The paint — erm, act could be wearing thin.
In its latest nod to the heady and far-out past, Dodge will let you have your Challenger or Charger SRT 392 or Hellcat in its newest resurrected color, “Go Mango.”
Joining other blast-from-the-past(els) like “Plum Crazy,” Go Mango was offered for the first time on the 1970 Challenger — a legendary car from a truly great year, assuming you weren’t in Vietnam or a Jimi Hendrix fan.
If paint color has been holding you back from shelling out dough on a 707-horsepower car, the wait is over. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles says dealers can start taking orders immediately.
If some unlucky soul were to have traveled forward in time from 1970 (assuming they weren’t looking for surgery), the word “Fiat” in the company’s title probably wouldn’t be the only shocking thing about life in 2016.
In 1970, the Charger was strictly a two-door, but there were four other Dodge sedans to choose from: Monaco, Coronet, Polara and Dart. And the Dart actually sold, as opposed to being such a anchor that its parent is trying to have it adopted.
It’s an odd situation when a mainstream automaker finds itself only really satisfying the large (and fast) end of the market, but that’s where we are, at least until another automaker starts cranking out modern-day versions of the midsize Spirit or Stratus for FCA.
Still, if your best memories are from the pre-Environmental Protection Agency days of big displacement, big fuel consumption and big sideburns, chances are a classic nameplate mixed with retro colors and a huge horsepower figure is going to make you feel mighty happy.
And that makes you … Dodge Material.
I approve of this color.
I prefer that bright green color.
Used to have a Testors 71 Cuda in bright green, that I wasn’t able to build well because I was like 10 years old.
Sassy Apple Green and Curious Yellow. Curious Yellow has an interesting back story on the name.
Don’t eat yellow snow.
I thought it was Citron Yella.
The same color was named “Citron Yella” for Dodge and “Curious Yellow” for Chrysler, Imperial/Plymouth.
See the full chart of the Chrysler 1969-72 “Impact Colors” at:
http://maxwedge.com/articles/highimpact.php
Give me any of these retro colors any day over the current long-running trend of boring grayscale car colors. It’s like someone decided to turn down the color knob on cars for the past 15 years. Whatever “colors” were offered were so muted they barely seem to deviate from gray.
I like how Dodge is rotating the ‘impact’ colors too.
I agree. Not everything needs to be murdered out or silver.
Speaking of something that needs to be murdered and that’s the murdered out look. An entirely monochromatic car was cool for about the five seconds it took to realize somebody was too damn cheap to restore the wheels and trim on a car and just decided to blast everything with black paint.
So the Buick GNX is uncool now?
Usually murdered out is a matte or flat color. The GNX and GN is safe.
Murdered out is very 2002.
Fond(?) memories of Sport Compact Car’s badass S13 Sileighty project. That thing was cool.
I always loved Plum Crazy, aka “Statutory Grape”.
File to: “Lipstick on a pig”
I think the color looks great. Fun cars should be available in fun colors.
All cars should be available in fun colors, or at least actual colors and not shades of silver and grey.
Imagine the nerve. Dodge has the audacity to offer something other than silver, grey, black or white. Next thing you know other cars will be also be available in interesting colors. This is a truly frightening trend.
B- and C-segment cars have been and will continue to be offered in a wide variety of colors. Lime Squeeze Fiesta, anyone?
It’s no Purp Drank.
Well, in ’70 I was in Nam and was a Hendrix fan. I guess that’s why last year I bought a black ’13 Challenger R/T and in January I traded it in on a ’16 Plum Crazy R/T that I ordered built.:)
Congrats to Dodge for offering COLOR! I am so sick of the palette of colors offered on current cars. Most every car offers five or six dull shades of dirt plus a single red offering for their more daring customers. The more color the better! Lead the way. Dodge!
(And don’t get me started on most current interior color choices, or the utter lack of any if you don’t want beige, or mostly black {or all black} for any other selection. Yawn!)
You’re conveniently excluding the variety of colors available on compacts and subcompacts.
But then you have to buy a Mirage!
Nobody should buy a Mirage.
Some more “special” cars have fun colors and aren’t retro high-end or subcompact punishment. The Beetle, Mini, and FJ Cruiser, as well as the Element were all available in funsies colors.
Plus, the Germans will paint it whatever color you desire, it’s right in the brochure.
Dr. Z, you should modify that to SOME compacts and subs. A lot of them only come in Bland.
Why should I modify it? I said there’s a number of colors _available_. I never specified how many of them actually come in those colors. As you pointed out, there are more than a few rental fleets of Fiesta Ss in black or white.
we had a Mercedes S-Class come through (which was white) and on a lark I looked up the brochure. The paint colors offered are four blacks, four silvers, two whites, and a couple each greens and blues which are so dark they might as well be black.
Jee-zus.
That’s largely the fault of the conspicuous consumption crowd and their desire for “understated elegance”.
You can probably find more than a few articles out there in cyber land discussing a connection between buyer social status and wealth and the colors they prefer (along with the usual personality preference for certain colors).
Think about it though. The S-Class has always been a large car concerned with dignity. It was never available in brash colors.
Dark green
Dark blue
Black
Silver
White
Yellow
Brown
That’s about it.
Which generation of S-Class are we talking about? They switched the focus from private ownership to livery service with the 1991 model. I remember some beautiful colors in the 80s (emerald, metallic sky blue, etc), but not after that.
Those colors were still not quite hooligan orange or lime away green!
I remember 450 SEL’s (series 116) in some gag-inducing colors. I think it was when the subsequent series 126 S Class came out circa 1981, that they “stopped the insanity”.
Actually both BMW and Mercedes will paint your car just about any color you want (at least on the higher trim levels) – payment due up front, custom order through your dealer, pay retail + $5,000+ custom order paint charge.
