Not just American cars. Even the German ones look like the Japanese ones to me. And they're all painted silver.

I've seen a couple of those harlequin cars here in the US. That might be carrying it a tad too far.

When I was much younger, my uncle had about the prettiest car I ever saw. 1955 or 56 Packard, loaded, including self-leveling suspension. Hot pink and white!

Just to add to the color issue, my new vehicle is a Ford. I had one before and had sworn I'd never have another. It seems decent, though.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

I am not disagreeing with this statement, but I sure had it the other way around in my mind. I was even prepared to make a post about how "British Racing Green" was the problem... Although I cannot find anything about it now, I remember (perhaps falsely) reading in a car mag, about how that color was somehow more difficult to see. As I type that out, it doesn't ring true, so maybe it's just my imagination.

A friend of mine had a little MG back in the 80's, which I rather wanted, in that color. Problem was, Im just a little to big physically to fit in such a small car.

I like my gold colored car. It doesn't show dirt to badly. In the winter, my car gets very dirty following a snowstorm and it's often too cold to wash it. Not showing dirt is a nice quality in a Colorado car. Brown is a good color for the same reason.

I'm told that having a red car helps avoid bird strikes.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Hi, The reason many favour silver is that it responds and stands up well to the UV rays that work to destroy your paint job. It isn't hard to blend and
repair silver.
In my opinion, we need good solid cars that are easier to maintain and don't require an eight inch metric allen wrench just to change the air filter.
And I would still be driving my Taurus if they made a manual transmission.
Too bad.
My Subaru Outback serves me well. Bullet proof. If they want to sell cars, they had better make them better in more ways than just paint.
Best regards,
Dan

As far as I know, higher wages and better benefits help too. [bdbm, rimshot!]

But really, bird strikes? I've never even heard of a bird hitting a car, much less that a red color could help avoid it happening.

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

I've been in a car when it had a bird strike, a corvid, probably a crow, flew across the road about one foot above ground as we where driving along, hit the car in front of the engine compartment (aka we hit it).

It happened so split-second fast that I doubt it would have mattered one jot what color the car had been.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

The worst bird strike I've ever had in a car (actually, a van) was a pheasant. I saw it fly up in front of me and managed to swerve so it struck the corner of the windshield. It must've weighed at lease 2 KG - the whole van shook on impact. I've convinced that it would've come through the windshield had I struck it staight. For the record, the van was white and blue and so distinctively ugly that it should've scared off any living creature. I doubt the color mattered in the least.

I don't know about birds but red is one of the colors that the human eye is least sensitive to. About 20 years ago, some fire departments started painting their engines a yellowish color because it supposedly helped reduce accidents. It seems some people couldn't see those big red trucks with flashing lights and blasting sirens.

It also depends on where you live as far as the color of paint standing up ...Silver might be easy to repair but it also is the first color of paint to get damaged due to acid rain here in va.

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Stuff i have ...LX90 8in.sct with antares 80mm raci finder on a wedge std. field tripod ....lxd55 5in.achromat ota. with a etx60 finder on a celestron CG5 goto mount...And a bunch of eyepieces

I had a Mercury Sable, a rebadged Taurus. It was a complete piece of...well, I'll say junk. Even before my wife's accident turned it into quite literal junk.

I did have a co-worker who had a Taurus SHO with a manual transmission. It was not a pleasant experience for him.

And recall from above, I just bought another Ford. It seems ok but I'm still a bit nervous.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

My mother suffered a bird strike in a car. Many years ago, she hit an owl while driving home from her job at a sawmill in the Cascades. She didn't see the owl before it hit. It came through the center of the windshield, landing in the backseat. It wasn't intact enough to identify the exact species.

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“There’s nothing that spells progress in large, friendly letters like trying to combine two totally incompatible technologies.” – David Szondy, Tales of Future Past.

Hi, The body and engine of that taurus wagon held up. But those transmissions were are terrible. No more for me.
The Subaru was made in Indiana, not so bad.
It takes a while to analyze a car and determine it's chump factor.
Occasionaly a car stands out; Dodge Dart, Chevy Nova, Buick Regal.
But there are a lot of lemons out there. Not good.
Expensive gambling, isn't it?
Best regards,
Dan

i took out an owl once- the stupid thing landed in the road about 20 feet in front of my '76 Monte Carlo. scared the crap out of me- one second i'm just driving along at 60mph on a back road in June at about 10pm, and the next second a giant bird with a 6 foot wingspan is taking up most of my forward view. it hit with a loud "thud" and feathers flew everywhere.
then, a few months later in the exact same spot- but with an 81 Malibu that had the engine from the Monte Carlo in it- i took out an entire armada of sparrows. dead sparrows filled almost every little nook in the grille and all over in the engine compartment, and when i pulled the motor back out of that car a few weeks later to put it in a '70 Nova i had just acquired, i found about 10 maggot covered sparrows underneath the radiator.
over the 15 years since then, i've also hit pretty much every other form of bird that exists in this area of the country- except for a bald eagle. so, yes, bird strikes do happen.
i've also taken out a few skunks and got my mom's '86 Mustang up on 2 wheels when a rather large raccoon ran out in front of me and flattened the occasional fox, but i've never actually damaged a car by hitting an animal of any sort.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I've hit a couple of pigeons--one hit right in the midlle of the windshield (Made the CD player skip) and took out my wiper blades, and the other hit the front bumper (found feathers in weird places for months...).

