Inferno Orange Helps Heat up Sonic Sales

Sales of the new Chevy Sonic are off to an excellent start, and a surprisingly important factor is its finish: After Chevrolet designers included Inferno Orange as one of the Sonic’s exterior paint colors, the hue has become the second-most popular choice for customers, covering nearly 20 percent of all Sonics sold. (The only color it trails is black.)

Of course, this isn’t a case of the brand just getting lucky. Designers purposely picked this racy reddish-orange tint to take advantage of its growing appeal among the fashion forward. A very similar shade, called Tangerine Tango, was named the “Color of the Year” by the experts at Pantone and can be seen in a wide range of fashions from the likes of Tommy Hilfiger, Jimmy Choo, Ralph Lauren and J. Crew.


“Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset,” according to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, the look “marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”
Unsurprisingly, similar shades of orange also are among the top choices for drivers of the Chevrolet Corvette and Chevrolet Camaro, too.

“We had a strong feeling that the Sonic’s Inferno Orange would hit the trend at the perfect time and hatchback drivers would embrace it,” said Michelle Killen, lead creative designer in GM’s color and trim studio, as well as an exterior paint expert for General Motors Design.

And with overall sales of Chevy’s subcompact entry up by more than 98 percent through the first half of the year, it looks like Killen and crew were exactly right.

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