Why do Cars Suddenly Look Like Putty??

Hi Hank! Automotive paint raw material specialist here, it feels like you made this video specifically for me 😁 You did some great deductions of figuring out the lack of metallic flake giving the "Nardo" feeling. I can maybe give you some more details into why automotive companies started going that way. #1 Cost: Metallic flakes are typically from aluminum sources, which can be difficult to source cheaply and reliably. Rising aluminum prices means that by removing them from the paint formulations, you save more money. #2 Complexity: Aligning the metallic flakes to achieve maximum sparkle is HARD. Seriously, it's like witchcraft and physics had a baby with how we figured out how to spray paint out of a rotating nozzle, get it to adhere to the coating layer, and also lay flat to reflect light in the best way. Any number of chemistry or physics related things can go wrong with the coating to make it not work the way you want it to. I bet there were a lot of issues making a new generation coating that flake was causing, so R&D just said, "screwing, we'll make it without any flake" #3 Customers: Some people genuinely like the softer, pastel looking subtleness of the "Nardo" colors. Ultimately we make paint for people to buy them, so customers get the final say in what succeeds in the market. You brought up a great point of culture shifts looking for something "new, but the same". Flake has become pretty standardized in most vehicles that Nardo really gives the feeling of it being the same color, but different. We deal with more than just the color as a physical wavelength, but also as a psychological perception.

As a nail polish wearer, these colour/finish trends happen all the time and I had noticed this and thought "Ohhh cars are doing THAT now" in nail polish land we call it cremè colour when there's no metallic/sparkle and the colour is dense rather than sheer.

FINALLY. For years I have commented when visiting my dad that his TV looks like a Spanish Soap Opera and no one understood me. And I couldn’t describe why. I hadn’t heard of anyone else recognizing it, and it’s been so long, I was resolved that I’d never understand it. BUT YOU DID IT, HANK. Now I can learn all about motion smoothing. And to have it revealed to me the same day as the solar eclipse! How fancy. Also neat about the putty whips. 10/10 Great video.

It's the WAY TOO MYSTERIOUS glitter shortage, Hank. You need to look into this.

I can't express enough, just how amazed I am that you had this thought "Cars kinda look like clay or something." And OTHER people had been like "Why cars be lookin' like putty!?"

Yeah so turns out imma need like weekly installments of "hank feeds his curiosity in real time". Being taught something by an educator is one thing, but joining an educator in learning about something together is S tier educational content. Same reason i loved the reunion video where you talked john through the hypothesis that planets dont exist. I'll always enjoy learning from y'all but getting to watch y'all learn and explore ideas and think it all through in real time is a special kind of joy

As someone who’s been surrounded by car culture my whole life, the metallic / metal flake being in most car paint is something I didn’t even realize other people weren’t aware of.

I noticed this too! When I’d mention it to friends, I always referred to it as “pastel” colors. It was the first thing that clicked and when I stopped at a dealership, I noticed that the contrast was that they lacked the flakes too, something that in other subcultures is sought after, like candy paint where there’s WAY more flake. I think it follows the trend now where we all want to be earthy, country music is more present in the top 40, and everyone wants to a nomad. It’s simple, like the way some folk prefer cop steelie wheels, or tiny homes made out of shipping containers, it’s the illusion of simple, of “built-for-purpose”, it’s.. modest. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” just my 2 cents

Back in the '90s, when the SUV started to really take off, cars went from having angles and lines to just being lumpy round things. Color is just a continuation of the gradual metamorphosis into silly putty.

I build and paint little table top gaming models and this is the exact color of unpainted models. We call it the "color of shame." It means you haven't painted your model yet. People are riding around what looks like an unfinished miniature toy.

Thanks for validating the amount of time spent trying to articulate this! My family calls it affectionately “hearing aid color” thanks to the show Top Gear and my own hearing aids. It started with that brownish color we couldn’t quite describe we started setting with the Toyota Tacoma. We called it out like “slug bug!” As that type of paint became more popular we started calling it out with other colors because we couldn’t articulate this saturated, shiny yet flat quality. We don’t call it out anymore because the popularity of the paint started making our arms’ sore! (I do like this paint in the dusty blue color so nice choice).

I absolutely love this video. The editing just perfects the already great "slipping into madness" or "mental breakdown in real time" feel to it 😅

Hank my beloved, in the nail polish community we call ‘nardo’ a CREME finish. Most older cars would be referred to as a satin/pearl finish. Thanks SimplyNailLogical lol

I'm a music teacher and there are certain rhythms that kids always get wrong because they know things about rhythm without consciously knowing it. I tell them that too, "You got it wrong because you know way more about music than you know, and you know music never ends with (insert weird rhythm)." They love hearing that they know more than they think. Suddenly, their mistake is proof of knowledge, and that just amazes them.

I noticed this 3-4 years ago and mentioned it to my friends but nobody seemed to recognize/care why this was happening. Thank you for pointing it out and researching the trend. BTW, I call it the "wet cement" look. Seems to be mostly gray and light blue.

"I can't tell how I can tell" Great way to put it. It's funny because my first thought is that it's a matte color with sheen to it, which I think is an oxymoron. Definitely not metallic though, which I think is the real defining feature. I do think that the normal red we've been seeing for years DOES fall into the same category, but we're so used to seeing it that we just brush it off.

As someone who works in the auto industry, watching you work through this without the vocabulary has been delightful

As someone who actually has to work with painstakingly recreating those paints and colors and variants digitally for a major car brand I got a certain kick out of this video that I wasn’t prepared for tbh. Will definitely share this with colleagues tomorrow

Hey Hank! I worked in the Honda Factory, UK, I was appalled by the grey colour at first, until I saw it shining in proper lighting (mainly Sun light), it has a GREEN iridescent/pearlescent sheen!!! It is very unique, no metallic glitter, only the iridescence. If you look up sonic grey honda, when you see a greenish hue on highlight, that's not a lamp! Really cool stuff there. Unfortunately it's cloudy here most of the time, so it's not very visible.

Hi Hank! You touched on color design a bit and I just got so excited to comment. So I work as a design professional in the commercial architectural space but we interact with designers and analysts in the paint and color spaces such as Pantone (color system), RAL (powder coating), PPG (they do automotive paint!), Sherwin Williams, etc. Color manufacturers have dedicated teams of color analysts/designers (or work with a trendscouting institute/group) that do a high-level version of what you just did basically. I visited a color studio once as part of a factory tour and it was wild to see all the things they’ll look at for research. Looking at historical color trends, current cultural trends, economic and supply trends, and connecting the dots on what’s going on between those trends and between trends in a variety of industries, so not just automotive. Then they announce the “color forecast” or “color reports” for the next year and that can trickle down into their product offerings or influence other companies own research. It’s not a guarantee what will be popular but I think it’s always fascinating to see how their predictions play out in the commercial and consumer spaces. Most of these reports are publicly available online and include descriptions about why if you want to google them. Funny enough as an example, I looked at RAL’s 2023 report specifically mentioned “clay-based colours”. ;)