BASF Coatings Reveals 2025-2026 Automotive Color Trends Collection
BASF Coatings unveiled the 2025-2026 edition of the Automotive Color Trends collection, according to a news release. The "Driving the Proxy” collection explores how creative inspiration and influences can come from various sources and serve as “proxies” or representatives to dynamically shape design decisions in the automotive industry.
Sustainability and innovation remain central to the collection, with some colors incorporating renewable or recycled raw materials. Innovations such as multi-color pigments and liquid metal-like surfaces add visual sophistication. The collection presents refined faux solids with smooth surfaces and subtle sparkle effects, alongside a transition toward warmer, emotionally resonant hues such as reddish shades, mauves, and nuanced browns.
Some colors are expected to appear on vehicles in as soon as two years. Among the 45 colors in the collection, BASF Coatings’ color designers spotlighted three regional key colors for EMEA, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas that reflect cultural and technological shifts unique to each region.
Tesseract Blue in EMEA
Tesseract Blue is a vivid blue with green and violet highlights, created through advanced interference pigments. Inspired by geometric abstraction, it delivers a multidimensional surface experience that challenges perception and creates visual depth.
“We see that overlapping dynamics, such as climate changes and social fragmentation, are creating visible and symbolic voids and reshaping social norms,” said Mark Gutjahr, global head of automotive color design at BASF Coatings. “In this context, Tesseract Blue represents a change in perspective – what we call ‘filling the voids’. It offers a harmonious vision for automotive surfaces with inclusive, forward-looking solutions.”
Phygital Magnetar in Asia Pacific
Phygital Magnetar is a warm, fluid metallic shade with bright white highlights. It captures the region’s duality: relentless innovation on the one hand, and a strong desire for calm and clarity on the other. Using advanced two-coat technology, Phygital Magnetar bridges the physical and digital worlds with a smooth, liquid-metal effect.
“We were inspired by ongoing conversations around ‘innovation fatigue’ in the Asia Pacific region,” said Chiharu Matsuhara, head of automotive color design for Asia-Pacific at BASF Coatings. “With its calm, expressive surface, Phygital Magnetar creates a space where innovation becomes invisible, and design quietly redefines the future.”
Auxetic Neutral in Americas
Auxetic Neutral is a rich, culturally inspired brown that redefines neutrality as a bold design statement. Its clean sparkle adds vibrancy and depth, creating a tactile, multidimensional surface. The color draws influence from both fashion and industrial design.
“Design today is less about individual authorship and more about collective expression,” Gutjahr said. “Neutrality — and even ‘anonymous authorship’ — have become tools for inclusivity, allowing diverse voices to coexist and shape identity. AUXETIC NEUTRAL reflects the desired qualities to navigate through this period, being a color that embraces complexity, openness, while remaining distinct and memorable.”