Yeah, but both of these cars only really exist in one small(by size) market - the US. Audi's Nardo Grey was available(and visible) globally.
I decided to go with some examples because I was familiar with them without having to look them up.
What? Nah uh. There's no way that sickly bright grey is an old color. I've got 3 60s cars here and I've been into old iron all my life.
The bright grey thing first showed up here just over a year ago. I commented on it to my kids at the time, soon we saw it everywhere.
Maybe, but I'm almost certainly from a different corner of the earth, and IME old cars never aimed for the wet putty look.
I follow car news quite deeply, and have been since the 80s, and other than military vehicles, I have not seen manufacturers paint their cars to look like wet putty until recently.
Maybe they were offered but not popular?
If you have links to any examples of old cars that look like wet putty, I'd love to see them.
https://collectableclassiccars.com.au/private-sellers/datsun... ^ this was definitely more "wet putty" when it was new.
https://www.justcars.com.au/cars-for-sale/1968-chevrolet-cam... <-- this one probably isnt the original color, but there was a similar colored one that I'd seen. (probably more like https://news.classicindustries.com/hubfs/Classic_Industries/... or https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/524bc779e4b0b5... )
> Maybe they were offered but not popular?
This is my bet too, not popular at the time.
Some of those are in different light and maybe my definition of wet clay are not matching yours.
Not exactly the same. Older vehicles used solid pigments without a clear coat.
This isn't some huge statement on how millennials want to be grownup and childish at the same time, or some other pop-psychology drivel. It's just the normal change of fashion over time. Non-flake paint jobs stand out a lot in a sea of cars with them.
In fact, I've already noticed a shift back towards paints with contrasting metal flake now that even the most pedestrian Japanese cars are coming with simple glossy paint. BMW has this new sparkling copper grey that's a cool grey in low light, a warm light grey in direct light, and has reddish specular highlights and it has this very 90s color changing vibe to it.
> UPDATE: A few ppl have also mentioned the important role of the “Nardo Grey” paint color from (Porsche-owned) Audi in this timeline — a wet-putty hue that came out in 2013 and became a car-head phenomenon.
Grabber Blue came out on the Mustang even earlier and is a throwback to the 70s color of the same name. Voodoo Blue and Army Green on the FJ Cruiser is also a simple glossy color on an even older car. I'd argue this kind of paint was popularized by the retro-modernism of the 00s mixed with the cool grey trend of the 10s.