Porsche Wants Color-Changing Paint That Mimics Your Clothes Like A Chameleon

Now, CarBuzz found a patent from Porsche that wants to take this idea to the next level, letting you pick multiple colors from a dial in the cabin.

What Your Car Can See, It Can Match

Porsche's patent is more about the method than the technology that would let the paint color change happen. It acknowledges BMW's e-ink cars, as well as what are called paramagnetic lacquers that change color with electric voltage.

To elevate it, Porsche wants to use a camera system to capture an image. Take a snapshot of anything you want, then pick the area holding the color you want to recreate. The computer will determine the color value of that part of the image, and then transmit it to the car's paint controller.

Bring in any photo, and you can make your car that color in an instant. Porsche also hints at using a car's exterior camera to capture a color. Ford example, another car you like the look of, or some particularly nice fall foliage.

You could even use an interior camera, and it could adapt the car to your clothes. Or your shade of lipstick. The sky is the limit.

Porsche suggests that the color change layer would be a film applied to the car. Like a wrap, which would make it easier to install on multiple vehicles and probably easier to repair. But it said it could also work through the paint applied to a car.

The Perfect Showroom Tool

In the patent, the company hints that it would be best used in a dealership showroom. Have one car at the dealer and let customers taste the rainbow, if you will. Seeing their dream car in the metal, and not just through a color swatch. But there's no reason it would be limited to that, as long as the color-changing technology was up to the task.

Of course, there's nothing limiting you to just one color. You could match your outfit's details perfectly, or make the driver and passenger sides different colors. Heck, you could even make your own 911 replica of the Volkswagen Golf Harlequin.

 These days, luxury means custom as much as it does the level of fit and finish. Buyers want something that's theirs, which is why automakers like Rolls-Royce and even Cadillac are spending small fortunes to let some buyers curate their machines for a true one-of-one vehicle.

Anything that helps buyers visualize their dream makes it easier for companies to sell them a car. With Porsche's Exclusive Manufaktur paint jobs a $14,710 option on a new 911, and Sonderwunsch Paint To Sample Plus ringing the register at a whopping $32,190, there's a lot of incentive for Porsche to push buyers in that direction.