Jalopnik decided to delve into what for some is the most agonizing decision the purchaser of a new car makes — choosing the color.

First, the worst:

There have been plenty of really terrible colors in the automotive world, and many more that, like bellbottoms, seemed fashionable at the time. But don’t take this list the wrong way. We’d never want to see these colors on a car of our own, but it would be a tragedy if car companies didn’t offer weird, unexpected and, yes, ugly colors.

10.) 1970s Green

We’re not exactly sure what to call this pea soup of a color, but it has aged about as well as fondue parties and Cher.

 

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9.) Pale Yellow

A nice strong killer bee yellow looks good on everything from Dodge Chargers to Lamborghinis, but the limp-wristed pale hues like Subaru offered for a while just look sad.

 

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8.) Prius C Orange

Again, orange is a fantastic color for cars, and we love to see it on anything from old Porsches to the new Boss 302 Mustang. The new Prius C’s bluish tangerine is just too weak and too flat to look good, though.

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7.) Kia Sorento White Sand Beige

Some colors pick up the lines of a car ad make them really stand out. Kia’s discontinued off-white did the exact opposite, making the whole car look flat and dull.

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6.) 1990s Teal

This cheap, thin teal used to be on everything, especially if it came out of a Hyundai or Ford (it was called “calypso green”) plant. No matter how many Power Rangers posters you have on the wall, or how many times you’ve thrown “I Love The ‘90s” parties, this color still sucks donkey balls.

Excuse me? Green is my favorite color. I’ve had one greenish car, a 1991 Ford Escort GT in Cayman Green Metallic, what Jalopnik and others call “teal.”

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4.) Mary Kay Pink

Maybe it’s because we see this color almost exclusively on bloated front-wheel-drive Cadillacs in South Beach (like the one above), but man is Mary Kay pink a bad color. Pink can be fun and bold (think big 1950s cruisers), but Mary Kay’s giveaway metallic always looks weak and sad.

 

3.) Baby Puke Yellow

The beloved E46 M3 (and apparently this BMW M Coupe) came in this fantastic shade of expelled gastric content called “phoenix yellow.” Amazingly, there are dedicated phoenix yellow enthusiasts.

 

2.) Morning Piss Gold

PT cruisers and Toyota Yarises were done up in this metallic bronze for a few years, again looking every bit like some form of human waste.

 

1.) Beige

Most bad colors are at least distinctive and in some way interesting. The champagne beige that you find on cars like the Camry is so unbelievably boring, so oppressively inoffensive that we can’t stand to see it on another car.

We finish at the top:

No less than 70% of new cars sold in North America last year were white, black, grey or silver. Jalopnik readers know that’s a shame. They picked ten awesome alternatives to boring old grayscale.

10.) Lime Green

Lime green is surprisingly good at bringing out the best in a small car. It makes the new Mazda 2, for instance, look like an adorable little tree frog and it turns something like a Lamborghini just into something from another planet.

9.) Brown

People have hated brown for being the color of choice for big, boring old family sedans in the ‘70s (not the highest accolade), but the color is coming back into fashion. If you still aren’t sure it’s one of the finest car colors out there, look at it on Steve McQueen’s classic Ferrari and eat your words.

8.) Dolphin Blue

Silver is played out. Get your car in a light metallic grey/blue and it will look a thousand times better.

7.) Arena Red

There are many more fantastic takes on red than the usual flat shade you find on 1990s Dodges. We like a dark metallic candy apple best.

6.) Metallic Green

We have already professed our love for British Racing Green, so we will also mention a deep metallic green with a bit of blue looks great on just about any car. Even a Camry looks good in it. …

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3.) Inka Orange

These days, you only see a good orange on Lamborghinis. That’s a shame. Let the common folk enjoy a good, electrified orange, like the kind you get on McLarens or old BMWs.

Suggested By: rb1971, Photo Credit: FurLined

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2.) Sky Blue

Your grandma’s old Mercury may have come in this color, but it needs to make a comeback in a big way. Again, this looks great on just about anything.

Suggested By: Ash78, Photo Credit: Raphael Orlove

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1.) Mystichrome

The shifting purple/green you find on TVRs and Mustangs is a love it or hate it color. And we can’t support that enough. More people should take these kinds of risks with their cars, and not doom us to an endless sea of silver and grey

Brown can be OK depending on the car and, more importantly, the shade of brown. We had a 1973 AMC Javelin in Cordoba Brown Metallic with a gold stripe, which began cracking approximately 27 minutes after the car got into our driveway.

The dark red car was our 1975 Chevrolet Caprice:

The predecessor to the Caprice was our 1969 Chevy Nomad wagon in LeMans Blue:

One comment I have to pass on:

The King of Cool agrees with #6.