>I don't know what you think of the PT Cruiser but that's what I've got, in a bright cherry red. I love it and it's retro looks (although it's a bit sluggish - but, hell - I ain't no boy racer).
The petty crusader? My wife likes that - the perfect American answer to the new beetle. Though the beetle isn't that new. It was designed in 1994.
I've read somewhere that there's an almost formal body, a consortium of sorts, where the various industries decide the colors (and colours) for the next season. They may go by branches - fashion, cars, gadgets etc, I don't know, but they're powerful.
Last year, our old TV broke. It was black, because when we bought it, in 1999, they were all black. Now when we were buying a replacement, we had a choice of silver, silver, and silver. Not a single color TV anywere!
All my hardware is ugly gray, creamy or drab (except the monitor, which is black). I hate it. If it wasn't permanently in use, I'd already have sprayed my computer all over with grafitti cans.
One advantage of owning a house is that we could finally live in a place where the walls are really white, not some whitish shade of pale. Yes, they still produce white paint. Tougher for tiles, they come in all shades of almost white, but there's always at least one zero bit in their rgb().