In the past five to seven years, pastel grays have proliferated across car paint palettes industry-wide. These concrete hues, ranging from barely darker than white to nearly black, have carved out niche popularity in the sports and supercar markets because they look outstanding on everything.
This range of car colors first entered your author’s consciousness with Audi’s Nardo Gray, seen here on the four-ring’s best car, the twin-turbo RS6 Avant (finally coming to the US this year!), courtesy of Roman’s International.
Since discovering Nardo, I’ve been hunting down similar colors from other manufacturers in an attempt to hone in on the perfect non-metallic grey in case Paint to Sample ever comes to my favorite cars.
Exotic car makers have clued into the cool-factor of these greys. Ferrari has the stunning Grigio Medio, Lamborghini has Grigio Telesto, at Aston Martin it is China Grey, and McLaren’s version is called Chicane Grey. Each is among the best-looking paints I’ve seen on any of the cars that it has graced. It really highlights the lines of any vehicle while also allowing black and/or carbon fiber accents to actually, well, accent, instead of blending in like they do on a black car.
The Corvette’s main competitors over at Porsche have an embarrassment of riches in their color rotation, including more Nardo-esque shades of gray than most of the rest of the industry combined. They have light shades like Dolphin Grey and Chalk and run the gamut all the way to the excellent Grey Black with a personal sweet-spot in Sport Classic Grey somewhere in the middle.
Stateside, versions of this color have graced the Shelby GT350 (Avalanche and Lead Foot Gray), the Dodge muscle cars (Destroyer Gray), and even their big brother, the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (Rhino).
The Corvette Team tried to get in on the action in 2018 when they introduced Ceramic Matrix Gray (still available for your 2020 Stingray!). I can’t help but feel like they missed the mark a bit with CMG (even though it is still one of my top four favorite recent ‘Vette paints) by going too light. The first one that I saw was in the shade and I really thought it was just another Arctic White C7.
It is time for Kirk Bennion and his crew to take Nardo as seriously as they take metallic grays. This is a hot color with the demographic that they are desperately going after with the mid-engine Corvette. It is subtle, awesome, and makes everything else about a car really pop. Mixed with a bright red caliper and the Adrenaline Red interior, you’d have one stunning C8!
The “boring” grayscale side of our ideal mix of Corvette color choices would include Arctic White, Pearl White, a Silver, Black, Metallic Black/Carbon Flash, a Metallic Gray (I think they peaked with Cyber Gray and should bring it back), and some kind of take on Nardo Gray.
So, Corvette Nation, what do you think of Nardo Gray, which of the examples from other manufacturers do you like the most, and what Corvette metallic gray and silver would you like to see resurrected and offered in the option book next to our two proposed whites, blacks, and Nardo gray? Let us know your thoughts on these questions or anything else that comes to your mind, like how you would rather see us spell gray with an “e” in the comments!
Related:
The C8 Corvette Needs a ‘Paint to Sample’ Program
Colors We’d Like to See on the C8 Corvette: Spitfire/Krypton Green
Torch Red, Arctic White and Elkhart Lake Blue Lead the Color Choices Based on Kerbeck’s C8 Corvette Orders
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![[SPIED] Corvette ZR1 Mules Testing in Ohio Ahead of the NCM Bash](https://www.corvetteblogger.com/images/content/uploads/2024/04/042224_8-218x150.jpg "[SPIED] Corvette ZR1 Mules Testing in Ohio Ahead of the NCM Bash")
When they make one in DSOM I will put my order in.
Pearl White, Pearl White and Pearl White!!!!!!!!!!
Watkins Glen Gray seems perfect! Those flats and mattes have the primer look of the 50s IMHO, but to each his own.
AND FOR THE DOORS YOU CAN PUT A U S N LOGO AND AN ANCHOR ON THE HOOD. I’M WITH JOE K. FORMOSA,,,,,, PEARL WHITE .
Primer Gray car with flat black wheels. So exciting I can hardly stand it.
Maybe the State Police will order a few.
Why would I want my Corvette to look the same as the sidewalk that it is parked next to? To me all of these new non-metallic colours tend to look “dead”, and non-metallic greys are among the worst — “undead”.
Are you serious?????? Grey is the most non descript, non inspiring shade (not a “color”) that you could possibly spray on a car!! That is why PRIMER is grey ……..WTF ?
Don’t Cha Know, All Corvettes are RED !
Battle ship non metallic gray… you guys must be joking… nice color… absolutely not.
Paying for a sports car with a non-metalic grey finish to me is boring. Too depressing to me. Too blah, blah, blah, for something like a C8 that should scream “look at me!” Sure grey makes just about any color, a contrast color. Isn’t that why White is perhaps the most popular automotive color. But I’m buying excitement. Not just another boring “grey” sky day.
Ugh. You should hear this game I play with my family: as the cars cross their green light, name the colors that you see. 98% of the game results like this: black, black, grey, white, white, grey, grey, white, black, black, black, white, grey…etc.
