To All My Fellow Yellow "S" Owners...
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To All My Fellow Yellow "S" Owners...
Check out this article 
Driving: The Hot Color for Cool Cars? Yellow
October 29, 2004
By LISA KALIS
DALE EARNHARDT JR.'S Corvette. Nicolas Cage's Lamborghini.
Liz Claiborne's Porsche. Eric Clapton's Ferrari. The Pagani
Zonda S7.3 on the cover of this month's Robb Report (one of
the magazine's "10 new luxuries" for 2005, it's priced at
about $300,000). They're all quintessential trophy cars -
sporty, assertive and flamboyant.
And they're all yellow.
Forget about that little red
sports car. Yellow shouts louder and, increasingly, it's
the color of choice for the driver who wants to make an
unmistakable statement on the road. Yellow is muscling in
not only for high-performance cars, but on the shiny
surfaces of compacts and sporty pickups - the hot models
that young car buyers like to deck out with cladding and
chrome.
Even the names catch the eye. Ford brought out Screaming
Yellow for its 2004 Mustang. Hyundai showcased a concept
car, the two-door HCD-8, earlier this year in Ballistic
Yellow. Nissan has introduced Ultra Yellow for its 350Z
coupe for 2005. The Porsche Boxster's egg-yolk-toned option
is called Speed Yellow.
Ron Tonkin, the owner of 14 automobile dealerships in
Portland, Ore., said he had seen yellow sales grow over the
last year, particularly in sports cars.
Two kinds of people buy it, he said: "One, the young, and
two, the young at heart." Somewhere in there is Mr. Tonkin
himself. Earlier this year, he bought a yellow Ferrari, and
his wife bought a yellow Maserati. "It seems to fit the
sporty image," he said.
In 2003, yellow showed up as a top-10 car color for the
first time in North America since 1992, popping into the
lineup in the sport/compact category, according to DuPont
Automotive. The company, which makes automotive paint, has
tracked the most popular colors for 52 years.
No one claims yellow is likely to overtake silver, the
leading car color in the United States, or to edge out
subdued stalwarts like the whites and tans that clog the
highways. But more and more, it is grabbing the role that
red used to play in the automotive world.
Yellow is "a hot color, a fast color," said Quinton Q.
Dodson, sales manager of West Coast Customs, a car
customizer in Los Angeles. He sees it most, he said, in
import tuner cars - the kind favored by fans of "The Fast
and the Furious."
"It's for someone who's daring and wants to be noticed,"
said Toby Ristau, manager of J. C. Whitney, an aftermarket
parts store in LaSalle, Ill. The vehicle for these people,
he said, "used to be a red car."
"These are not shy and retiring vehicles," said Christopher
Webb, exterior color and trend designer for General Motors,
assessing the role of yellow as a Corvette color. "They're
for the owner who likes everyone to know they're driving a
Corvette."
Red, once the shocker that advertised this kind of
personality, has become common, even sedate. It is still
popular in sports cars, but it is no longer a signature for
those who want to rise above the mainstream. In the DuPont
survey, medium red ranked sixth for full-size and luxury
cars.
Laurie Reiter, 49, an ultrasound technician from
Youngstown, N.Y., is from the school of car buyers who
thrive on attention. She considered red when she was buying
a 2003 Mini Cooper, but decided it was too common. As she
browsed the showroom, "Liquid Yellow" jumped out as the
perfect fit.
"People just buy cars for transportation," she said. "But
there are still a few of us who really love our cars."
When she and her husband, Jack Empson, also 49, drive their
Mini to nearby Niagara Falls, they sometimes feel like the
main attraction. "People turn around and stare at us," Mr.
Empson said, "after they came hundreds of miles to see the
falls."
AUTOMAKERS and dealers also appreciate the power of yellow.
"That's a real impulse color," said Mike Childs, the
operations manager of the Dayton Auto Center in Dayton,
N.J. When the dealership (which sells about one yellow
vehicle a month) recently put out a yellow Dodge Ram Rumble
Bee for display, he said, "one guy literally was not
planning on buying anything, and drove in and said, `I have
to have that truck.' "
It wasn't always this way. When Steve Levine set out to buy
a used Ferrari three years ago, he was ahead of the curve.
His one requirement was that the Ferrari be bright yellow,
and at first all he found was frustration.
"I searched the whole country for yellow - it was not easy
to find," he said. "They were all red." And red, of course
"gets boring."
Mr. Levine, a real estate agent from Northboro, Mass.,
finally found a 1994 model - now nicknamed "Mid-Life
Crisis" - in Scranton, Pa. "Yellow just screams," he said.
"I love yellow."
It might be a good sign for everyone that other drivers are
now buying into his philosophy - at least according to the
analysis of Terrence Cressy, a marketing manager at DuPont.
He called yellow "a representation of fun, spirit, and a
certain sense of optimism that's started to creep back."
Manufacturers have taken to yellow, too, using it in
promotional materials and when introducing new models.
