We all know who Matt Farah is, right? Of course we do. He’s like everyone who loves cars’ friend who always seems to have more and better cars, but we’re not bitter. We’re excited! One of the exciting cars Matt has gotten recently is a new Porsche 718 Boxster Spyder, decked out in a remarkable color called Frozen Berry Metallic, which sounds refreshing and delicious. The interior is a rich, raspberry red, and the whole combination is unusual and striking and one that I think works extremely well. It’s fun and novel and I can’t imagine anyone seeing it and not smiling. Of course, thanks to the dark magick of the internet, I don’t have to imagine such an improbable reaction, because the collection of Porsche ninnies and fussbudgets that haunt online forums like Rennlist are full of people who are quite cross, quite cross indeed with Matt’s choice of color scheme for his own car, and they’re making their wrath clear online, in between bouts of filling their Depends tight as snare drums with indignation-poops.
I find these vitriolic responses puzzling, so I reached out to Matt himself to ask about his color choice, and give him a chance to defend himself and his car from the Angry Porschemen. I learned so much more than I expected. It’s good.
For some backstory, it’s worth mentioning that Matt getting this car hasn’t been an easy process, since this is really the second example of the car that was built, since the original sank into the unforgiving Atlantic when the ship that was carrying it burned and sank back in February:
I just got the call from my dealer. My car is now adrift, possibly on fire, in the middle of the ocean. https://t.co/Ge2DYk8IJ0
— Matt "Stick to Cars" Farah (@TheSmokingTire) February 16, 2022
Remember that? That was bonkers. However Porsche made good, and Matt’s novel ride is now here. And now that it’s been shown off a bit, here’s some reactions from the Rennlist forum:
As you can see, there’s plenty of people who don’t get it. Which is fine! It’s not supposed to be for everyone! But there’s also plenty of people who don’t just not get it, they don’t want anyone to get it, ever, and say things like “…some builds should not be approved by the factory to begin with,” or “a little bit of puke came up into my mouth” (which I bet isn’t true, I’ll need a puke sample to confirm that (looks at notes), Scrounger) and people speculating that somehow Matt couldn’t have actually wanted this, he just bought a whole car to, you know, be weird.
As someone who firmly believes that cars deserve to be in colors, real colors, not just the grayscale hell that defines nearly every silvery-gray piece of shit on the road today, I cannot fathom why there’s these sorts of angry, indignant reactions. It looks good! It’s fine that it doesn’t look like every other Boxster out there. And if seeing a car in this interesting color-shifty, powdery pinkish color is actually making you vomit, get off fucking Rennlist and go see a doctor, immediately, because I think something is up with your gastrointestinal tract.
Matt actually tells a bit about his decision process for the color in this video, right about at this time marker here, and it makes a lot of sense, I think:
But you know me, I like to really know stuff, and to really know anything, I needed to hear what Matt himself said. So I reached out, and he gave some really interesting and in-depth answers that I think you’ll enjoy. Here’s what he said:
There is a back story to my color. I think it’s important that people undertstand that everywhere in my life, I like to have little easter eggs to other stuff. If you come to my house, there are mementos and links to other things and places in my life that I find interesting, and I commit to them, I go all the way with them.
As you may know, I had a Keen Safari 911. It was Cassis Red over Burgundy interior, which I accented with purple confetti bus fabric. If you just told people that color combo without them seeing it, they would think i was insane, but it was actually stunning in person, and became wildly popular.I showed that car to a longtime Porsche dealer friend of mine. He said, “Is that Cassis Red? Man we couldn’t GIVE that color away in the 80’s. I drove one as a demo for six months because it was unsellable.” Of course now, we know the color was just ahead of its time, and it’s absolutely stunning, and if you want a cassis red G-body 911, there is a literal $25k premium for such a thing.When Frozen Berry Metallic came out on the Taycan, I felt exactly the same way about it as I felt about Cassis. This was a transformative, stunning color that radically shifted tone depending on the sunlight, didn’t photograph particularly well, but glowed radiance in person.
