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BASF Coatings presents 2025–2026 automotive colour trends: “Driving the Proxy”
With its new “Driving the Proxy” collection, BASF Coatings introduces the 2025–2026 Automotive Colour Trends, focusing on emotionally resonant hues, advanced pigment technologies and sustainability through renewable raw materials.
BASF Coatings has unveiled its 2025–2026 Automotive Colour Trends under the title “Driving the Proxy”. The collection explores colour as a medium connecting inspiration and production decisions for future vehicle designs. The palette includes refined faux solids with subtle sparkle effects and highlights a clear shift towards warmer tones such as mauves, reddish shades and complex browns. Several concepts use renewable or recycled materials, while others feature innovations such as multi-colour pigments and metallic effects that create visual depth.
Regional key colours reflecting global dynamics
For the new edition, BASF Coatings’ global design team identified 45 colour concepts, including three regional key colours that capture cultural and technological developments. In the EMEA region, Tesseract Blue represents a vivid shade with green and violet reflections based on interference pigments, creating a multidimensional surface. According to Mark Gutjahr, Global Head of Automotive Colour Design at BASF Coatings, it symbolises “filling the voids” in an era of social fragmentation and environmental change.
In Asia Pacific, Phygital Magnetar stands for calm and fluid metallic surfaces achieved through two-coat technology. The design merges physical and digital elements and reflects discussions about “innovation fatigue”, as noted by Chiharu Matsuhara, Head of Automotive Colour Design for Asia Pacific.
Emotional design meets sustainable innovation
For the Americas, Auxetic Neutral redefines neutrality as a statement of identity. The warm brown hue, enhanced by fine sparkling elements, takes inspiration from fashion and industrial design and emphasises collective rather than individual authorship.
BASF Coatings’ colour design network analyses trends in fashion, technology, nature and society to guide automotive manufacturers in their long-term styling and production planning. Digital tools and virtual colour solutions support this process. Previous trend colours, such as Bursting Blue, have already found their way from concept to production models, underlining the predictive value of BASF’s colour research.
