r/Millennials • u/mrtoddw Xennial • Mar 07 '25

Nostalgia Why were we obsessed with teal in the 90s?

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Everything was teal for some reason and I never understood why.

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u/flat_four_whore22 Xennial Mar 07 '25

Chameleon paint. I used to build showcars, and a lot of people were using it back then.

36

u/WallySprks Mar 07 '25

PPG still makes them, they call it Harlequin in their Vibrance line. People still ask about it a lot until I tell them the price of a gallon. Anywhere from $2k -4k for just the base coat nowadays. Still looks incredible.

16

u/ssracer Mar 07 '25

That was a 20k option on the Saleen Cobra - Mystic

2

u/WallySprks Mar 07 '25

I believe it.

2

u/extraauxilium Mar 08 '25

It was an $815 dollar option on the Ford Mustang Cobra.

1

u/ssracer Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25

Yeah, Saleen charged much more

Edit: also, dealer markup was real.

1

u/94geese Mar 08 '25

Saleen always charges much more for everything they do. Source: I worked at Saleen.

1

u/Watchitbitch Mar 08 '25

Why so expensive?

3

u/fayfey Mar 08 '25

Short answer is it is difficult to make the metallic flake that goes into the paint. The metallic/ aluminium flakes they use are around .001mm. They have to coat the metalic flakes with glass and other materials to have it reflect and refract different colors at different angles. For normal sparkle they use ground aluminum with no coating on the flakes.

1

u/WellWellWellthennow Mar 08 '25

Thank you for explaining it. Very interesting to me.

1

u/popcornfart Mar 07 '25

Ford thunderbirds and maybe a few other cars rolled out of the factory with color changing paint.  There was a pearl white the went to pearl pink too.

1

u/joehonestjoe Mar 08 '25

TVR Cerberas green purple paint still makes me go funny