So when it came time to order the Boxster Spyder, I was absolutely shocked to learn that FBM wasn’t just available for the car, it was FREE. This is not a PTS color. It was listed, for 2022 model year only, as a standard color. People are out there paying $13k for PTS grays and silvers and blue, and here is this incredible color that is literally free, and because it’s kinda pink, no one is gonna have the balls to buy it. It’s literally the Cassis Red thing from the 80’s all over again.And because my Cassis Safari car had the red interior also, I knew for certain that no matter what other people thought, and no matter what the configurator looked like, that the FBM over Red would look ace in person.Plus, I was always going to do the insane Deman 4.5L motor. So the idea of a pink car with a red interior and a hot rod 565 HP engine under there was just hilarious to me.So that’s the story. there’s a connection to my previous air-cooled car, continuing that lineage of my porsche’s being this color. There’s the fact that I predicted the color would be rare because people weren’t brave enough to buy it en masse, which is true. Porsche told me that less than 10 spyders were sold in this color in 2022, that mine is the only one with the 2-tone spyder classic interior. The color has been cancelled entirely for 2023.and of course there is a long history of Porsche race cars being pink too (Pink Pig, etc)I think the theme is just that there’s layers to it that people who don’t seek to find out will easily miss. yes it’s a cool color. yes it’s unique and rare, but it’s also got a personal connection to my history with the brand, and a built-in prediction for rarity, and a little bit of anti-toxic masculinity too.
I think it looks like absolute shit but so what? I would never tell him that (that’s rude) and at the same time, I’m not one of those assholes who yells online that “YOU SHOULD BUY CARS THAT ARE ACTUAL COLORS. GRAY IS BORING”
It’s some fuckin guy’s car and it’s pink. The fact that he’s spending this much effort to explain it and defend it is stupid.
The only opinion on car colors that matters is your own.
The color scheme is very similar to some sheets from Target we own. We have 4 pillows so have to buy an extra set of pillowcases when we buy a sheet set, and for this particular pale pink hue, for some reason the extra pillowcases are a darker raspberry just like the car interior.
My fiancée has very strong feelings about car colors and not being ostentatious. She HATES yellow cars and is moderately anti-green. This is frustrating as BRG and Mamba Green Metallic are some of my favorite colors.
I’ve seen Matt’s car in person (and briefly spoke with Matt) at the New Canaan, CT. Caffeine and Carburetors a couple months back. It’s a sharp color in person and does stand out over the silvers, greys, and blacks on most 718s I see. While it’s not the color I would want for my own, I totally get why he chose it. As stated by others, it will always be “Matt’s car” regardless of who may own it next, and that makes it even more special.
“Indignation poops” really got me. I’ve cleaned a number of those up from diapers “filled tight as a snare drum” myself. I’m now imagining the little red-faced diaper occupant screaming with rage about a slightly pink Porsche and not about being denied the binky that just fell into a puddle at the State Fair pig race shed. Ah Jason, you have such a way with words.
I’d say those Rennlist people need a hobby, but apparently gate keeping for their beloved Porsche brand is their chosen hobby.
“some builds should not be approved by the factory to begin with” – get out of here with that. Can’t you get any color you want from Porsche if you cut a big enough check? I’d think that is pretty awesome.
Yep. Paint to Sample apparently didn’t offer enough customization for some buyers, so they recently reopened the Sonderwunsch department for even wilder custom shenanigans. Porsche embraces the unique stuff and encourages it. I love that. All those extras are a pretty lucrative source for revenue, too, so it makes sense financially on the company’s end, too. Kind of a win-win for everyone except the buyer’s pocketbook, TBH. But if you’ve got the scratch and it’s what you want…why not?
You know what the coolest part of Matt’s Boxster is? For the rest of the car’s life, it’s going to be his, whether he owns it or not. If he sells it, it’ll always be Matt Farah’s Boxster. And as glorious as the Deman bore job is, I’m not sure that would have been the headline if it were painted silver or black.
That makes it a cooler Porsche than nearly every one I’ve seen built in the last 3 years.
