Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, and this is a bonus episode, actually a pair of episodes

from the economics of everyday things, another show that we make here at the Freck economics radio network.

The host of this show is Zachary Crockett, a journalist who loves to explore and explain, well, the economics of everyday things, for instance, car colors and

storage units.

I am hoping that after you hear these episodes, you will start listening every week to the economics of everyday things

which you can find on any podcast app here's Zachary

like a lot of men his age, my dad likes to talk about how everything used to be better.

Shoes used to last longer, musicians used to be more talented, movies used to cost a couple bucks. And cars, they just had a lot more character.

My first car was a 1965 Chevy Impala.

And this was a real car.

It was a real car I bought from a neighbor.

It had 25,000 miles on it and I paid $400 for it. I mean the personality that it had. Every detail about it, the headlights, the

tail lights, the fender, the bumper, the doors. You could punch the 65 chevary and you'd break your hand. As Tom Crockett tells it, a big part of that character was the multitude of colors that

you'd see on the road back in the 1960s and 70s.

In the old days we had variations of green and variations of brown,

tan colors.

There were light blues, lots of different shades of blues. My uncle Guy had like a canary yellow Cadillac.

He'd drive it with a top down. But these days he, it seems like all the cars on the road look the same.

Black, white, silver, black, white, silver, black, white, silver, black, white.

There is some truth to that. Today's cars are a lot less colorful than they

used to be. 80% of vehicles sold in North America are now what's called achromatic, white, black, gray, or silver.

That's up from just 36% 50 years ago.

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