Best colour for a Elan - Colorado orange ?

[Spyder fan]

LITTLE LO CLOYES SUR LOIR.JPG

Pistachio for me every time.

I see the rear part of the stripe is above the rear bumper.
On my Sprint i put half the height of the stripe above the rear bumper.
Question are both cars correct.
Now the replies are going to be interresting
Alan

Stripes are an interesting subject and are the source of much discussion here free-parking-f45/overpriced-sprints-register-dodgy-stripes-arches-t23305.html

Adam (PastaPesto) kindly made and fitted my stripes for me, he's a professional vehicle graphics specialist as well as an Elan enthusiast, I can imagine making a total mess if I had fitted them myself.

Back to colours: Interestingly the most popular car colour for 2016 was Silver followed by black in 2nd place, but I do wonder who is choosing the colours and whether the popularity is skewed by lease and rental fleets ordering "safe" colours so as not to affect resale values.

[alan.barker]

Hi Alan,
"professional vehicle graphics specialist" or not they can still make a mistake or do things in a different way.
So show us your stripes as i have already shown you mine
To be honest i think they all look good and as they say there is more than one way to skin a cat even if it's not a big cat/Jaguar
Anyhow "Happy New Year" to all you Lotus guys
Alan

[Spyder fan]

Hi Alan
Happy new year!
I have posted the pictures on the dodgy stripes topic to save hijacking this one too much.
If Adam made any mistakes they would have been deliberate just to show me up and give you all a good laugh.

[greg40green]

FHC in Lagoon does look very very good, I haven't seen one before. Nicer than the DHC in my humble....

Simon

Must admit I do prefer a FHC Elan but the DHC does have the advantage if the sun shines.
Greg.

[mmatthej1]

Having run both DHC & FHC in my time - loving them both, of course - I think I have a preference for FHC as somehow more 'usable'.

Anyway, I really set out to note that my car started life as Colorado / White but it's now mono red !

I had quite forgotten the historical colour combo, but might revert to it, if & when car gets resprayed !!

[DP45UK]

The best colour for an Elan has to be personal choice or the colour that matches your wife's eyes or outfit so you don't get grief over ????'s spent ! I believe small quick cars should be brightly coloured to attract the attention of the SUV driving mum before impact ! Its contrary then that I stuck to original monotone yellow for mine but really think they look great in dark blue mono

[The Veg]

Back to colours: Interestingly the most popular car colour for 2016 was Silver followed by black in 2nd place, but I do wonder who is choosing the colours and whether the popularity is skewed by lease and rental fleets ordering "safe" colours so as not to affect resale values.

Perhaps, although it reflects something I've noticed over here recently. Cars sold in USA seem to be trending toward more conservative colours, with exceptions of course. I was car-shopping a couple of years ago and the Mazda 3 was high on my list. For that year, the 3 was available in 7 colours, *5* of which were some variation on the grey/black spectrum! There was also a boring metallic cranberry red, and a special-order metallic white. I saw similar things with other car companies. Maybe they've all gone so obsessed with profit-margins that they'll end up like Ford with the Model T a hundred years ago with one colour. This conservative approach also makes life easier for the manufacturer since it takes years to get a colour to market and there's always the risk that it won't sell well enough.

[knockoffnut]

Alan, believe it or not most new car colours are being chosen by accountants. They look at the colours that do not get stranded on lots as unsold cars (needing to be trucked to another dealer to be sold) each year, and next year increase the orders of those colours. Vehicle production orders are driven more by what is "not disliked", than by what is "liked". This management by accountants is what is driving the popularity of silver, gray, white, black, and metallic tan car colours. If you ask 12 customers what colour they "like" you will get 12 answers, but if you ask 12 customers to rank all colours based on what is least offensive, the statistics put silver gray in the top spot.

Personally I prefer single colour Elans over two tone, as I feel one colour shows the lines better, and I prefer yellow over orange, though I still prefer bue over yellow. (BTW I have two in yellow and one in blue, but will likely repaint one of the yellow cars...). The fact that Elan owners are voting on what we like best is probably a good indication that we are not like most other car buyers (and there are probably not a lot of accountants in our numbers either...)