Why do Cars Suddenly Look Like Putty??

I desperately needed to make this video...I have been surprisingly overwhelmed by this for months...

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[Override]

Hi Hank! Automotive paint raw material specialist here, it feels like you made this video specifically for me 😁
You did some great deductions of figuring out the lack of metallic flake giving the "Nardo" feeling. I can maybe give you some more details into *why* automotive companies started going that way.
#1 Cost: Metallic flakes are typically from aluminum sources, which can be difficult to source cheaply and reliably. Rising aluminum prices means that by removing them from the paint formulations, you save more money.
#2 Complexity: Aligning the metallic flakes to achieve maximum sparkle is HARD. Seriously, it's like witchcraft and physics had a baby with how we figured out how to spray paint out of a rotating nozzle, get it to adhere to the coating layer, and also lay flat to reflect light in the best way. Any number of chemistry or physics related things can go wrong with the coating to make it not work the way you want it to. I bet there were a lot of issues making a new generation coating that flake was causing, so R&D just said, "screwing, we'll make it without any flake"
#3 Customers: Some people genuinely like the softer, pastel looking subtleness of the "Nardo" colors. Ultimately we make paint for people to buy them, so customers get the final say in what succeeds in the market. You brought up a great point of culture shifts looking for something "new, but the same". Flake has become pretty standardized in most vehicles that Nardo really gives the feeling of it being the same color, but different. We deal with more than just the color as a physical wavelength, but also as a psychological perception.

[Alice_Walker]

As a nail polish wearer, these colour/finish trends happen all the time and I had noticed this and thought "Ohhh cars are doing THAT now" in nail polish land we call it cremè colour when there's no metallic/sparkle and the colour is dense rather than sheer.

[TehMegaSnakeFan]

Yeah so turns out imma need like weekly installments of "hank feeds his curiosity in real time". Being taught something by an educator is one thing, but joining an educator in learning about something together is S tier educational content. Same reason i loved the reunion video where you talked john through the hypothesis that planets dont exist. I'll always enjoy learning from y'all but getting to watch y'all learn and explore ideas and think it all through in real time is a special kind of joy

[realspacemodels]

As a scale model builder, I will say that if you paint your model car with gloss grey paint, people will look at it and go "Why didn't you paint your model, it still looks like plastic". Whereas if you use a metal flake paint people will say "Man! That looks so REAL!" So when my wife and I started noticing the Nardo colored cars we thought that they looked like unpainted plastic model cars. We are not a fan of the trend. But absolutely if we see the non-flake red, yellow, black, or white, it looks just fine. Thanks for making this video, it answered a lot of questions we had about this weird-ass-paint-color trend.

[hallow_cat]

I need to know how many more times Hank said 'putty ass lookin' whips' in the unedited version. 😹

[futurestoryteller]

I can't express enough, just how amazed I am that you had this thought "Cars kinda look like clay or something." And OTHER people had been like "Why cars be lookin' like putty!?"

[ChlomeRendia]

I'm a music teacher and there are certain rhythms that kids always get wrong because they know things about rhythm without consciously knowing it. I tell them that too, "You got it wrong because you know way more about music than you know, and you know music never ends with (insert weird rhythm)." They love hearing that they know more than they think. Suddenly, their mistake is proof of knowledge, and that just amazes them.

[fluffebunnie]

working at a dealer ship I can always make the "well you got the primer on, what color are you going to paint it?" whenever I see the nardo/boulder gray cars.

[ThisSteveGuy]

I work in 3D graphics and I think I see what's going on in terms of certain colors being more Nardy than others. Like Hank alluded to, it's a matter of saturation, the richness of the color. We're basically talking about pastel colors which do it. Normally pastel car paints with metal flakes end up pulling lots of colors out of the environment. So when you're not seeing those environmental colors in there, your brain goes wtf. With richly colored cars, the metallic reflections in the flakes will remain the same color as the car paint itself. So if the flakes are gone in a deep red car, it won't seem that different to you, since you're not expecting other colors in there. The Nardo effect is your brain noticing the lack of environmental color in desaturated car paints.

[chestersnap]

As someone who works in the auto industry, watching you work through this without the vocabulary has been delightful

[kickthejetengine]

Please do more of these. Hank having questions, going down internet rabbit holes and taking us along for the ride. Love it.

[loczaczix]

When i first saw that gray "nardo" i fell in love with it. Me trying to explain it to my wife was " you know the silver color cars? So it's like silver but not silvery, just plain gray"

[tomgonD]

As someone who actually has to work with painstakingly recreating those paints and colors and variants digitally for a major car brand I got a certain kick out of this video that I wasn’t prepared for tbh. Will definitely share this with colleagues tomorrow

[Millennia]

I LOVE this stream of consciousness style of video making. More chaotic Hank, please.

[llpolluxll]

Watching a 10 minute video of Hank talking constantly about nards is exactly what I needed today.

[TPaine]

The coolest part of Hank’s curiosity is that unlike other people who are curious about the world or curious about themselves, his curiosity about the world ultimately spirals around to curiosity about his view of the world! It’s like spiral mirror curiosity!

[lessefrost]

Hank, I think you've accidentally stumbled upon a fantastic format! I like you're capturing your entire research process to answer a question. I think it could be super useful as a way to exhibit how to use the Internet and sort through the firehose of information. Casual internet research is a skill I've found not many people have a great grasp of.

[pink_milk_]

I used to work at an auto car wash and the first thing I thought when I saw one of the new 23' or 24' accords with the "nardo paint" was "why does it look like a stormtrooper?". When you mentioned stormtroopers I nearly jumped out of my seat.

[PopeGoliath]

Back in the '90s, when the SUV started to really take off, cars went from having angles and lines to just being lumpy round things. Color is just a continuation of the gradual metamorphosis into silly putty.

[pasupuletinitishsai]

This style of you investigating something you don't really have the expertise in, is actually so insightful.