John Simister: All the colours of the motoring rainbow

My father got a new company car in 1958, a Wolseley 1500. It was black because that was the default choice requiring no thought. It replaced Standard Eight and Austin A30 predecessors, also black. By 1961, though, when a replacement Wolseley 1500 was to be ordered, my mother and sister decided to consign this darkness to history and insisted on a pastel grey-green (Vale Green, it was called). And colours were progressively more cheerful thereafter, including a very festive Rover 2200 TC in red.

Three cars before that Rover was a Ford Zephyr V6, the MkIV generation with the endless bonnet and stubby tail, and it was silver. Silver Fox, to be precise, and our first car with metallic paint. It peeled off in chunks, exposing the primer beneath, as happened to most Fords painted in Silver Fox or Blue Mink. It also went dull disturbingly quickly. 

That's what metallics were often like back then, although Ford's finishes were probably the worst. Not until the mid-1970s, when it became normal to apply clear lacquer over a metallic-paint base, did metallics become convincingly durable. And, to the credit of the much-maligned British Leyland, only then did the state-owned company finally offer a proper range of metallics, years after everyone else.

Nowadays, of course, metallics outnumber solid colours on new cars and have done for many years. Even these popular black cars may well have a metallic fleck in among the inkiness. Before black's new elevation to the top slot, by the way, the most popular choice was white – a shade (or non-shade) guaranteed to flatten and bury all subtleties of a car body's contouring unless, as many do, the 'white' contains a metallic or pearlescent zing.

And silver? Once as ubiquitous as 1950s black was, it has slipped down the chart. Silver can look terrific, and it shows a car's shapes better than any other shade which is why it has long been used for styling models of new cars. But we reached a stage a few years ago when maybe half of all new cars were in some sort of silver, and the impact was gone.

These fashion cycles of colour have long been with us, the trends washing across all the carmakers. By the end of the 1950s, encouraged by bright new car colours emerging from the studios of Italy and the showrooms of the US, British roads were brightening: pink-and-white Vauxhall Crestas, turquoise-and-cream Ford Zodiacs, mad Austin Metropolitans in three-zone, two-tone white-and-red/yellow/turquoise separated by chrome zig-zags, all burst forth. 

Colours calmed a bit in the 1960s, with dark blues, greens and maroons, a smattering of pale blues and cheerful reds, plenty of white and grey. But by the end of the decade, with psychedelia now in the psyche, the brightness was back. The Italians popularised a warm, slightly mustardy yellow – Fiat called its version Positano Yellow – which, more than any other hue, came to symbolise the early 1970s. Alfas had it, Fords had it, Lotuses had it, Porsches had it, even British Leyland's cars had it as Bronze Yellow on Minis, MGs, Triumphs and as the signature colour on the Austin (or Morris) 1300 GT.

There swiftly followed eye-wateringly bright blues, greens and reds, even a couple of lime greens (Chrysler UK's was called Limelight, to go with its Wardance Red and Sundance Yellow). BL was now in the vanguard of daring new hues, with a dark bluey-green called Mallard, an aubergine called Black Tulip and a strange greeny-browny-yellow called Limeflower, all matched – or mismatched – with unlikely interior trim colours. For example, Teal Blue exterior paintwork, a pleasing mid-to-dark blue with a touch of greenness, might be teamed with tan trim (Tobacco Leaf, attractive) or, daringly, a combination of upholstery in purply-brown and a vinyl version of Limeflower (not attractive).

A couple of years later, BL then went off the chromatic scale with new colours that seemed almost to parody the already bold tints thus far seen. So Aconite was the new, oddly washed-out Black Tulip, olive-green Tundra was a dirtier Mallard, and Bronze Yellow gave way to acidic (but very striking) Citron. And oddest of all, in BL's third wave of eye-waterers, was the nausea-inducing Sandglow, a sort of light butterscotch with an orangey-pink cast. Astonishingly, people actually bought cars unlucky enough to have passed the Sandglow spray gun.

However, several years before BL's brightening of its colour palette went out of control, Vauxhall and Chrysler UK were showing how to do metallics well – even without clear lacquer on top. Chrysler UK's Rootes Group forerunner had been experimenting with metallics since the 1950s and usually had at least a bronze or a silver-grey in the colour-chart. The palette expanded rapidly in the 1960s, and Vauxhall joined in during the decade's latter half with its Starmist metallics in which the aluminium particles were particularly fine.

By the late 1970s metallics were everywhere, causing huge trouble for body-repair shops as they attempted not just to match the colour itself – Ford's Arizona Gold, for example, had maybe 15 slight variations depending on paint supplier, factory of build and model year – but also to juggle the ambient temperature in the spray booth, the spray gun's air pressure and the angle at which the spray fan hit the panel. All could change the shade.

They still can, but body shops have learnt the skills and today's paints are more forgiving so it's easier to get a good match. Colours still come and go in cycles of fashion, but nowadays few people are daring enough to choose a bold, really bright, solid colour when sophisticated, and more easily re-sold, metallics are all around. Except, significantly, when a new car is inspired by one current in the far-off days of motoring's most vivid colours. Step forward, the usually retro-hued Fiat 500 and Mini…