I had to go find other images of this car to compare against the one in the header but in every picture I find it looks like a pale, reddish shade of violet and not pink. Not what I think of as pink. I can’t be colorblind, a significant part of my job involves being able to pick out complex patterns where color may be the only differentiating element. Is my particular interpretation of that wavelength of light different from most people’s somehow? I saw that “The Dress” thing from years ago as gold and white if that’s significant. Huh.
Anyway, concerns about my visual cortex aside, who cares what color this guy paints his car? And why? If you see it in traffic there’s other things to look at. An incredibly loud, rattly sound system is much worse. No escaping that until the light changes.
It’s one of those colors that shifts depending on the angle and quality of the light on it apparently. From the various pictures I’ve seen the name is apt, it always looks like SOME shade of mixed berry smoothie. Sometimes it looks like all strawberries, sometimes with more blueberries. Just depends on what comes out when you dump frozen berries from the bag into the blender.
And yes, there is person to person variation on color perception among people who are not colorblind. There is both a baseline variation- we don’t all see the same colors the exact same way, as well as a variation caused by training- you can develop a greater ability to differentiate similar shades same as any other skill. There are tests to evaluate this ability.
That paint is pretty damn nice if i’m honest. Its about as close you could get to pink without revolting me so well done porsche (and Matt)
The interior?Meh.Most modern day smooth leather looks terrible to me.Somehow it always looks cheap and i havent worked out why
Probably because a lot of it is actually vinyl. I have leather S2000 seats in my MR2 Spyder, and I think only about 50% is real leather. The original “leather” Spyder seats are almost all vinyl. Not sure what the balance is on Porsche seats, I believe it depends on which leather package is selected.
I’ve said before I’d have no problem owning and driving a pink car *provided* it’s the right car. A car that works well in pink. A 70’s Barracuda? Yes. Any Cadillac from the Age of Tailfins? Absolutely. This… I genuinely can’t say because I’m colorblind, so I’m just taking everyone’s at their word when they say this is pink. It would need to skew a bit closer to Pepto-Bismol before I could see it.
But enough about me. If that is in fact pink, then good. The world needs more fun car colors, and people buying them.
#notallrennlisters? Us 944 people are cool. Ignore the guy who always tells you to LS swap it unless that’s what you’re looking for, though.
I honestly don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape about a color. On most vehicles I would not choose pink. On some vehicles it might just work. It works on this one.
I thought that color was awesome when I saw it on twitter a while back. The fact that it pisses of people is just hilariously sad. I wish I could have picked a fun color for my GT350 but out of production and rare around these parts, so it’s white. I wish it was lime or orange, but it doesn’t change how the car feels.
I’m all for a broader palette of car colors on the roads. The weirder ones alway catch my eye whether I like the color or not. They make traffic more interesting. Props to anyone for for picking a color that makes them happy when they look at their vehicle.
For me that happens to be black. I love the look of my shiny, waxed black Ranger.
Does it take a little more work to keep a black vehicle looking pretty? Sure. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.
I feel a sense of accomplishment being able to pick a chunk of spinach from my teeth in my reflection on the hood of a 25 year old truck.
For an article that’s somewhat making fun of the silly color haters, there sure are a lot of comments doing exactly that to the more common colors.
What did the pot call the kettle?
I’m not feeling the darker red interior against the pink exterior – the pink is great, the red interior is great, I just don’t like them together. But also, not my car!
This is a color that has to be enjoyed in person (on the Spyder specifically). It’s gorgeous and compliments the car well, it feels 80s Porsche goofy in a good way.
I never would have had the cajones to spec this, but I’m glad someone did.
One of the ways I describe a car I would dearly love to own: “I would drive that if it were hot pink and covered in Hello Kitty stickers”.
To me, the aesthetics are part of the overall package: sometimes they’re 90% and sometimes they’re 10%. The rest is more or less what the driving experience would be. Great experience? I might forget what color it is. Bad experience? The color won’t improve it.
It looks more like lavender to me. I love it.
