Did you know that The Autopian is considered by many in the United States government to be a crucial part of the Department of Homeland Security? While not “true” in the conventional sense, it’s nevertheless a responsibility I take quite seriously. Mostly what we do is keep careful tabs on the automotive world and detect potential threats early, before they can really cause harm.
We have such a threat detected, and it is serious enough that we felt it was important to bring it to your attention sooner rather than later when it could actually be destructive. We have detected an up-and-coming car color trend that, while a welcome break from the relentless slog of grayscale, nevertheless represents a genuine aesthetic threat to our collective automotive well-being. We call this color Discarded Band-Aid Beige or perhaps Creepy Abandoned Baby Doll Buff or even Prosthetic Peach. It was a color that was surprisingly common on consumer items and electronics in the 1970s and 1980s, and it must not be allowed to become trendy for cars.
We were alerted that this color trend should be escalated from an Issue of Concern to Potential Threat status when our own David Tracy showed us some pictures of a Lucid Air he spotted in Los Angeles bearing a variant of this particular color family:
As you can see, that color, while close to, say, butterscotch, isn’t quite there. It has a sort of duller quality, with a hint of innate dinginess. That’s because that Lucid Air is painted in this color, a color that somehow manages to evoke the feeling of countless oily hands gripping the clammy rubber of a CPR dummy. Something about this color makes one feel that whatever this color is, um, coloring, is the sort of public-use thing that has passed through thousands of unwashed hands.
This is the color of the baby doll you saw abandoned by the riverbank that’s been haunting your dreams for the past two weeks. This is the color of the cheapest possible prosthetic leg a mournfully inadequate insurance provider will spring for. It’s the subtly racist mocking color of a Band-Aid on the skin of anyone who dares to not be Caucasian and still gets a scrape. It’s the color of a battered mannequin in a Ross Dress for Less that has had two left hands since the Bush administration. It’s the color of off-brand clearance-rack vanilla ice milk, it’s the color of pus on a wound, the color of an inflatable sex doll bought as a novelty gift and used in earnest once during an excruciatingly low point in your life, and can never be looked at again without a wince of shame.
This is not a color for a car.
For unknowable reasons, probably having to do with the state of plastic molding and pigmenting tech of the 1970s and 1980s, this color was often used for the plastic housings of electronics that businesses would buy in bulk – never individual consumers, who would recoil at the idea. But you see lots of telecommunication equipment in this sad hue – telephones, fax machines, speakerphones, that kind of thing.
Bafflingly, this color is definitely trending in the automotive world, where it’s sometimes euphemistically called something evocative like Desert Sand or Desert Tan or something like that, something that’s supposed to conjure ideas of adventure and exoticism, but, really, it’s just the same color as a billion beige-ish plastic things nobody ever wanted or any number of bits of wearable medical equipment like a hearing aid or a urostomy bag. Look how many people are wrapping their Porsches and Lambos and BMWs and Challengers in this miserable hue:
This isn’t the first time this color or something close to it has attempted to move from the medical and sex-aid and undesirable electronics worlds into the automotive space: it’s shown up at various times since the 1950s, though often it was more skewed to the beige side of things, like the Wrigley’s gum beige VW was fond of in the late 1960s and early 1970s, or a more conventional sort of tan. Still, it wasn’t unknown, as you can see from the top left color in this 1970s Audi Fox color lineup:
This time, though, it’s different. The color isn’t just showing up here and there in the vast palettes of available colors of some cars, it’s actually becoming something of a trend, and people are choosing to get their cars wrapped in this color. Choices are being made! People are proud of showing off their cars that are the same color as the business end of a fleshlight:
#Lamborghini #Urus wrapped in Desert Sand wrap by California’s RDBLA gets new front rear fascia pic.twitter.com/GRVOVblVX5
— 24wheel_news (@24wheel_news) October 12, 2020
Look, we’re here to help. I know this is alarming, and I realize that we have to be extra careful not to stifle the proliferation of real car colors, because just having anything that isn’t black, white, or silver/gray is something that requires about as much care and nurturing as a rare orchid, but in this case, we simply cannot let this mannequin-prosthetic-fax-machine-creepy doll color stand. We just can’t. A line in the sand needs to be drawn, and we’ve drawn that line.
Knock it off with this sickly color, people. Reformulate your desert sand-evoking colors. You can do it. Just be, you know, aware this time. We’ll be watching.
[Ed note: I saw a Lambo in this color in LA this weekend and I kind of liked it. While it wouldn’t work on a Nissan Altima it’s kind of fun on an exotic. Hopefully, this opinion won’t result in me having to clean David’s floor again… – MH]
Made me recall an Onion article from back in the days of hardcopy.
Matchbox Twenty Finally Finishes Watering Down Long-Awaited New Album
Mostly it was the line “Finally, after running them through about two dozen filters, we managed to get that ‘plastic spork hitting mashed potatoes’ sound we were after.” that stuck with me.
I’d be fine with it if the manufacturer’s name for the color reflected what it actually looks like. I’m guessing the take rate on “Prosthetic Pearl Tri-Coat” or “Mannequin Metallic” would be pretty low.
