The technicolor world of cars

Look around any parking lot surrounding any American mall, and most of what you see is the patriotic red, white and blue, plus various shades of grey. Even when we drove a distinctively shaped VW Vanagon, CelloDad would have trouble finding it back, especially after a stint inside the mall, which always left him slightly disoriented. CelloDad has stopped going to malls since Amazon came online.

Honda Fits come in a range of lively metallics, including that wonderful copper: at least you have no trouble finding that back.

A true rainbow of colour is available for the VW Golf (see the German configurator page): besides red, white and blue - and seven shades of grey - there are five greens, ranging from the exuberant "Cosmic-Grün Metallic" to the sophisticated "Minzgrün" (mint green). Also a stunning "Ginstergelb", the deep yellow yolk of an egg from a grass-fed hen. And the blues (fifteen of them) go from the ethereal "Blue Spirit Perleffekt" to the in-your-face "Techno-Blau Perleffekt".

"Toto - I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."

Now take a peek at the colour page for the Honda Life, an adorable micro-MPV that comes in reds, whites and blues, but perhaps not the exact red and blue hues you would expect.

The right-most column of that page is reproduced here, and after some puzzling, courtesy of ViolaPlayer who has been taking Japanese, it transpires that the first few colours are called, from the top, "Berry Red Metallic", and "Pink Gold Metallic". I know a few teens who could totally see driving in the "Pink Gold Metallic".

The middle option is more staid: "Vanilla Creme". And for the more manly preferences there is "Admiral Grey Metallic", and "Premium Mystic Night Pearl"

Over on the left-hand column on the Honda page, and not reproduced here, is a brown that is labeled "Berbet Maroon Metallic". As far as I can figure, Berbet is a kind of fish. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be so Japanese to name a car colour after a fish.

"Now I know we're not in Kansas!"