"Carmakers are needing to redefine their brands," said
Lorene Boettcher, a global design and color marketing
manager at PPG Industries, a paint manufacturer. "There's
no better way to do it than with a bright yellow."
And Mr. Cressy says yellow complements the new, hard-edged
car designs: "It makes that shape pop."
The more distinctive the car, the better yellow works to
define it. Hummer, an aggressive car if there ever was one,
used a statement-making yellow two years ago when it
introduced the H2. The reasoning: "Boldness is a Hummer
trait, so why not just go for it," said David Caldwell, a
spokesman for the brand.
Aside from its powerful psychological messages, yellow's
flashiness can also have practical effects. Randy Chase,
46, a product designer from San Diego, picked saffron
yellow for his 2005 Lotus Elise, which he bought in August,
partly because the car sat so low to the ground. "I didn't
want to get run over," he said. "I thought yellow would
stand out more."
He hasn't had any problems standing out so far. In the
first month that he owned the car, he was pulled over twice
by police officers - but not for speeding. They only wanted
to ask him about the car. "It screams out for attention a
little more than I expected," Mr. Chase said. "It's hard to
drive down the street without people yelling at you."
The color's power seems to extend to the insect world - or
so some owners say. Steve Shrader, 28, of Charlotte, N.C.,
a fan of yellow Mustangs and the founder of a club called
the Yellow Mustang Registry, recalls being in a yellow
caravan stuck in traffic when a cloud of gnats descended.
"They were coming in the windows," he said. "They were all
over the dash and all over us, but there were no bugs on
the blue and black and silver cars."
Gnats are probably not the reason, however, that some auto
models are not showing up in yellow at all - notably the
conventional sedans.
The color is great for a Dodge Viper, said Mr. Dodson, the
West Coast Customs manager; his shop recently did one in
yellow and black. But there are models he doesn't expect to
see it on.
Yellow, he said, "would make a Mercedes-Benz look like a
taxicab." [B]
Driving: The Hot Color for Cool Cars? Yellow
October 29, 2004
By LISA KALIS
DALE EARNHARDT JR.'S Corvette. Nicolas Cage's Lamborghini.
Liz Claiborne's Porsche. Eric Clapton's Ferrari. The Pagani
Zonda S7.3 on the cover of this month's Robb Report (one of
the magazine's "10 new luxuries" for 2005, it's priced at
about $300,000). They're all quintessential trophy cars -
sporty, assertive and flamboyant.
And they're all yellow.
Forget about that little red
sports car. Yellow shouts louder and, increasingly, it's
the color of choice for the driver who wants to make an
unmistakable statement on the road. Yellow is muscling in
not only for high-performance cars, but on the shiny
surfaces of compacts and sporty pickups - the hot models
that young car buyers like to deck out with cladding and
chrome.
Even the names catch the eye. Ford brought out Screaming
Yellow for its 2004 Mustang. Hyundai showcased a concept
car, the two-door HCD-8, earlier this year in Ballistic
Yellow. Nissan has introduced Ultra Yellow for its 350Z
coupe for 2005. The Porsche Boxster's egg-yolk-toned option
is called Speed Yellow.
Ron Tonkin, the owner of 14 automobile dealerships in
Portland, Ore., said he had seen yellow sales grow over the
last year, particularly in sports cars.
Two kinds of people buy it, he said: "One, the young, and
two, the young at heart." Somewhere in there is Mr. Tonkin
himself. Earlier this year, he bought a yellow Ferrari, and
his wife bought a yellow Maserati. "It seems to fit the
sporty image," he said.
In 2003, yellow showed up as a top-10 car color for the
first time in North America since 1992, popping into the
lineup in the sport/compact category, according to DuPont
Automotive. The company, which makes automotive paint, has
tracked the most popular colors for 52 years.
No one claims yellow is likely to overtake silver, the
leading car color in the United States, or to edge out
subdued stalwarts like the whites and tans that clog the
highways. But more and more, it is grabbing the role that
red used to play in the automotive world.
Yellow is "a hot color, a fast color," said Quinton Q.
Dodson, sales manager of West Coast Customs, a car
customizer in Los Angeles. He sees it most, he said, in
import tuner cars - the kind favored by fans of "The Fast
and the Furious."
"It's for someone who's daring and wants to be noticed,"
said Toby Ristau, manager of J. C. Whitney, an aftermarket
parts store in LaSalle, Ill. The vehicle for these people,
he said, "used to be a red car."
"These are not shy and retiring vehicles," said Christopher
Webb, exterior color and trend designer for General Motors,
assessing the role of yellow as a Corvette color. "They're
for the owner who likes everyone to know they're driving a
Corvette."
Red, once the shocker that advertised this kind of
personality, has become common, even sedate. It is still
popular in sports cars, but it is no longer a signature for
those who want to rise above the mainstream. In the DuPont
survey, medium red ranked sixth for full-size and luxury
cars.
Laurie Reiter, 49, an ultrasound technician from
Youngstown, N.Y., is from the school of car buyers who
thrive on attention. She considered red when she was buying
a 2003 Mini Cooper, but decided it was too common. As she
browsed the showroom, "Liquid Yellow" jumped out as the
perfect fit.
