The United States are in a dark age for automotive color. It’s all monochrome as far as the eye can see, even as the era of Nardo Gray Omnipresence begins to wane. Yet, while buyers clamor for bright hues, manufacturers are going the other way — charging ever more for color.
Ford is the latest to jump on the cost-for-color train, this year making every single non-grayscale color an upcharge compared to black, white, silver, and gray. You can still have your Mustang for under $31,000, but God help you if you want it to look interesting.
The Mustang can still be had in Shadow Black, Oxford White, Iconic Silver Metallic, and Carbonized Gray Metallic without an upcharge. After that, there are three tiers. A $295 charge gets you your choice of Race Red, Atlas Blue Metallic, Grabber Blue Metallic, or Vapor Blue Metallic. Stepping up to $495 gets you Rapid Red Metallic Tinted Clearcoat or Dark Matter Gray Metallic, and $995 nets you the lone high-dollar color: Yellow Splash Metallic.
Personally, I’d throw the $300 in for Grabber Blue and be done with it, but I still don’t like that I’d have to. Colors should be free! If we want a world of bright, eye-searing cars, we have to make those cars attainable to the car-buying masses.
The updated prices are live on Ford’s configurator, so you can at least make the most educated build possible before heading to a local dealer and being sold on whatever they have on the lot. Hopefully it’s not Dark Matter Gray.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.