Wednesday, November 14

With most motorists being conned and taxed out of every penny they earn each day I thought it was time for a positive car story to hit my blog.

Car giant Nissan is rumoured to be working with scientists on a special kind of paint that changes colour at the touch of a button. This only works when the car is turned on so when the car is stationary the paint is white.

You must be dying to know how this technology works - I know I was. Apparently a special polymer coating is applied to the bodywork before the car is painted.



This contains paramagnetic particles which have the ability to reflect light and change colour when an electric current is passed through it. It starts working when the electricity adjusts the small crystals within the iron oxide particles.

There's no limit to what colour you can choose and the paint changes within a second.

It all sounds very space age, and very expensive, but I have to admit I can barely contain my excitement. Just think of the possibilities?

Fancy robbing a bank? Great, just pull up outside in your 'blue' getaway car, now which way did that 'blue' car go?

Want to sell your car? "What colour is the car, sir?", "Any colour you want, madam."

In a bad mood or have the urge for a stealthy look? Black it is then. Want to be seen and heard? White is all-white with me.

I expect boy racers' jaws will be dropping at the thought. Wizzing down the Barbican with they're finger stabbing away at the button as Hard House Nation 4 booms out the cabin.

Of course if your car starts to look dirty you could just match up the mud and no-one we will be able to tell - as long as you like soil brown.

Better still road rage could be dictated by your choice of paint colour - cut me up and I'm all red! Feeling kind enough to let someone out a junction? Green it is.

And the old problem of trying to shift a white car off the forecourt is no longer there, salesmen across the country just put the car on 'demo' mode and watch the car switch through the hues with the customer shouting 'that one'.

Unfortunately there is a flip side to all this automotive colour orgy. You can bet our car-hating government will make it law for cars to have white paint at night for visibility reasons. And what if you scrape the paint at the supermarket - yes, that could be expensive.

And just imagine the peer pressure when your mates turn up in their new camealeon cars while your faded, oxidized flat paint makes you look as cool as someone without a mobile phone.

I'm sure motorists will go blind or insane as traffic jams become a real-time kaleidoscope of colour - drivers will have permanent head aches.

Still, I've read it won't arrive until 2010, which gives me time to save up. Now if only they would invent a disappearing number plate...