"People just buy cars for transportation," she said. "But
there are still a few of us who really love our cars."
When she and her husband, Jack Empson, also 49, drive their
Mini to nearby Niagara Falls, they sometimes feel like the
main attraction. "People turn around and stare at us," Mr.
Empson said, "after they came hundreds of miles to see the
falls."
AUTOMAKERS and dealers also appreciate the power of yellow.
"That's a real impulse color," said Mike Childs, the
operations manager of the Dayton Auto Center in Dayton,
N.J. When the dealership (which sells about one yellow
vehicle a month) recently put out a yellow Dodge Ram Rumble
Bee for display, he said, "one guy literally was not
planning on buying anything, and drove in and said, `I have
to have that truck.' "
It wasn't always this way. When Steve Levine set out to buy
a used Ferrari three years ago, he was ahead of the curve.
His one requirement was that the Ferrari be bright yellow,
and at first all he found was frustration.
"I searched the whole country for yellow - it was not easy
to find," he said. "They were all red." And red, of course
"gets boring."
Mr. Levine, a real estate agent from Northboro, Mass.,
finally found a 1994 model - now nicknamed "Mid-Life
Crisis" - in Scranton, Pa. "Yellow just screams," he said.
"I love yellow."
It might be a good sign for everyone that other drivers are
now buying into his philosophy - at least according to the
analysis of Terrence Cressy, a marketing manager at DuPont.
He called yellow "a representation of fun, spirit, and a
certain sense of optimism that's started to creep back."
Manufacturers have taken to yellow, too, using it in
promotional materials and when introducing new models.
"Carmakers are needing to redefine their brands," said
Lorene Boettcher, a global design and color marketing
manager at PPG Industries, a paint manufacturer. "There's
no better way to do it than with a bright yellow."
And Mr. Cressy says yellow complements the new, hard-edged
car designs: "It makes that shape pop."
The more distinctive the car, the better yellow works to
define it. Hummer, an aggressive car if there ever was one,
used a statement-making yellow two years ago when it
introduced the H2. The reasoning: "Boldness is a Hummer
trait, so why not just go for it," said David Caldwell, a
spokesman for the brand.
Aside from its powerful psychological messages, yellow's
flashiness can also have practical effects. Randy Chase,
46, a product designer from San Diego, picked saffron
yellow for his 2005 Lotus Elise, which he bought in August,
partly because the car sat so low to the ground. "I didn't
want to get run over," he said. "I thought yellow would
stand out more."
He hasn't had any problems standing out so far. In the
first month that he owned the car, he was pulled over twice
by police officers - but not for speeding. They only wanted
to ask him about the car. "It screams out for attention a
little more than I expected," Mr. Chase said. "It's hard to
drive down the street without people yelling at you."
The color's power seems to extend to the insect world - or
so some owners say. Steve Shrader, 28, of Charlotte, N.C.,
a fan of yellow Mustangs and the founder of a club called
the Yellow Mustang Registry, recalls being in a yellow
caravan stuck in traffic when a cloud of gnats descended.
"They were coming in the windows," he said. "They were all
over the dash and all over us, but there were no bugs on
the blue and black and silver cars."
Gnats are probably not the reason, however, that some auto
models are not showing up in yellow at all - notably the
conventional sedans.
The color is great for a Dodge Viper, said Mr. Dodson, the
West Coast Customs manager; his shop recently did one in
yellow and black. But there are models he doesn't expect to
see it on.
Yellow, he said, "would make a Mercedes-Benz look like a
taxicab." [B]
C'mon Dark Side - show these Yellow Fevered Tonka Toys where its at 
Thread Starter
Registered User
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 551
Likes: 0
From: Washington, DC
Originally Posted by w1ngman,Nov 2 2004, 03:36 PM
I'm "daring and want to be noticed." 
Yellow rules!
Surprised the article didn't mention it, but I also get a reduction in my auto insurance b/c my car is yellow...stands out better in traffic 
.- Dave
its all there in writing from an article in the New York Times.
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 4,766
Likes: 8
From: Queens, NY
I didn't like the yellows when they first came out, but they grew on me after a while. Now I think they're cool.
Only things is, yellow is the "in" color now, what happens when it's not? Are you going to go trough the trouble of getting it repainted (which means the engine bay too)?
The thing to remember is red NEVER goes out of style. It's timeless, classic. Unlike some other wacky colors that come and go. Rember that ugly 70 color - harvest gold? Or how about brown? (even worse in the 70's, when it was like sh!t brown). Only time will tell about yellow.
Warren
Only things is, yellow is the "in" color now, what happens when it's not? Are you going to go trough the trouble of getting it repainted (which means the engine bay too)?
The thing to remember is red NEVER goes out of style. It's timeless, classic. Unlike some other wacky colors that come and go. Rember that ugly 70 color - harvest gold? Or how about brown? (even worse in the 70's, when it was like sh!t brown). Only time will tell about yellow.
Warren
