danced on brown's loamy grave, claiming, in their Car and Color Safety dispatch of 2004 that, "brown, black, and green cars [are] roughly twice as likely as white cars to be involved in crashes resulting in serious injury."

But, like every cinematic hero, the very moment of brown's alleged eradication presaged its incipient resurrection. According to paint giant PPG's Global Color Manager, Jane Harrington, brown's latest uptick is based in its ability to convey stability and comfort, as well as the kind of authenticity that consumers— especially luxury consumers — seek. "

High end car makers like Mercedes, BMW, Mini, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley have all begun investigating what brown can do for them, with each marque offering at least two — and in the case of Bentley, a full half-dozen — earthy shades on their contemporary offerings.

Alex Nuñez is Senior Automotive Editor at Consumer Search, and Weekend Editor at Autoblog, he is an industry expert. But it's his role as founder of Facebook's Brown Car Appreciation Society — which now includes nearly 600 members, mainly automotive writers, analysts, and pundits — that catalyzed our interview. "I think it's a nostalgia thing for guys our age. I'm 40, and we grew up at a time when you had all these brown cars in active use," Nuñez said. "Maybe it's that a lot of people who are in decision-making positions in the car industry are of that age, and this stuff is sort of subliminally ingrained as a feel good thing — these browns and earth tone colors."

Experts like Jane Harrington and Sandy McGill are hard at work tracking the next big incipient color trend — bronzes, with their patinaed implication of history and refinement; aluminum flakes that make metallic paints more silky; even digital OLEDs that can display anything, like an automotive iPad. But when we asked Nuñez if there were other color trends he was stalking, he didn't hesitate. "Not really." He is interested only in seeing brown deepen its fecund reign. "I'm disappointed that you can't order a Mustang Boss 302 in brown, or a brown Camaro. So there's still opportunity for expansion."