While I’m pretty conservative with my own car colors – for example I drove from San Diego to Sacramento to buy my pearl white Mazdaspeed 3 when I could have purchased a red or black one locally – I have nothing but respect for people who have cars in fun colors. And I like this “pink,” kinda reminds me of a similar shade that came on some Malaise Era luxury cars. Screw the haters.
Who is this Porsche-buying MF and why do we have to care about this?
With all due respect. I do like car people but puff pieces about the replacement Porsches of Car Twitter Internet Royalty are not why I come to The Autopian.
Apparently you missed that the point here is clowning on people who don’t like fun colors on cars, not celebrating Matt’s purchase of the car.
cool cool
Perhaps you’re just not familiar with Matt Farah, be he has a long history of celebrating all kinds of auto enthusiasts (and not just the rich ones) on his long-running Smoking Tire YouTube channel.
Perhaps, theautopian doesn’t cater to just you…
Seems kind of bland to me, rubystone red is the pink to have. This is metallic brown in comparison.
Rubystone/rubystar red is indeed the bomb. I included that in my dream fuchsia garage.
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/33801/my-dream-fuchsia-garage
I love Rubystar SO MUCH. I’m more of a bright color person, though.
Frozen Berry Metallic reminds me of the mauve carpet our house had when I was in first grade. I kinda dig it, even if I’m more of a Rubystar person myself. I love the variety of Porsche colors. That’s part of the joy of GOOD PARSH! The COLORS!
Like, the Porsche Club (we’re cool, we don’t bite, please hang out with us) has a whole catalog of paint colors for this reason: they slap. It’s rennbow.org, if you want to kill many, many hours looking at oddball rare shades. I think my favorite one I’ve found there is the Python Green Chromaflair that’s kept on a pretty tight government leash as it uses the same holographic material they use in Euro notes and they have to account for every bit of that material Porsche uses for cars.
I did not realize you could spend almost 6 figures on a factory paint job from Porsche. I wouldn’t have blinked from Bugatti or Lamborghini but for Porsche you’re looking at a 25% premium on even the more expensive trims.
Some of the really custom stuff gets wild, man. Makes me a little glad I went with “ShinyRedPorsche” as a screenname when AIM was still around, haha. Guards Red is perfect and usually one of the basic colors offered for $0, ha.
Good for him! What should he buy another gray one? If you’re pissing off Rennlisters, you’re more likely doing something right.
There’s a small number of interesting colors I see on the roads (more lately, particularly with BMWs and Audis and I wonder if the lack of inventory the last few years convinced more people to order what they want as they were waiting either way). A lot of those colors are not ones I would personally pick (I’d pick a different oddball color), but I’m always glad to see them both as a way of breaking up the sea of boring colors and because the owner is likely more excited about their vehicle—even if it’s a boring one—than the “resale gray” guy or the predictable and unoriginal one who would only buy a sports car in red because “sports cars should only be red” never mind that his car is probably not Italian and his dumb misconception stems from the fame of Italian sports cars when national racing colors were a thing. Even if it is Italian, that’s still so unimaginative. If you’re buying something interesting, don’t you want it to stand out? You want to go to a car show and be one of 7 red Ferrari Italias everyone will walk by on their way to a more interesting older model instead of the one that’s green that people will actually stop and look at? It’s like a gray Lamborghini Aventador. You can order them in a wide range of colors and can custom order any you can think up and that’s what you pick? It’s not like it’s going to blend into traffic so you can speed with abandon. One of the things I love about the old Lamborghinis is the selection of amazing colors they were often ordered in. Around here, I see a lot of Uruses and they’re almost always white/gray/black. It doesn’t help that the ugly things look a lot like a bloated RAV4 and the RAV comes in a few bright colors that people actually buy them in so that I usually see the former and initially think it’s the latter and the latter and initially think it’s the former. Why else buy such a expensive dumb vehicle, but to show off the badge? A bland color will be completely missed by the average person who DGAF about cars. It makes no sense to me.
An acquaintance from high school had a bright yellow Sunfire coupe and replaced it with a Hyper Green (tennis ball) Renegade. She has the right idea.
