Selecting a Color for Your New Porsche 911
With all the other things to worry about when choosing a 911, you also need to pick a color, bearing in mind you are dealing with an iconic sports car, steeped in automotive tradition.
Over the course of our forty-six years of car ownership Lydia and I have parked fourteen different road-going vehicles in our driveway. They have come in a wide range of colors – our first was yellow, we have owned two white ones, two silver, two red, one was cream colored, two in slate grey, one in blue, one in British racing green, a black and also a gold colored one.
Given our history, choosing a colour we hadn’t already lived with for our new Porsche 911 was a challenge. When we looked at what was offered, we realized we had owned vehicles in most of the standard colors that were available for the 911. As I was running through the model configurator at the dealership I chose Guards Red as a possibility, selected it as a placeholder and carried on with the other specifications of the car.
Looking up from the computer screen at one point I saw a Cayman in Guards Red and realized that no that won’t do. Our 1991 BMW E30 318is was painted bright red and although stunning, we found it to be a magnet that drew a lot of attention from law enforcement, especially officers having a bad day. It also seemed to be a lightning rod with some friends and acquaintances, the implication being that we were attention seekers. I noticed a Carmine Red 911 GTS a few cars down in the showroom. That shade of red, although still unmistakably red, has some burgundy in it and looks very rich especially when contrasted with the GTS’s gloss-black highlights and wheels. At that moment in a showroom full of sports cars, Carmine Red appeared a little more understated but still sporting. I conditionally opted for that color, but was not convinced.
Before making a decision, we agreed to sleep on it and confirm our choice of colour within the next few days. Lydia and I talked it over and thought back to living with our BMW 318is and realized we did not want to go down that path again. Although understated for a red color, Carmine Red is still very red. While hoping to find a color we haven’t owned before, we decided to opt for something more discrete, as discrete as you can be pulling up anywhere in a 911.
Ruling out black, white and silver, all colors that we have owned and which are so common on the road today, optional colors Chalk and Ice Gray captured our attention.
Introduced by Porsche in 2015, Chalk (called Crayon in some countries) is a throwback to a similar tint of the late 1950s and early 1960s identified back then as Heron Gray and Pearl Gray. Porsche characterizes it as a historic color and I certainly remember as a child seeing European cars in this color including 356s and early 911s. Also of note in today’s world dominated by metallic finishes, is how the pigments used in Chalk are very fine giving it a solid, deep finish, another feature reminiscent of that era some sixty years ago.
Our second choice, Ice Gray Metallic is a very pale grey metallic color which can look white in certain light while reflecting tinges of grey and blue. The general effect is of a white car that glistens with those secondary tones in the sunlight. We preferred the effect of the darker Chalk. It is predominately light grey with just enough brown mixed in to create tone changes, depending on the light. It can look off-white, grey, beige or putty depending on the weather conditions and time of day.
In researching this article, I came across photos of a famous 1958 Mercedes-Benz 220 S Cabriolet in a similar color belonging to Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco and American actress before marrying into royalty. If this hue, called Dove Gray by M+B, was good enough for a royal and style icon of the late 1950s, then it is good enough for me.
In present times Chalk is a surprisingly popular choice on the outrageously aggressive looking street-legal racer, the Porsche GT3 RS. Unlike bright color choices, Chalk counterbalances the car’s enormous rear-wing, many exposed carbon fibre bits & pieces while emphasizing the brightly colored wheels and matching door decals. For my taste, a loud body color makes the car look far too busy by clashing with the many contrasting details used to enhance its aerodynamic characteristics. The GT3 RS is already an extreme car to begin with. There is no need to choose one in a bright primary color. Chalk works really well to highlight it’s race-car details and give it visual balance.
The Carrera T, the vehicle we selected, includes as distinguishing features, matching details in metallic dark gray, including the side mirrors, alloy wheels, rear bumper model-identifier, and engine-grill trim inserts. I thought with the 911’s black accents and those dark gray features specific to the T, the lighter gray Chalk body color would give the car a subtle monochrome appearance that would help emphasize the car’s graceful shape. I kept the red standard rear lights and used that color as an accent color for a few interior options I selected. I did away with the door decals and I am very happy with how it all turned out. Given my penchant for automotive history, Chalk’s place in Porsche heritage is a bonus.
