Back when the tsunami engulfed a portion of Japan's industrial base, we heard that some paint pigments that are produced there would be in very short supply. The lasting effects of that disaster are evident on car lots across America, as metallic black is disappearing as a color choice, replaced by good old regular black. Ford's "Tuxedo Black" appears to have vanished, and GM's "Black Granite" seems nowhere to be found.

Today I saw a line of "Black" 2012 Escapes, and James Bond's newly leased Regal will be "Onyx Black", which I believe is GM's version of the tried-and-true.

I've seen some 2012 metallic black vehicles, but it is evident there are much fewer of them on the lots these days. It's interesting to me because of my job.

Honestly, I don't see this as a bad thing. While the metallic blacks are neat close up, I think the plain black cars are more striking from 10 feet away or more. The metallic black cars look like charcoal or faded black.

I want to know where the good paint colors are hiding. Looking at the colors available for the Challenger, I was really let down. Only colors I like on the Camaro are the Yellow, Green and Dark Blue... and Yellow and Green are too noticeable to LE.

As far as colors I like on cars I really like, about the only colors I see on the Chevy website I really like for the Camaro are Crystal Red, Imperial Blue and Ashen Gray.

For the Charger and Challenger, my favorites are Blackberry Pearl (a very dark blue), white, Redline, and Tungsten metallic.

For the Mustang, my favorites are Grabber Blue, Kona Blue, and Lava Red (very dark berry red, kind of like Royal Maroon from '68-69).

I'm smitten by the Chrysler 300 in Luxury Brown Pearl...also like the Blackberry Pearl, Crystal Blue (a light silver blue), and Deep Cherry Red.

Don't think I'd want a black car, it's been too hard to keep dark blue (my Jeep color) looking good.

Dissapointed that no one seems to be doing greens this year..I love dark green and gold-green the Mustang had back in '05.

Edited November 14, 201113 yr by Cubical-aka-Moltar

I'm not a big black-car guy, but I will say that some cars the gloss black works better than the metallic black. Gloss black looks better on the Cadillac CTS but the metallic black looks better on the Regal, Acadia, etc... I'm not sure why I feel that way.

My colours are dark blue, blue-gray, medium to dark red, and brown. I also really like dark green but nobody makes a good green car anymore. The 2010 MKZ was nice in that green colour they had.

We had a Fusion on our lot in that colour that needed to come to our shop for a little bit of work. Key tag said "black". I was like dude, that's green !