Here’s Why Blue on Tan is the Best Color Combo
Besides exploiting our innate desires for instant gratification and otherwise hijacking our brains, social media—specifically Instagram—provides an overall net-positive for car enthusiasts worldwide. Simply put, it gives us a single platform to spend hours scrolling on as we ogle and gaze upon bespoke exotic car specs that would otherwise never see the public eye.
That being said, the sheer magnitude of supercars with new and unconventional paint schemes that fill my Instagram explore page every day is getting to be ridiculous. Without delving into the “supercar bubble” discussion, sometimes I have to ask myself: Just how many more Tailormade Ferraris and MSO McLarens is the market going to accept?
I can’t answer that. And though it’d be foolish to assume the majority of highly-customized factory supercars are designed with zero intent of resale, my naive side would like to think that’s the case.
The beauty of Instagram, however, is that we don’t really have to care about any of that. All that matters are nicely composed, well lit photographs of these cars suitable for the algorithms to pick up and carry along to our feeds. For me, my explore page is bursting at the seams with cars that feature heritage liveries, fancy tinted carbon, and custom interior patterns (also ads from Grillo Pickles, but I’m fairly certain that’s unrelated).
Yet through the fog of highly-customized eye-catching designs that grow greater in volume by the day, I find my saving grace: a new post from @bluewithtan.
Yes. An account dedicated entirely to cars all featuring the same colorway: blue paint of any shade matched to a tan interior of any hue.
I have no personal attachment to this random Instagram account nor do I have any idea who runs it. All I know is that they provide a reliable, unending stream of perfectly specified cars that—at some times—seem too perfect.
Take this 458 Speciale Aperta, for example. The car in and of itself is outstanding—being a superb successor to the equivalent 430 Scuderia Spider 16M—but that blue is just stunning! It oozes classiness without sacrificing the Speciale’s carnal, aggressive looks. The Couio interior is matched perfectly to the lightness of the Azzurro California paint—and by the way both colors are part of Ferrari’s normal palette so there’s no fancy special orders present here. Frankly, the best part about this is that it takes advantage of the standard NART stripe and the second tone of blue that comes with it, completely transforming the stripe into a necessary accent that which, should it be removed, would throw off the entire color-way.
Not satisfied? Look no further than this Countach LP400S (seen here without a wing, which was optional at the time).
Seriously, just look at it. It’s a dark blue Countach with gold telephone dial wheels. Blue and gold. Does it really get any better than that? Perhaps the cinnamon-colored interior isn’t the best match for the wheels choice, but what better options are there? A blue interior would be an abomination, cream would cause way too much contrast, and black would be too dull for such a unique car.
Enough with the Italians, blue over tan is just as effective on German cars too. This classic early-70s 911T, for example, is simply immaculate. Finished in what I presume to be Albert Blue and yet again containing a tan leather interior, this Porsche holds fast on the fine line between subtlety and standing out. Its ageless bodywork could arguably pull off any color, but this deep shade of blue is simply faultless.
As an ever growing number of expensive car owners are constantly seeking to differentiate themselves from others and stick out amongst the crowd, it seems almost poetic that the loud and unique specs have become the white noise of the car world.
Even still, the conventional classy paint colors—such as dark green, dark grey, and dark red to name a few—all have their own merits but lack the regality and composure that blue provides with ease. It’s no coincidence that blue is the only color to have an eponymous shade relevant to the British royal family.
I’ll leave this here: At least we can be certain that when the wild, paint-to-sample, highly-optioned cars we see everyday on social media begin to become overwhelming, we can always fall back on good old blue and tan.
Definitely a fair write-up, but I’m still team @greenovertan. don’t think I’ll ever be convinced otherwise lol
I’d agree 😉