I’ve mostly had blue cars – I probably get that from my mum, although she had a Tobago Green Contour when I was a kid…
The same people shitting on Matt for choosing a color, are the same people who insist a 911 4S isn’t a real 911, an M97 isn’t a real 911, people who like the early 996 headlights should be shot (there are people who have literally said this,) that anyone who owns a Boxster is ‘a girl,’ and so on. They’re the kind of people who not only have no place in car culture, but should be actively ejected from it.
Believe me, some of the comments on Matt’s car I’ve seen around were well past “insecure micropenis” and well into “I’m pretty sure I just read something written by a serial rapist” or “jesuschrist, even Tesla HR wouldn’t protect you from saying that” territory. I’m sure some have been deleted.
And in the interests of full disclosure?
Matt, I absolutely hate that color. No, seriously. FBM just doesn’t work for me at all on this one.
But it ain’t my money and it ain’t my car. It’s what YOU wanted, so my opinion doesn’t matter.
Plus I’m pretty sure Matt would look at my dream Cayenne S PTS config and just scratch his head. (Merlin Purple Metallic over Club Truffle. With silver wheels.)
The commentary is why he did it, which makes it even BETTER.
Those Deman conversions sound gnarly as hell in person, too. More power to him.
(P.S.: excuse me, it’s parsh)
That last paragraph escalated so quickly and ended so well, i’m still chuckling a whole minute later.
Tesla HR indeed.
Another thing worth pondering: how many of those comments do you think came from someone who actually owned a Porsche?
And I agree, I don’t think I’d buy the colour myself, but I applaud anyone who doesn’t just go for the standard grey/white/black. Especially for “resale value”, why would you worry about selling the car before you’ve even got to drive it?
I’m a Porsche owner and PCA member.
I can assure you, probably every last one of them came from someone who owns at least one Porsche. And probably half of them came from people with a Cayman GTS 4.0, two GT3s, and a $50,000 reservation at Champion on a third, all of which they have ceramic’d, PPF’d, and never once driven because ‘it will destroy the resale value.’
Those kinds of Porsche owners kill me. I get it if you’re really into, like, concours stuff and keeping a car pretty as a hobby. It’s your car. Do what makes YOU happy. I kinda get the occasional buyer who keeps one intact as a quasi-museum object for posterity—but do note that even the Porsche Museum keeps their collection in running, driving condition and periodically hoons some of ’em for all to enjoy. Not enjoying a car because you thought you bought an investment bauble instead of a vehicle is just insufferable. All they do is drive up the “values” and price out *actual car people* from what we want. “”Investors”” are just leeches on the wider car-conomy.
Go drive the cars. You’re not going to lose THAT much value driving a silver 911 GT3 around a bit more and y’know, experiencing the actual reason why people enjoy Porsches. Hell, drive it too little, the seals dry out, and you’re stuck with a track car that you can no longer track without a ton of extra avoidable work. You have to drive the parsh. They are designed to be driven. They do not work if they just sit for too long. Otherwise, if you’re not driving the drivable object, what’s the point?
I like watching him talk exactly as much as I like to watch demuro talk, which is to say not at all.
However,
(1) car people are more interesting than non-car people, so he’s got that going for him
(2) I’m sure there are people who don’t like hearing me talk, so what do I know
And (3) I like that this car exists even if I would not want to own or be seen in it.
By pure coincidence, yesterday I watched separate interviews by the Late Brake Show with Edd China and Mike Brewer, where they talked about the internet reaction, and trolling of Mike Brewer, after Edd China left Wheeler Dealers. Their comments were almost identical: “Death threats?… for a CAR SHOW?”
It would be nice to think that the internet is giving the commenters a relief valve to dissipate anger that they might otherwise use to cause real harm, but somehow I think that’s not the case.
Mike Brewer needs to pay less attention to trolls. Several times I’ve seen him make social media posts about it.
I don’t think I would pick that color myself – I lean toward more bold reds and blues – but more power to him. Haters gonna hate, but in this case they’re all mouth-breathing morons.
(Apologies to any mouth-breathing morons that actually approve of interesting car colors. You’re cool. Really. Here’s a napkin – wipe that drool off your chin.)