BMW i3: I See Your True Colors

Back in July I did a post on the i3's colors before they were initially announced. I found various pictures of i3's with partially covered with the blue and white swirly camouflage and pieced together what I believed would be the range of colors. I was close but not perfect,  and one of the things I got wrong was I had been calling the darker grey metallic paint Arravani Grey, when it actually turned out to be Laurel Grey. The problem is many other websites like bmwblog and Autoevolution picked up my posts and ran with them. That actually led to a lot of confusion as to which Grey is which, and months later it's still a point of confusion.

Some of the colors look different in different lighting so even these aren't perfect, but at least you can see all the colors next to each other in real photos, not illustrations like you get on the i3 online configurer. On the site, it's impossible to really distinguish between Arravani and Laurel Grey for instance. The Andesite Silver is interesting because in person I find that it can sometimes look like a beige-ish sliver, but other times not beige at all. One of the pictures below even captures what I mean. The Laurel Grey (which is my favorite) doesn't look as black in person as it does in pictures. In person you can clearly see the black hood is darker while some of the pictures make it look like the hood and the body panels are basically the same.

Capparis White w/BMW i Frozen Blue accent:

Andesite Silver Metallic w/ BMW i Frozen Blue accent:

Ionic Silver Metallic w/ BMW i Frozen Blue accent:

Solar Orange Metallic w/Frozen Grey accent:

Arravani Grey w/BMW i Frozen Blue accent:

Laurel Grey Metallic w/ BMW i Frozen Blue accent:

Note all of the colors come with BMW i Frozen Blue Accent trim except for the Solar Orange which has Frozen Grey. That's a good move because while it works for the other colors, I don't think the light blue trim would do well on an orange colored car!

Special thanks to BMWBLOG for providing many of the pictures to me for this post.

Edit:
Peter Bark from the i3 Facebook group just posted a short video there with about twenty i3's lined up at a dealership in Amsterdam. All the colors seem to be represented but it's difficult to tell the difference in Arravani and Laurel Grey since the pictures are head on and only the colored bumper and a little of the side can be seen clearly: Here's a link to the video:  photo.php

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The BMW i3's "Black Hand"

The i3 in Laurel Gray with BMW i Blue accent. Even though it's not quite as black in person as it looks in this picture, I like how it minimizes the two tone color scheme. I plan to order my i3 in this color scheme, with the 20" sport wheels as pictured and apply a dark tint to the rear windows. 

I get emails from readers here almost on a daily basis, and now that we are approaching the US launch the amount of correspondence I receive has been dramatically increasing. Quite often my blog posts are a reaction to something someone asked me. I figure if someone out there was curious enough about the topic to email me, then others probably are as well. I've had people ask me about this in the past, however yesterday and today I have had three people ask me if there was any way to special order a monochrome i3, with the hood, roof and accents all painted the color that the rest of the body panels are, instead of black.

The "Black Hand" extends to the side mirrors

Sorry, but the answer is no. If you want your i3 to be all the same color, you'll have to paint it or get it wrapped after you've bought it. The only other way around it is to consider getting it in Laurel Gray (Laurus Gray in Europe). Laurel Gray is a dark metallic gray, and while it isn't black, it's close enough to give your i3 the monochrome look you desire. I like this color a lot and will likely order my i3 with it.

Everything is black besides the bumper

The back of the car is particularly interesting because everything is black except the rear bumper which kind of gives the appearance that there is another car inside the i3 that is trying to get out! The New York Times Wheels Blog recently did a story on why BMW chose to use the black hood, roof and accents on all i3's regardless of the main color of the car. Evidently it was to "lighten" the appearance of an otherwise "chunky" small car.  Here is an excerpt from the NY Times story:


"In designing the i3 electric car, BMW engineers were tasked with reducing weight to compensate for heavy batteries. They used a combination of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic and aluminum, and the company mounted the passenger compartment atop the batteries. That approach made for a shorter vehicle with a lower center of gravity, but it also gave it a chunky profile. So designers set out to lighten the tall, bulky “monoform,” said Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW Group’s design director.

“We wanted to remove visual weight from the car,” he said. That meant using all sorts of techniques and tricks to break up the apparent mass of he car, he explained in an interview last week.

Mr. Van Hooydonk, Richard Kim and Benoit Jacob worked on designing the i3 for five years. The name they chose to describe the technique used to lighten the bulk of the car’s outline was the black hand, said Mr. van Hooydonk.

“The hood, as you see, is black, and the same material runs over the roof and to the back,” he explained. “This helps us divide up the volume.”

The i3 in white. We call this the "Panda Version" over on the i3 Facebook group

Solar Orange has been well received

The i3 Andesite Silver

What are your thoughts on the "black hand?"  Do you think it does what BMW had hoped it would, or would you rather your i3 painted all one color? Does anybody out there plan to paint their hood the same color of the car? How about a wrap? Lets discuss in the comments:

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