Painting a vehicle can be a difficult (and ludicrously expensive in some situations) decision. There are often so many colors to choose from and trying to match the right hue to a vehicle's body type is a puzzling headache. Do you opt to go loud and proud, or do you aim for something subtle yet striking?
Maybe we're all looking for something a little more off the wall? After all, there are some downright crazy car color schemes out there. A lot of them sound pretty silly on paper, but there is no arguing against the end result. Just take a look at these options.
10 Latte Menta
Many of us that think of traditional car colors likely gravitate towards particular primary hues and shades. When the word "blue" is spoken, it's easy to imagine a vehicle that is a deep ocean-like color, or one that looks strikingly similar to a bluebird. Latte Menta (which is available factory stock) is here to remind us that blue comes in a massive variety of shades.
Although a light blue and green mixture sounds questionable on paper, it works exceedingly well on the body of a car. Take this Fiat 500 for example. There is something so soothing about it.
9 Xtreme Purple Pearl Coat
This one is a bit of a mindbender because we actually adore the color purple and most of the shades associated with it. There is something both entertaining and soothing about grape-colored objects. That said, the last thing that comes to mind when we think about wine, lavender, and eggplant is Jeep's lineup of vehicles.
This factory-available color for the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited just works, there's no denying that. There is something royally confident about the brash purple color and it helps an already visually-stunning SUV to stand out even further.
8 Energy Green Pearl
Before we move on to the exceptionally strange, we wanted to look at one more factory-available hue that doesn't "sound" like it would work. Honda Civics are known for their reliability and standard design (although the car line has been reshaped into something that's rather visually appealing lately). The idea of an overly glossy, pearly green apple sounds downright eye-abrasive.
But the end result, dubbed Energy Green Pearl by Honda, manages to strike the perfect balance between bold and beautiful to look at.
7 Beluga Brown
If we asked you, "what's a color that you rarely see in traffic?" many of you might throw out things like pink, orange, or even yellow. For us, it's brown, specifically this strange brown that comes across like a milky rootbeer color.
Car manufacturers are great at coming up with exceptionally weird names (beluga?), but there is no denying that Audi's particular shade of brown has something going for it. This isn't the traditional matte brown color you see on older vehicles.
6 Freudian Gilt
The further we expand on this list, the more we begin to realize that "strange car color names" could be its own separate article. Ford tries to outdo our previous Audi entry with Freudian Gilt, a color that resembles a bright gold.
Gold isn't a color you would mentally latch onto when deciding what to paint your vehicle. Logically, it seems like it would be loud, overbearing, and a bit gaudy in a sense. In reality, gold (specifically this shade from Ford) manages to look striking yet subdued. It's particularly fashionable on older muscle cars.
5 Chrome And Gold
There is an incredibly thin line between visually appealing and downright gaudy when it comes to vehicle paint. It's important to remember that a car is a billboard of sorts, seen every day as it rolls down the highway. Something loud and proud can backfire in an instant and turn from stylish to blinding.
On paper, Chrome and Gold sounds like one such color combination. The overly-shiny surface of Chrome paired with the often-overwhelming yellow tint of gold sounds like a visual nightmare. That said, sometimes, Gold and Chrome looks like it belongs on a vehicle. This paint job certainly makes it seem like a fitting scheme.
4 Molten Orange
Orange isn't a color that's going to stop the presses or cause any emotional panic should it be slapped on an automobile fresh off the factory line. There have been a multitude of orange vehicles over the years that are both eye-catching and beautifully-colored.
That said, the last car brand you would expect to sport a bright and brash color like Molten Orange is Lexus. Most of us view Lexus as a classy luxury car, and the idea of slapping any color on it besides a sophisticated red, subdued blue, or a stark black seems so out of place. Real talk, though? This is an amazing color and elevates this Lexus to sports car status.
3 Acid Green
From luxury to sports, let's shift gears and take a look at a fast car known (sometimes) for bright and bold colors. Porsche likes to make its presence known and it's not uncommon to see a Fire Engine Red 911 winding the coast or a Bumble Bee Yellow roaring through traffic.
Acid Green, though? That's an entirely different ballgame. Lime Green is incredibly vibrant in its own right but it's normally a color we see reserved for only the bravest of muscle car enthusiasts. Yet, we can't deny it looks right at home on this Porsche.
2 Hot Pink
We'd be absolutely remiss if we didn't include at least one instance of a pink paint job on this list of strangely-colored cars. Why, exactly? Well, pink isn't traditionally a color you see on cars anyway. In fact, the only pink shades we recognize on the highway are usually wrapped in a light manner around old Cadillacs or 50s throwbacks.
We certainly don't expect to see a Hot Pink supercar speeding down the center lane. But there is something just remarkably stunning about this Hot Pink Lamborghini. It definitely works.
1 Anti-Establishment Mint
There is almost too much going on here to process. First off, why Ford didn't believe anyone was smart enough to spot the pun in Anti-EstablishMINT and opted to go for the long-form is strange. Secondly, mint isn't necessarily the first color that comes to mind when thinking about opposing the man.
Regardless of the vernacular, this mint color looks absolutely stellar on a throwback Mustang and we can't help but feel that it would look striking on just about any car.