Inside the 23-dimensional world of your car’s paint job

Wired:

A car comes in, a 2015 Toyota Camry, let’s say, in Ruby Flare Pearl (that’s red) needing a bashed-in door Bondo’d and sanded. You just go to a shelf and take down 2015 Toyota Ruby Flare Pearl, click a canister into an airgun, and swoosh, you’re back on the road, right?

Nope. Car companies have put 50,000 to 60,000 car colors on the road, but even a big body shop like Alameda Collision Repair has just 70 or 80 colors on its shelves. Turns out Gonzalez isn’t just a fast painter, he’s a fast matcher. “I get the closest one,” he says, “and then I match the color.”

I knew the act of painting a car was difficult but I’d given no thought to how hard colour matching was.