Our car is a silver Honda CR-V, a car so common in Mexico that I have to find it in a parking lot by checking the license plate or clicking the key fob to honk the horn. I live in a small (population about 17,000) village in the mountains of central Mexico, and the record (SWMBO keeps track) is seeing 13 silver CR-Vs in one trip through town.

SWMBO wants to repaint our car. We don't agree on what color it should be. Except... now we do. The problem is, all I have to go by is a screen shot taken from some random YouTube video about electric vehicles. I would like to tell the body shop the make/model or better yet the paint code for this car.

Can anybody help?

tanstaafl.

The car pictured is a Li model L9. Chinese make and model. Merely had to plug your screenshot into Google Lens and it popped right up. Can't find the official fancy name of the color other than "Purple".

Though I agree that shade of purple is awesome, I also kinda like the shade of green in that video I linked.

I am impressed. I had heard that Google could search pictures, but never gave it much thought. I'll have to figure out how to do that.

Thank you.

tanstaafl.

I just point my Android phone's camera at the picture in your posting above, and then tap on the Google Lens mini-icon on the far right-side of the Google Search Bar.

Almost looks like it could be Hawaiian Orchid Purple, a GM colour I painted my old motorcycle with back in 1995.

Edit... maybe not. I found a picture, but a scan from 1995 might not show the colour accurately.

Close, but just a little too much red, not quite enough blue. I looked up that color with Google, saw several samples.

Thanks.

tanstaafl.

To search the image just right click on the image in Chrome and select "Search image with Google"

https://www.sinoautoinsights.com/post/th...i-newsletter-24

"will initially only come in three colors. A forest green, light blue and an eggplant purple."

That name is not really unique enough, but it might be the best you're getting.

I used to have an Audi A3 in Merlin Purple, very similar a really great colour.

"Similar" you say? I'd say it's more like you absolutely nailed it! You have greatly simplified my life. Now instead of matching some paint available only from an obscure manufacturer that does not sell anywhere but China, I have an easily duplicated paint from a world-wide manufacturer.

Many Thanks!
tanstaafl.

I'd still have that car if some idiot hadn't wrecked it! I think that's the first time I've actually helped anyone on here, yay!!!

Color matching is tough because a given camera might over- or under-sell certain hues. Purple is a tough one in particular, since RGB sensors and displays have trouble accurately representing purple specifically, and things like camera firmware and display firmware must do compensation in those hue ranges in order to display it at all [1],[2],[3].

To give you more data, here are some additional photos and videos which show Audis in Merlin Purple. The color seems more muted in these images than the Chinese car's version of purple. But... hard to tell for sure due to the aforementioned stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ66rmIB7Qg
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=9041950259164556
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whs36niEdU0
https://www.audi-sport.net/xf/threads/show-us-exclusive-colours-in-all-models-of-audi-please.262021/

What I'm saying is: Be careful of using digital photos to decide upon a final color. Make sure that you see a sample of the actual dried paint, before committing to the final spray.

Footnote: Some cars these days are getting chromaflair colors (I've also heard them called "hypershift") which cause different shades to appear and disappear as the lighting and viewing angle changes. One of the comments in one of those links above make it sound like the Merlin Purple is in that category, looking almost black in certain situations. Which I personally think is awesome, but I'm not sure if that's what you two are looking for.

And from my own experience it is a really beautiful colour, not too garish, a really good purple.