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Colours of Early Cars

See: ROBERTS, P. (1976) Any colour as long as it is black. . . The first fifty years of automobile advertising. N.Y.: William Morrow.

A book that's well illustrated in colour. The author, Peter Roberts, is a sports journalist and photographer. He explains that it was the special role of women to choose colours for cars after womens' suffrage and the end of World War 1. Colour advertisments were often illustrated in female magazines, Vogue, Vanity Fair and so on. In Philadelphia women were employed to design car bodywork. They used such colours as Egg Shell Blue, uahogany Maroon, Venetian Green, and South Sea Turquoise.

In Scotland certain models were put under the sole charge of Dorothee Pullinger, daughter of the chief designer, and the whole factory was staffed entirely with women. Even Henry Ford, who, at one time, said you can have any colour so long as it's black. . . began to offer more than just black.

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