2011 E350 with Special Order Cuprite Brown paint
When considering any new car, color is always an important choice for most people. The color of a car often defines the car and its owner. The same car can be perceived as elegant in one color and agressive in another, you can drive a cop magnet or an understated sleeper, depending on the color.
I’m putting a series together on the available colors of the different Mercedes-Benz classes. The common colors, the more rare colors, and available special order colors. I’ve decided to start with the E class because it is currently the best selling class of Mercedes-Benz vehicle in the United States. Year to date sales of the new body E class through the end of October 2010 stand at 50,298, way up from the same time last year when there had been just 32,811 E class cars sold in the U.S. For such a ‘bad’ economy, a lot of people are buying $55,000 (minimum!) cars.
I see a lot of new E classes come and go each month, I also talk to a lot of customers who want something very specific and assume every dealer will have several cars in each color to choose from. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Of course, you can get whatever color you want… if you want a pink one with ostrich interior, it can be done, at a price.
Let’s look at what I would consider the most common colors:
Black and Arctic White are the only two ‘standard’ E class sedan colors, they are the only two non-metallic paint colors with no upcharge on the window sticker. Any other color except black or Arctic White will be an additional $720, except for Diamond White Metallic which is a $1,515 upcharge.
Iridium Silver rounds out the top three most popular / most common colors for new E class sedans, this is bright silver, regular silver so to speak. I’ve included two other metallic colors on the list of common colors, they are Steel Grey and Palladium Silver. It’s tough to figure these colors out by looking at the swatches above. Most dealers will have all of these colors represented on their lot, if not on E classes, certainly on something, C, ML and GL class vehicles all come in these colors.
Moving on to the less common colors:
Quartz Blue was a new color for the 2010 model year, it appears on E and C class cars. I’ve seen two E classes come through Feldmann Imports since the new body style was introduced, I actually sold one of them while I was still on the showfloor. That color seems to appeal to a fairly thin market, but when the right person comes in, they fall in love with it.
Capri Blue is not a real uncommon E class color, we usually have one of these in stock, it’s a very nice dark metallic blue and is most commonly found with an Almond Mocha interior, it’s actually one of my favorite colors on an E class, understated and elegant.
Jade Green is always an ellusive color. It’s rare on any car that offers it as a color, and while doing a nationwide search I couldn’t find a single Jade Green E class sedan, in fact, the color does not appear as a search criteria at all for E class sedans, so, I need to do some research and find out if it is still being offered on the E class sedan. There is one E class wagon available in the entire country currently in Jade Green.
Pearl Beige was a new color that was introduced on the E class last year, this color, along with Obsidian Black (a metallic black) and Indium Grey are all good colors, but fairly rare. If you want one of these there is a good chance your local dealer may need to perform a dealer trade to bring it in for you.
Cuprite Brown (the color of the car in the photo at the top of this post) is a special order color available on the E class. There are always some of these special order cars in regular dealer inventory, so if you’re interested in this very deep, rich color just ask around, chances are you’ll find one. We’ve had several of these this year, more of this color in fact that Indium Grey, Pearl Beige or Quartz Blue.
The metallic Diamond White color doesn’t appear in the list of swatches, but it is available on the E class. It’s sort of a pearl white color and quite rare. There are about 5 E class vehicles currently in the United States painted this color. Generally, the cars that are painted this color will be cars with lots of options added to them.
That pretty much wraps up the standard colors available on the E class. There are a number of other colors available if you get into the designo color line. There are several matte finish paints avialble in this line of specialty colors, such as designo Magno Cashmere White, designo Magno Alanite Grey and designo Magno Platinum. There are a number of other special designo paints for the E class as well, some of these colors also appear as special order colors for the new SLS AMG. So, you have quite a few choices if you want to get into these specialty colors. Chances are there won’t be more than about 4 or 5 cars in these colors in dealer inventory across the U.S. so if you don’t like how the available cars are optioned you’ll probably have to place a factory order.
Different car buyers have different ideas about color. If you’re a ‘deal shopper’ always looking for the best deal, you’ll have to be open to color, and probably be open to what’s on your local dealer’s lot. If you’re a ‘absolutely must be my way shopper’ you’re with teh right brand, Mercedes-Benz has a lot of special color choices, and has even been known to develop specific one-off colors for some customers. Most of us usually fall somewhere in between. I’ve found that if you’re open to about three color options, you’ll do just fine locally. You’ll get teh right car and you’ll get a good deal.