(originally posted 10/3/22)
So how does our yellow compare to the orange hues of the bronco? Good question! And it’s one that we’ve been asked a bit, so let’s dive into the comparisons.
We tried our best to go along with both the badlands orange (some call this code orange) of the bronco’s interior as well as the cyber orange exterior paint option. Since our bronco is the Area 51 color (and we don’t know any one with a cyber orange bronco), we just went with the paint swatch from Ford’s brochure. I have no idea why Henry’s name is written on it 🤷
Anywho, we bought the fancy Pantone swatch books. Yes, these are way overpriced for what they are and leave much to be desired in their exclusion, but alas, it was the most accurate way to communicate our color selection to the powder coating supplier. So we bought three Pantone books and moved on with life.
Our goal was to pick a color with the same undertone that the badlands and cyber orange share. And yes, the cyber orange changes shade a lot depending on the light, but you gotta pick your battles. In bright sunshine, the cyber orange exterior will appear more on the yellow side of life.
We sat in our shaded driveway and spent more time that I’d like to admit picking our short list of colors.
Then we moved to a sunny spot in town and revisited our top favorites. It just so happened that our first choice in our shady drive way was still our first choice in the sunny spot… and at that, we had a winner!
Now it was a matter of sending in that Pantone code to the manufacture and hoping it translated into a powder coated color alright. For some reason beyond our understanding, powder coat color matching is basically voodoo, but we really needed the durability of a powder coating on our rails, so we rolled the dice a bit on the color translation. And while we’re here talking about coating processes, we also considered anodizing, but the hi-gloss surface finish leads to more reflection in your windshield and the color options are much more limited, especially with the Aluminum alloy required for die casting.
The color we got back doesn’t perfectly match either orange color from Ford, but it does go well with both, also keeping in mind that bright sun or shade plays a huge role. I would describe it as a slightly lighter version of the interior badlands orange color, more like the cyber orange in the sun. It is a warm, yellow-ish orange…but it gets the job done well
I think it’s so cool! Definitely a fun pop of color on your dash!