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"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." — Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

441!!!! :)

Since we've drifted this far off topic, when I was about 4 years old my folks found out what happens to a '52 Chevy when you hit a cow at around 15 mph. Cow got up and walked off. The Chevy didn't fare as well, the radiator was wrecked.

And getting slightly back on topic, I remember that car as being navy blue!

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

It didn't stop that pigeon from flying into the grill of my Chevy Blazer a few years back.

David.

I've hit several animals over the years, including several birds. The most recent was an Olds Alero v. a small black bird. The car doesn't have much of a flat grill and the center is a solid ramp. The bird, one of several, vascilated about which way to fly and instead of left or right or up, chose straight ahead, until I caught up. It disappeared for a split second below the hood, then vaulted up and over the car from the ramp at the front. I thought it was trying an X-treme sport or something.

What I don't get is how some animals can just disappear. They run out in front of you and then you never see them again. I saw a rabbit just evaporate that way. then there was the 'possum that would have survived if it had kept it's head down as I drove above it... which it was too stupid to do. then there are the doubly stupid squirrels that run out of the street, then back into the street to get run over.

The strangest was a couple of deer that ganged up on me. One was off on the right, off the side of the road, trying to distract me while her friend slammed into the left side of my car. I couldn't believe it, I almost got jacked by a couple deer. And yes, it hit me, the cracked pannel was on the side of the car, not the front. I never saw it before or after.

BTW, that car was maroon. I dunno if that shade of red is more visible or not, but probably less useful at night.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

A friend of mine was broad sided by a bull moose ...He was driving a t600-a kenworth tractor trailer ...The trailer he was hauling at the time was a low boy otherwise known as a whale , for the about of furniture you can load into it ...Anyway , the moose hit the side of the tractor right around the drivers side fuel tank and front mud flap . The mud flap has a piece of 5/8 plate welded to the frame ..It tore the plate off the frame and the moose made his way under the drivers side tandems . Roy was going around 75-80 miles an hour ..The trucks tandems left the ground while the moose was making his way to the rear of the truck ..The whale trailers have belly boxes that are around 6-8 inches off the ground and the moose wasn't fitting between the belly boxes and the ground without something giving ..It was a compromise between the boxes and the moose , or what was left of him ... ..The belly boxes were torn from the trailer and the moose was chopped into pieces about the size of a small chuck roast ...Total damage was around 30,000 dollars to the truck and trailer , and the few items in the belly boxes and of course , the moose wont be the same ... Oh yea ...His truck and trailer is white with yellow stripes and blue lettering ......

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Stuff i have ...LX90 8in.sct with antares 80mm raci finder on a wedge std. field tripod ....lxd55 5in.achromat ota. with a etx60 finder on a celestron CG5 goto mount...And a bunch of eyepieces

I prefer white, silver or gray, just figuring it'd stay cooler (speaking temperaturewise).

Don't some insurance companies charge higher rates for red/pink/orange cars? Not because they're intrinsically unsafe, but rather a driver who chooses such is perceived as reckless (and hence wreckfull).

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Later . . .

I've heard that too.
It certainly wouldn't be a direct safety issue. I remember in the mid 70's seeing plenty of articles about "safe" colors based on visibility. A bright orange was top with yellow being a close second.
I think those were popular too. In fact, my parents owned an orange '74. My first car (a '72) was yellow, my next two ('74, '81) were orange (all used cars)
Since then. blue, white, brown, blue, pewter. And that last one would have been blue if the dealer's lot wasn't covered in dust that day.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

A friend of mine owned an orange 1974 Vega. The color helped hide the rust.

How'd you guess... Do I know you?
Mine lasted 2 months before the frame was rusted to the point of breaking.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I saw a letter-to-the-editor today, asking why are all the cars the colour of fog?

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

If I had my way, every car in the country would be pink. That way we would have a pink car nation.

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Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

Uhh! That deserves a suspension.

Here's my wife's car, "Dory." Colorful enough?

You don't ride in that with her do ya? And I thought my wife's RAV4 was too goofy to ride in.

I heard that those "smart" cars were expensive to repair ...In a 5 mile an hour collision it could be as much as 3000 dollars damage ...Insurance companys are saying there going to charge more to insure them ..

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Stuff i have ...LX90 8in.sct with antares 80mm raci finder on a wedge std. field tripod ....lxd55 5in.achromat ota. with a etx60 finder on a celestron CG5 goto mount...And a bunch of eyepieces

Is that the same car model that Russell Crowe drove in the movie "A Good Year"? If so, I take back what I said earlier--I want one of those.

I agree with you on the lighter colors staying cooler but on the color of the car thing ...My insurance agent asked me what kind of car , not color ...Its a rover , i pay through the nose anyway ...Mine is avalon blue(green)....

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Stuff i have ...LX90 8in.sct with antares 80mm raci finder on a wedge std. field tripod ....lxd55 5in.achromat ota. with a etx60 finder on a celestron CG5 goto mount...And a bunch of eyepieces