Meh.. that colour is better than the sea of white, grey and black that is so common…
I’m suprised that not the article, nor a single comment got the name of the colour right. It is not hearing-aid this, not band-aid that… It is German Taxi Beige.
Might someone in the staff be interested in a deep dive into this?
https://www.thetaxicentre.com/news/taxi-colours-from-around-the-world/
Any color is better than a lack of color.
I like it on the Toyota Tacoma
in your multi-make collage, there are several different shades, and not all are horrible as pictured. but yes, the shade you are objecting to was nausea-inducing even in the 70’s, especially on soft touch surfaces. (i didn’t mind it so much on sheet metal or hard plastic housings, computers and monitors being so exotic, and faux wood so played out).
Yeah, band-aid is a rough color for a car. And yes, there’s something strange about having a Lambo painted the same color as my family’s first PC, a Packard Bell with a 13″ CRT monitor and a blazing fast 133 MHz processor. Nothing screams speed like a Packard Bell.
That being said, it’s not grayscale! And at this point gray has become so dominant in everything from home decor to cars that I would take anything other than white/black/gray.
I don’t know Torch, that Lucid looks pretty damn good in that color. And for what it’s worth the Lucid looks a bit more orange than nearly every other example given.
I have seen some Kia that are even worse, a flat slightly pink beige color. It’s even worse than the solid color Depression Grey I keep seeing on new vehicles.
Ya know, I don’t even care. It’s not white, black, or grey then it’s fine by me.
I own a white car and a grey car. So I’m guilty. I will never buy a white car again. It’s like living outside while wearing a white t-shirt.
I guess if it’s a new darling of wrapped cars, I’ll take it over the matte look. I thought it was actually becoming less popular at least as an OEM color choice however after the 2010s. Maybe not as uh, vibrant as some of the wrap shades or looking like they didn’t get as much sun, but it was one of the first new flat paint colors that popped up but seemed to have faded away.
Subaru had Desert Khaki for years on the original Crosstrek, but think it only made an appearance on the last gen as a special edition for a year. Others mentioned Toyota had Quicksand, on the FJ and Tacoma, and for a year on the 4Runner TRD Pro. Honda had Sandstorm on the prior CR-V for a few years, which I think had a bit of metallic to it. Only the Crosstrek seemed to be popular in that shade although the Toyotas aren’t really a fair comparison since those were specialty models.
Isn’t that yellow?
Cat Puke
After years of my younger self cleaning up daily cat piles, yeah I’d say that’s about as close as you’re gonna get.
Don’t yuck my yum. Desert bandage is genuinely in the spirit of brown station wagons, the spirit animal of Autopian members. Also, it isn’t a shade of gray, which is a big plus.
Counterpoint – it’s a great color for hiding dirt if you’re not into washing your vehicle every week. Toyota did a good job with it on some recent Tacomas. https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/94222006adacd33fa0b984dd547d697702c702cb/hub/2018/03/14/84ebbaaf-149f-4547-81c9-ebe412f69cee/2017-toyota-tacoma-trd-sport-mike06006.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200
Oh wow : “we simply cannot let this mannequin-prosthetic-fax-machine-creepy doll color stand” !!!
Lets give this color a Pantone code. Urgently.
I agree with Jason’s assessment of that color, however it beats that hideous Primer Gray you see everywhere that makes cars look unfinished. It reminds me of my favorite dessert from when I was a kid, and I totally would drive a car that color.
Flan?
Or coffee ice cream (my favorite ice cream)?
It was some obscure hazelnut custard type thing. Amazing.
got it, I’ll make sure I paint my next car in Pantone 448C Instead.
After reading DT’s recent “rust has a purpose” write-up, I’m thinking this could have been one of those “would you rather” posts.
Would you rather have your dream car painted this whatever-shade of band-aid-waxed-scrotal-plastic, and it never rusts? Or, any color you want, but the vehicle will then have the same capacity for the dreaded tin-worm as a midwestern daily-driven ’78 Datsun 210 Hatchback with with no undercoating.
My 356 actually was kind of that colour before it was repainted in 6206 Silber Metall “german racing silver” in 1991..
I do think it looks good on a sixties car, like a Jaguar XJ6 mk1.
It’s surely not my first choice, and it indeed looks horrendous on most vehicles, but on some cars, in some shades, it can work. For instance, the oranginess of the Lucid somehow makes it interesting. Yet there is that particular shade (and finish) that I associate with prosthetic limbs which I fully agree should never be used in any circumstance.
Haven’t read a single comment, but if it’s anything but white, grey, or black, I’ll take it! Stop the color snobbery, anything, even beige, is better than what’s generally available
When ordering console racks at a technical facility years ago, one of the color options was sand worm beige, and we took it. Anything is better than the other color options, and we were pleasantly pleased.
This is a Wrong Take
You could also get it as an interior color on Fairmonts!
In plaid, with a manual –
30863951-1979-ford-fairmont-std.jpg (1253×827) (classiccars.com)
That is sexy