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Review of the 78th International Geneva Auto Show - Electric Colors for Electric Cars
Reviews
By Le Vin Chin
Main | Black | White & Silver | Red (& Others) | Blue & Green
On the surface, the latest Geneva auto show was a mixed bag: exciting new cars, but with rather blah color and effect stylings. A closer look, however, uncovered many and varied subtle experiments – a play with effects, a play with texture, a play with materials – which may herald intriguing new directions for the look of cars to come.
A world of blacks and whites at the Lancia stand
This was the year that the stark, shiny blacks and whites we had seen at the furniture shows last year finally mainlined in the auto industry. There never was such a collection of black and white cars – by this writer’s estimate, about 40% of the cars were black and 35% were white! And yet, you could also see inklings that the conquest was not wholesale: certain stylists tried to develop the concept of blacks and whites in original directions. And certain colors – especially a deep, bluish red (yes, red is BACK!) and a fiery, electric blue –broke strongly away from this paradigm and may offer bold directions for the future.
Black and white everywhere on the Toyota stand!
Blacks with benefits
Black became much more textured. Many black shades resolved themselves on closer inspection into complex mixtures of colored sparkle and tones which changed depending on the angle of curved surfaces. Texture was taken further by the adoption of coated carbon fiber panels lending ruggedness and a high-tech feel.
White and pearl white at the Fiat stand
Whites with benefits
There was also a spectrum of white shades on display. Aside from the blinding iPod white we had already noted last year, white also developed subtle shadings and textures (a pearlescent white was the biggest trend).
Black, silver and pearl Maseratis, all in a row
All the key colors, including pearl-white, at Daihatsu’s stand
Electric Colors
Colors were fiery this year. An almost electric effect was created by deep jewel tones with polished, mirror-like sheen. Key shades were red (shaded from bright orange to a deep, dark, laser-beam-like bluish red, almost a hot pink), blue (a fiery, neon-electric blue) and green (much more diverse, although a liquid metal olive green was seen more than once).
Mazda had one of each on their stand …
… as did Daihatsu …
… and Ford (with that Mazda again in the background)
Main | Black | White & Silver | Red (& Others) | Blue & Green