There have been some truly heinous paint shades offered by car companies over the years, but which one is the outright worst? Since we seem to live in an age where everyone buying a new car checks the box marked silver or gray, it is almost shocking to see a late model car roll by in anything other than one of those dull hues. That being said, since cars have been mass produced over the last 100 years, there have been some real barf inducing color choices made by companies along the way.
The 1970s brought with them a whole palette of browns, greens, and oranges, that made thousands wish for color blindness. The 1950s had all sorts of pastel blues, pinks, and yellows that may look fine on a sweater some douche at the local tennis club would wear, but not so much slathered on copious amounts of sheet metal. Other decades had their own certain look and feel as well. Henry Ford’s strategy of painting every Model T black seems like genius when you lay eyes on some of the badness that slurped out of factory paint guns over the years.
We’re not going to bias your decisions by naming our number one most awful factory paint color. We want to hear your answers. That being said, we’ve shared a couple of low lights below.
What is the worst factory paint color ever?
Eleven barf-inducing colors:
11. That awful green GM overused back in the late 60s and early 70s (“Citrus Green,” or “Keylime Green”I think)
10. Ford’s “Medium Lime”
9. GM’s “Victorian Amber Firemist” (1974)
8. GM’s “Conestoga Tan”
7. Chrysler’s “Salmon Coral” (what your stomach probably looks like inside after a kegger)
6. Tie: Ford’s “Dark Taupe” and “Red Lava”
5. GM’s “Sierra Yellow” (a/k/a urine yellow)
4. Any silver or grey (boring and way over-exposed)
3. Mary Kay Pink (even on Cadillacs)
2. Brown (“But it doesn’t show dirt”)
1. Purple/Mauve (Should any car look like it belongs on “Barney and Friends?”) .
I believe the color you refer to in 11 is “Seafoam Green”. I had a 1966 Bel-Aire Wagon in this color, Inside and out.
I have seen online the colors for the 2013 Mustang, they have a green that looks like a sham rock shake
Ford- Desert Tan. circa 1984. Cant wait for the re-paint
Several years ago, a Filipina neighbor brought home a new Pontiac Sunbird (?) 4-door in a glaring metallic gold color. There may have been an orange tint to it. One could “hear” the color coming before the car came into view. I didn’t have the guts to ask if the dealer gave her a big discount for taking the car in that color…
Toyota’s grayish beige-ish hue that they use on a lot of late model Camries for people who don’t want regular gray. Both boring AND ugly at the same time.
The burgundy/black colour on Cadillacs. I had a 2003 CTS for a few years and hated that colour every time I looked at it (though it did cost $5g less than an equivalent car in black, which I would have much prefferred)
I once bought a Chevette. It was a used 1979 Chevette, and not so bad little car, so far as econoboxes went in those days. Ten years old at the time, it started and ran, and golly did we need a little car that started and ran. I had just run a 1970 mercury Cougar into the ground, an unreliable breakdown beast if ever there was one.
The folks I bought it from had come from an Asian country, immigrants to Canada. I called to ask about the car, and a lady answered the phone.
“What colour is the car?”; I asked.
“It is the colour of … of … the colour of a camel.”; she said.
We called the little car “The Camel”. But I sure hated that beige color.
I like orange, but the more recent models of GM’s that have a brownish orange poop color (not the one on the Solstice or Camaro)… Blech!
1982 Ford Escort the ex brought home, “Metallic Fawn Glow”. More like Baby Shit Brown if you ask me.
Beige, all 500 variations of it on new cars . Ugh !
The Greatest Colors (& color combos)
11.British Racing Green
10. Hemi Orange/Orbit Orange/Grabber Orange
9. GM Mulsanne Blue
8. Matte Black
7. Highland Green
6. Black with Gold
5. “School Bus” Yellow
4. White with Guardsman Blue (the traditional racing colors of the USA!)
3.Ford’s Grabber Blue/Petty Blue
2. Ferrari Red
1.”Hot Rod” Black
How come it is whenever you run a “worst of” article you put a picture of a Mustang II in there somewhere? It’s not any worse than an Astra, Vega, Etctera crap the factories spit out back then. Had two, they are actually solid cars and decent drivers. So there! LOL