BMW individual is the better known part of that, BMW Individual Manufaktur is the fully custom option arm.
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/explore/individual_2014/manufacture.html
I gotta disagree I’m young anf absolutely love the colors Dodge offers. The purple probably taking the award as my favorite. Automakers make way too many grays and silvers.
If I had to choose my favorite colors an automaker has came out with in the recent past. I think Gotta Have it Green and Grabber Blue Mustangs are absolutely sick looking.
In general FCA seems better than most other automakers in offering colour choices, inside and out. The 300 has navy blue leather available inside, and forest green mettalic outside this year. And the Fiat 500 has way more colour options than its competitors.
But as is typical, only the base 500 Pop is available in a bunch of colors. As you go up the line, the color choices get fewer and more boring.
Same with the 2-series – 228i, 11-12 colors. M235i, 6-7. Sooo annoying.
Had I been able, my M235i would be Valencia Orange, though Estoril Blue isn’t bad as a second choice.
Kudos to Chrysler!
Not true…
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/explore/individual_2014/manufacture.html
Pick your color – but comes at a $5,000+ premium
Individual is NOT offered on the 2-series in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter). I think the lowliest non-M BMW that does offer it is the 5-series.
The part on Top Gear where they talked about this subject always cracks me up.
“For five thousand pounds, Audi will paint your car in any color on this chart.”
“That’s just a spectrum.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, sir would like his car in visible light, would he?”
STUPID ME brought the HELLCAT in RUBY RED…
O well…
I wanted Black but they didn’t have it. The last one sold for $110,000 (I made a video about it) They lied to me and told me $90,000 to get me to come in.
One of my friends got a Purple Hellcat with the big Hellcat logo on the side.
THESE COLORS ARE RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
Why didn’t you just order it? Whatever color you wanted and only $72k.
I buy off the dealer floor.
Why? Are you looking for the ‘cash on the hood’ piece?
Fair enough. Your red Hellcat looks good. Too many gray scale cars out there – then again, I’m a prime offender with every car in black!
BTW is there still a hold on new Hellcat orders or have they cleared the backlog?
Go Man Go, or go home.
Finally some good colors. I would take mine in Orange or English Racing Green. (Had a Orange SAAB Sonett years ago. Loved that color.
Not for me (I prefer dark colors), but I can appreciate the variety.
Don’t forget that the dealer is the real customer and (for cars that aren’t targeted at paunchy mustached guys reliving their high school years) will complain if they get any configuration other than the very easiest to sell.
These retro colors are great. I missed the big displacement era by a decade but I love the cars from the muscle era. Kudos to Chrysler for bringing back the colors and (mostly) the cars. If one could treat the Challenger like a CAD drawing and reduce its size by 15%…..
orange and mango are my favorite colors for muscle cars. would love to get it with a dull white stripe ….
The Grabber Blue 2010+ Stangs are nice and hold up well. See them long way off.
Ford has a few good colors for the Mustang the S-197 and later Mustangs. “Got To Have It Green” was a neat color. A sort of pastel green with fine gold flake in it.
Pictures didn’t do the color justice since the gold fake wasn’t picked up well by the camera but in person on a sunny day made the color pop like crazy.
Along with Grabber Blue they also have (or had, the GT350 for 2017 doesn’t have it anymore) Competition Orange.
The Synergy green Camaros are a good color as are dark green of the Bullet Mustangs . But I would really like to see the return of light metallic blue on more cars . It’s a shame when you can only find it on late model Hyundais . Most of them having the awful tan interiors .
Back in 1974 I put ’68 Camaro tail lights in my 1965 Monza coupe, then resprayed it in Panther Pink.
People either loved it or hated it.
No pix exist of the car and it probably got crushed, but I had loads of good times plus a couple of cross country road trips.
I still miss it!
I was all of 6 in 70, but a Go Mango Hemi Challenger was one of the first cars other than “ours” that I took notice of beyond it being a car. It *trounced* the GTO that rev’ed at it.
Works for me!
(Still, give me a Mustang GT in Competition Orange)
This Le Mans Sunset 350Z owner approves! We often simply refer to my Z as “orange car”. The newer Z’s were actually available in two versions of orange: mine is a kind of a metallic rust or copper color while the other is a flat, safety vest or creamsicle orange called “Solar Orange”.
I was a small boy when Mopar was producing cars in colors such as ‘Plum Crazy’. Now when I see a new Challenger painted in those retro colors, it puts a smile on my face and takes me back to my 70s childhood…..not that I’d actually buy one, but they do make me smile.
“at least until another automaker starts cranking out modern-day versions of the midsize Spirit or Stratus for FCA.”
God no!
—
Other than that, I like how they’re offering these colors. They’re fun and retro – which is what the cars they’re putting them on are mostly about. Plus it gives them something to talk about in PR stuff, and a reason for (a few) people to shell out for a special edition or limited release paint color.
I seem to recall that back in the day one of the proposed colors was “Statutory Grape”. Naturally, the suits had a field day with that one and we got “Plum Crazy”.
I am offended by Plum Crazy, as someone who’s allergic to plums, and who has relatives in mental institutions. Change it to Casual Purple, or I’ll sue.
I take delivery of my special-ordered 2016 Challenger SXT Plus in Plum Crazy on March 20.
Had to buy the home/garage first!
I hope B5 Blue sticks around for another year.
Bought my Challenger in B5 Blue, another heritage color. Almost went Plum Crazy but I just liked the B5 too damn much. The Boss I had was School Bus Yellow. Yeah, I don’t like boring colors.
If I had 707HP, the color of the car would be low on the care meter.
Spending this kinda cheddar, colour would have to be palatable though. Personally, I’d take the Challenger over the Charger, especially in Hellcat form. Just a better looking car.