I live in Las Vegas and this town has ZERO imaginations in choosing the color of their cars. Turns out in a conversation with one of the dealer salesman, any color other than black, white, or grey, they have difficulty in selling. Barely anyone wants any other color. Spoke to a Caddy dealer about a gorgeous red CTS-V and he said it’s been on the lot for too long BECAUSE it’s red. Never mind that it was a CTS-V with the SCV8 and awesome ground effects package. It can’t sell because it was red. I’ve never seen a CTS-V marked down to sell, but that was the first time.
There will never a black, white, or grey car in my garage.
Battle ship gray? No way. My C7 is LBR. I get frequent comments on the color. If there is a C8 in my future,I would stick with LBR. Perhaps I got sick of gray when I was in the Navy.
DrZ here, I ordered my C-8 in September 2019, in CMG, and upgraded to 3LT just to get the morello red guts, dark red calipers, according to my prod code, it started on the BGP Thursday afternoon, and should come out of assembly tomorrow Feb 12,20….. were doing BG delivery…. ordered through Lebonte Chevrolet in Concord NC, honestly, I had sooooo many naysayers urging me to wait for the lemons to be filtered out and wait for a ‘21….cmon, this isn’t the ‘67-68 technology! I’m having absolutely NO buyers remorse, a great warranty, what’s the worry? With this groundbreaker that’ll be in my garage early March? Priceless!!!!
My ‘14 Cyber Grey really pops! It sparked in the sun and looks rich in the shade. I’m glad I ordered this 1 year only C7. No other grey even comes close!
Looks like Battleship gray to me…Just put some US Navy numbers on them. If you look down on a large parking lot these days you see: Black, White, silver, Gray…Black , White, Silver Gray….If you go to a large Corvette event and look down on it..you see Red. Blue, Orange, Silver, Black, Green, Yellow…some bright exciting colors…not funeral home colors
silver, gray
I agree that the gray looks too much like Battleship Gray. Why do people buy cars in colors that make the sculptural lines of a beautiful car disappear?
At least, how about a bright metallic-finish British Racing Green!!!!!!! AKA Forest Green, etc. Like the immaculate 19-year-old 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT SL that I traded in to get my 2014 Laguna Blue Convertible 6 years ago. But my C8 will be Torch Red. MMMMM…..
To each his/her own. 🙂
Back in the late ’70s (I think) Oldsmobile Tornado
had a gray on it that was the most stunning shade
of gray. Maybe too far back for a lot of our Corvette
friends to remember.
Possibly Keith could find a picture of it and show us.
CMG is close but needs to be darker(only my opinion).
The C8 is missing a proper “race car” silver or gray.
The newer Ferrari’s like the F8 Spider, the Lambo Centennario, Porsche GT3 and GT2 (Weiser package…something like that) or the current Ford GT all look great in silver. Unfortunately Blade Silver isn’t as appealing. It’s ok but not great. I’ve seen better paint on the newer Lexus models.
I like the color on the Astin-Martin. I think it’d be fantastic on a C8.
Sure glad that when I finally found my C-6 Z06, it was Cyber Grey, an adult colour, not that dreadful fire truck yellow..
Gray looks like shiny primer. NO thanks!
Great color! Woundn’t mind getting one in this color.
enough grays! love to see Lime Rock green brought back from 2014, and a bright gold would be nice.
Agree 100%. Just look at a Nardo R8…looks fantastic. Someone’s already rendered a C8 in this color.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.corvetteforum.com-vbulletin/2000×1709/c8_side_gray_e77e04d0ed850c6e4ae62a694a7443338db61c9d.jpg
I like it so much that I’d probably vinyl wrap a C8 just to get that look.
“CMG is close but needs to be darker (only my opinion)”
100% agree. I saw it in person and even though it was nice, it needs to be more “aggresive”
I’m liking all of the great conversation here, guys! Everyone comparing Nardo to battleship gray, I don’t see how that is a negative thing. A battleship is about the coolest thing that I can think of.
How did the Corvette get its name again?
As far as the color being dull, that is the point. It is a classy, understated livery that turns the usual “look at me” nature of mid-engine supercars on its head. The design is already flashy, finishing it in a color like this can make a bigger splash than “just another” red sportscar. It is like putting a madman like Conor McGregor in James Bond’s classiest suit. Who wouldn’t stop and stare at that?
Gray , just like the other 10 million gray Toyota’s, 5 million Nissans , 8 million Honda’s . Nothing like making your car standout in traffic
I HAPPEN TO LIKE GRAY AND SILVER TONES ON MY CORVETTES, IT LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN FOR A LOT OF INTERIOR AND ACCENT COLORS, BEING I LOVE TO DRIVE MY CARS IT MASKS THE DIRT WELL SO IT DOES’T COMPEL ME TO WANT TO CLEAN THE CAR WHEN I PARK!!! WORKS FOR ME !!
Concrete grey. Yeah right! How stupid. Just to put out controversial,outlandish drivel does not make one a journalist.
Why would anyone want to drive a Corvette in primer gray, not I. Bring back Millenium Yellow.
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