Nardo!

[jesse_the_k]

I was delighted to learn that I wasn’t imagining a new trend in car paint. Hank Green hankschannel also wondered why more and more cars look like clay and demonstrated how to find out the reason (at his typically fast pace and high volume, with B+ autocraptions).

Nardo Gray is the original case—a dark gray that's contrasty enough to use for large but not regular-size print. Audi tests its cars at the Nardò, Italy racetrack. That’s where they debuted this doubly cool color. (Not only is it soothing, it's got blue undertones, unlike the brown undertones that create warm grays.. Much more detail at nardo-grey.com.

What makes these colors unusual is the lack of metallic paint (no little flecks of reflective metal, what I called "candy flake" when I was assembling model cars growing up.) So now I find myself hollering Nardo! whenever I catch sight of these mellow colors. Do you roll with nardo or do you prefer shiny candy flake?

Hank explains on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[petra]

Thanks for this! I had noticed too but had no context for it.

Decades spent in fannish pursuits

[jesse_the_k]

...prepared us both for noticing the absence of metal flakes :,)