Did We Trade Pure Joy forMass Appeal?
(And Now We Find Everything Is Gray)
Look at the highway. We have optimized the road for dullness.
White cars. Black cars. Gray. Silver. A shade of red if someone is feeling particularly daring. Today, a staggering 81% of cars on the global market are painted in grayscale.¹
Global Car Colors: 81% Grayscale
Source: Axalta's 2025 Global Automotive Color Popularity Report
I’ve been time-traveling lately, spending my evenings with James Garner in The Rockford Files. When it aired on NBC in 1974, nearly one in four television sets in America tuned in — a 23.7 household rating. Today, a massive prime-time hit is thrilled to break a 2.0.²
But watching it now, the plot isn’t what holds my attention. It’s the texture of the world.
Malibu in the seventies. Funky beach parking lots and open spaces, long before it became a manicured fortress for billionaires.
Dark, moody, candlelit restaurants before liability lawyers and insurance underwriters swapped the flames for battery-operated LEDs.
And then there’s the traffic.
The streets felt alive
Cars in mustard yellows. Emerald greens. Burnt oranges. Cerulean blues.
Jim Rockford drove a gold Pontiac Firebird. It didn’t blend in. Nothing blended in. The streets felt alive because the people on them were making statements with their cars and their clothes.
Then we decided to play it safe.
Trading joy for liquidity
Accountants pointed out that gray has a higher resale value. Dealers stocked what was easy to move. We stopped buying cars for ourselves and started buying them for the stranger who might own them in five years.
We traded joy for liquidity. We traded self-expression for mass appeal.
Fewer young people are eager to drive at all. The number of 16-year-olds with a driver’s license has dropped sharply, falling from 46% in 1983 to roughly 25% today. The car used to be a symbol of freedom. Roaring into the future on your own terms.³
Now it’s often just an appliance. A gray box moving in a straight line between other gray boxes.
It’s hard to fall in love with an appliance.
Safe is invisible
Where did the fun go?
Are we a little afraid of it?
This isn’t just about cars or restaurants. It’s about everything we design, launch, and buy. The default is almost always safe. Safe is easy to justify. Safe doesn’t get criticized in the boardroom.
But safe is also invisible.
The work that still feels alive remembers that personality isn’t a liability.
It’s the point.
Let’s bring some of the color back.
Let’s bring the fun back.
Sources:
The 81% grayscale market: Axalta Global Automotive Color Popularity Report https://www.axalta.com/content/dam/New%20Axalta%20Corporate%20Website/Public/Documents/US/axalta-global-automotive-color-popularity_2025.pdf
The 23.7 TV rating: Nielsen ratings for the 1974–75 season (The Rockford Files ranked #12) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-rated_United_States_television_programs_of_1974%E2%80%9375
The drop in teen drivers: Federal Highway Administration data via UMTRI (licenses for 16-year-olds fell from 46% in 1983 to roughly 25% today). https://news.umich.edu/fewer-young-people-getting-drivers-licenses/
