The best and worst car colours: Suzuki, Jeep, MG, Honda, Mazda - the car brands with the wildest and mildest colours | Analysis

Why is it that most of the cars on the road are the colour of fridges?

They’re either white, or silver or black. Are we really that boring? Do we think we’re unique and interesting and then chicken out when it comes to picking Orange Crush or Purple Fury? Maybe it’s the car company's fault for only making countless shades of grey? Or is it about re-sale value?

Whatever it is there are car manufacturers that still offer wild and stunning colours. We’re not talking about supercar brands like Lamborghini or ultra luxury makes like Rolls Royce, nope here are the everyday car brands that do colours for the people ready to commit to a bright pink hue called Tuscadero.

Tuscadero really is a wild electric pink, a limited edition colour released by Jeep this year in Australia for its new Wrangler off-roader. You can already get it in a radioactive looking yellow called High Velocity, a plastic looking blue called Hydro and then there’s Firecracker Red, which is redder than a fire truck. 

The full-on in your face colour options are a Jeep thing and over the years we’ve seen bright oranges like Punk’n, fluoro monster greens like Gecko and a very cheesy Nacho. The dazzling colours suit the Jeep’s association with adventures and fun, from hardcore off-roading to children’s Barbie cars. Of course there are more muted tones and the whites and blacks that are always offered but Jeep’s Global Vice President of Exterior Design Vince Galante said the vivid colours are a core way to connect with its customers.

“It's the brand's way to have fun and share in the owner's excitement and individualisation as far as an expression or a personality,” Galante told CarsGuide.

“In addition to the neutral colours, we also have a lot of fun with the bright colours, and our customers really love this, they love to express themselves through colour and being able to customise their vehicles and add some appeal straight from the factory.”

What you might find surprising is that the colours you might think are really gross are massive hits with other people and Galante says Jeep will bring those favourites back into rotation because they get swamped by fans asking for them.

“Over the years we've used almost every colour in the rainbow, so we rotate them and make sure we are listening to our customers. As an example, when we first launched Tuscadero, we received 30,000 customers orders when it first debuted in 2021. We’re always looking to deliver what our customers tell us they want, so we brought it back on the new Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator.” 

Jeep’s not the only car company doing the wild colour thing, but having now searched through the colour palates of every automotive brand on the market (excluding the high end ones) the number of manufacturers with a selection of lively hues is very limited. 

What we have found is that brands that make small cars will generally offer bright colours. The reasoning here may be that the cars are bought by younger people and the brands are trying to appeal to those more youthful customers.

Suzuki for example, has a colour option palette almost identical to Jeep’s. The little Swift Sport comes in Speedy Blue, Burning Red, Champion Yellow and Flame Orange. The little Suzuki Jimny’s kinetic yellow is a close match to Jeep’s High Velocity.

If you think you’ve seen that pine-lime Splice colour before you’re right a similar tone is worn by Fiat’s Abarth 500e (Acid Green), the Skoda Octavia RS (Mamba Green), the Mini Convertible (Zesty Yellow), Volkswagen Golf (Pomelo Yellow).  

There’s a reason why variations of that colour are used and that’s because it’s been one of the most popular fashion trend colours for the past three years. Colour design company Pantone even recognised the hue (Pantone 13-0647) as being colour of the year in 2021.

The psychology of the zesty lime green colour is also important in marketing with green and yellow zesty colours associated with freshness and optimism.

There of course car brands with extreme colour-less options. Honda might have you think its a colour full car brand in the advertisements but this brand also offers some models in only a monochromatic scheme. Seriously, the new Honda Accord comes in Platinum White, Crystal Black, Meteroid Grey and Lunar Silver.

Mazda is another culprit. Yes, sure Mazda has Soul Red Crystal Metallic and it’s a beautiful colour but they’ve been really milking that one for a decade now. A look at the new CX-60 range has Rhodium White, Sonic Silver, machine Grey, Jet Black, Deep Crystal Blue (almost black) and Platinum Quartz.

Then there are relatively new brands to Australia like MG that want to be noticed. The MG4 comes in Volcano Orange that’s both strangely offensive and appealing at the same time and Brixton Blue, which looks like somebody’s turned up the saturation level way too high. But it’s exactly the colour some people want. 

And when we say some people, we mean a lot of people as Jeep’s Galante said the connection people have to colour is strong. The name of the colour too is important he says. So how do they come up with the names? 

“Really is a lot of brainstorming among our team in the studio, and then it’s always being in the spirit of fun. The Jeep brand has always been about having fun with the products, and we have a great fun community.  We saw people started referring to their cars by the name of the exterior colour, so seeing that community engagement only motivated us to keep going.”