Sage green has become a popular colour palette for new cars, both production and concept
Spend enough time perusing the latest in car news, strolling the lawns of car shows and chatting with designers, and you tend to notice the odd trend or two. Although exterior paint trends tend to avoid following ”flavours of the month” – instead looking for palettes that will be timeless – it seems that sage green has become a popular hue across various sectors and brands. For anyone with half an eye on interior design or fashion, you’ll no doubt have seen a similar theme.
Sage green is a calming, neutral colour that does not swing too strongly in favour of one particular connotation. Think about red, for example, which is often associated with passion, or in an automotive space, performance. What does sage green say about the car or its driver? We’re not sure.
Sage green is rich enough that carefully designed highlights show up on the beltline and fenders, yet light enough for shadows to extend elsewhere on the body – as Caterham designer Anthony Jannarelly told us. That is not to say there has been a sudden revelation – CMF teams are at the top of the game when it comes to forecasting this kind of thing – but it is perhaps a happy coincidence that this colour helps exterior designers to show off their hard work.
The trend extends to the interior, too, and for much the same reasons. With an almost universal focus on creating a calming haven, the colour lends itself well to various surfaces either as an accent or a base colour. (Editor’s note: it is at this point I must confess my bias. Most of my home is painted sage green.) Regardless, it is interesting to see the trend extend to anything from a family-focussed compact SUV to a fire-breathing V12-powered GT car.
For more views on colour trends in car design, particularly on the interiors front, see this feature that recently appeared in Interior Motives magazine.
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