Why are car enthusiasts obsessed with brown?

"traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn" (el-peasant) 02/27/2015 at 16:59 • Filed to: None

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Brown is the color of poop, my profile picture, trees, and one step away from beige . What do they all have in common? Farmers. Not car enthusiasts. It's what they clean up every day, their social status (peasant), their surroundings, and the car they drive.

Is it just because brown is rare?

I like silver metallic with a hint of blue myself.

EDIT: I have nothing against brown, I'm just wondering why it's one of the cliches for the perfect Jalop car.

Nibby > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:02

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E. Julius > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:03

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I like it because it's different from the hundreds of shades of gray/white/black that are so common on cars today—especially luxury cars—without being loud. It doesn't work on every car, but I think it needs more credit than automakers are willing to give it. Other colors that fall into this category: navy, dark dark green, burgundy.

There's a brand new navy S-Class that I see in my neighborhood all the time, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I don't understand why everybody gets theirs in black.

505Turbeaux > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:03

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I like brown, it is an attractive color. The color of good earth, the color of chocolate, the color of mahogany. That said, people are naturally dumb and nostalgic. I heard someone call a sunflower yellow vintage fridge from 1977 "Ultra Cool" the other day and I wanted to vomit

wiffleballtony > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:10

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I agree with everything you said. Although my poop was green a couple tjmes.

Xyl0c41n3 > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:10

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Peasant? There aren't too many sharecroppers or subsistence farmers in this country in this day and age. Hell, there are precious few small-scale farmers, too. It takes a lot of money to run any sort of agricultural or livestock operation today, and most of the ones in existence are large scale businesses. Just the property taxes alone are enough to make one weep, to make no mention at all of how much it costs to purchase livestock, feed them, pay vet bills, purchase seed, pest control systems, plows and harvesters, etc. Then you've gotta add in the wages of the cowboys/cowgirls and farm hands who work with the land and animals, plus a myriad number of other costs.

Farmers are far from peasants.

Scary__goongala! > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:13

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I like it because it is different without being something like PMY. Unlike black or white it doesn't look like complete hell when it starts to get dirty or marks start to occur in the paint. It certainly isn't fitting for every car. There are other colors to like dark green for instance(which is my favorite color) that don't get used by manufacturers nearly enough.

Conan > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:14

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In spite of my own two silverish metallic cars in a row, brown tends to be a distinctive color that the average customer does not go after, thus putting an enthusiast stamp on a vehicle.

Sasquatch > Xyl0c41n3 02/27/2015 at 17:24

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Thank you for correcting that. You did so in a much more polite and constructive way than I would have. Farmer =\= dumb or in any way poor. These men and women have mastered more skills than most of us will even attempt.

jkm7680 > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:33

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Wow, you're not arrogant at all.

lonestranger > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:36

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I think that brown, when used in the context of "brown manual diesel wagon", exudes the same qualities as does "diesel", "manual", and "wagon". None of these features are especially popular with the general public, yet all (especially together) have qualities that can and do attract a certain person. These people usually are "car people". Whereas car people and non-car people can both see desirability in a bright red, high-horsepower sports car, non-enthusiasts see the brown manual diesel wagon in the same light as they would a silver automatic gasoline SUV.

Brown can (though not always) be very attractive without being flashy, and not being dull. A nice burgundy, dark green, or blue can have the same effect, but not always to the same extent as brown does. Since it's even less common, buyers who choose brown likely did so after careful consideration. This is another signal to like-minded enthusiasts that the owner cares about their car, that it's not merely an appliance. It's like a four-wheeled wink of the eye. A brown driver can "show off" without showing off.

Go to your local new car lot, and you can drive home today in a black, silver, white, or beige automatic gasoline sedan, SUV, or crossover today. No dealer is going to stock a B.M.D.W., it's something that a "car person" is going to special order.

Of course, not all brown cars are automatically "cool" or even desirable by enthusiasts just because they're brown. They may even be less desirable, just as a manual transmission, diesel engine or wagon bodystyle might not be appealing to an enthusiast.

Xyl0c41n3 > Sasquatch 02/27/2015 at 17:44

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Yup! And thank you! Not a lot of people realize it, but farmers are highly educated people. Many have degrees (even masters and doctoral degrees) in animal husbandry, agricultural science, engineering, biology, genetics, and other highly specialized, incredibly rigorous fields of study. It takes a HELL of a lot of money to become a farmer, and even more to stay one. It's not a multibillion dollar industry for nothing.

Xyl0c41n3 > Sasquatch 02/27/2015 at 17:48

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Oh, and also, I'm the child of former migrant farm workers. If anyone in the agricultural world were to be considered "peasants," it would be my parents. And since they're not actually peasants, I take special umbrage to that assumption. My dad worked six days a week and could harvest an entire acre of land per day by himself. I know I couldn't handle even one DAY of the kind of work he did for DECADES. I also know few others here on Oppo could, either.

Tohru > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 17:50

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My '76 Delta 88 base model sedan was brown. It's the color my great uncle ordered it in.

traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn > Xyl0c41n3 02/27/2015 at 18:07

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Thanks for that; the first things that come to my mind with the word "farmer" are yellow teeth and a thick country accent.

Manuél Ferrari > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 18:08

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Blue is the best color, rare or not

Jagvar > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 18:21

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On the right car, it just looks so damn good.

E92M3 > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 18:57

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Look me in the eye and tell me this isn't beautiful!

Axial > Xyl0c41n3 02/27/2015 at 21:18

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Not only that, but many farms are actually large corporate bodies. That's why we get so much pro-corn lobbying in Congress.

Sasquatch > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 22:31

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My dad also farms and he is the model of the man I wish I could be. He bought his first 100 acres of farmland at 20 using a title loan on his car. He now farms more than 1000 acres by himself without any hired help. The man knows how to raise hogs, grow corn, fix anything with an engine, build a house, lay a foundation, pour concrete, the list goes on and on. Most of us have one career, he farms and owns two different small businesses. All of this built from a $10000 loan on his 69 GTO in 1982. I could only hope to be half the man he is. I know you didn't mean any disrespect with your comment but remember we all have diverse backgrounds and history and you don't know who you will offend with your words.

RedPir8Roberts > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 02/27/2015 at 23:02

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Of course, this car looks good in any color. But this brown is pretty sweet.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 03/02/2015 at 11:00

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My M3 is Silverstone II (the silver metallic with a hint of blue of which you speak).

But there is this: http://www.petrolicious.com/color-inspirat…