If there’s one thing the lads at Ram enjoy more than making torque, it’s making new trim variants for its various lines of pickup trucks. The old Ram 1500 Classic has enjoyed countless special trims during its long life, including a few colors which your extroverted author found to be quite fetching (Ignition Orange and Sublime, anyone?).

Now, the marketing arm of the company is applying similar treatments to the new Ram 1500. In addition to a Night Edition, which slathers the grille and other addenda in inky paint, the off-road focused Rebel gets a fresh trim as well.

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In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is — as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art. —Josef Albers, Interaction of Color

This is my favorite quote from the most intriguing textbook during my year at the College for Creative Studies. As an administrator of the Brown Car Appreciation Society, I’ve embraced this quote at every poorly chosen “brown” car that’s too close to yellow, red, gray, and green for most eyeballs.

So, when an Australian market research firm’s anti-smoking initiative found Pantone 448 C — a “drab dark brown” called Opaque Couché — the most off-putting color to cigarette smokers, it was no surprise the news eventually trickled down to my corner of the Interweb. (Read More…)