3 days ago
Here's why BMW decided to offer this daring purple paint job
I hate when my doorbell rings. Not so much because I dislike people, but because of the cacophony unleashed by my family's very good German shepherd mutt, Rosie, when someone has the gall to ring unannounced. She huffs. She puffs. She growls. She barks. And she's not satisfied until you leave. (Please leave.) The Twilight Purple Pearl Metallic 2025 BMW M2 that's part of our yearlong review fleet has been especially troubling for her.
On more occasions than I care to remember, people visit our driveway or porch and want to talk about the M2's color. Well-meaning neighbors with questions, local students who want to snap a couple photos, supposedly 'no contact' Uber Eats deliveries, and even solicitors who come to the door to sell free Wi-Fi or religion — the first question out of anyone's mouths is 'That your BMW? I love the color!'
It's not just at home, either. It's at gas stations, intersections (to the dude in the '90s CR-V who yelled, 'beautiful car, whatever you're doing keep it up!' — it's not mine, but thanks! I will), and curbside, like the skaters who whipped out their phones to grab a video as we rolled up to a stop sign. Even hypercars or early pre-production prototypes don't get this kind of attention in otherwise car-jaded Los Angeles. It's an introvert's nightmare and an extrovert's dream.
The deep metallic crystalline pearled purple paint is hardly the only flashy color on offer on the G87 M2, or even in the rest of the BMW lineup. The M2 also offers up such extroverted colors as Zandvoort Blue (metallic light blue), São Paolo Yellow (radioactive slime green), and Java Green II metallic, which reminds these American eyes of a Mopar hue from the early '70s.
And that's just on the M2 alone. More popular models like the M3/M4, and X5/X6 M have a long list of what BMW calls 'Individual' colors, too. BMW's regular line also has its fair share of flashier color options. Considering how refreshingly outside the norm it is for an automaker to offer a deep roster of colors beyond blacks, grays and whites, we reached out to BMW's design team to find out more about Twilight Metallic Purple and how it picks and chooses colors.
The color testing process
The journey from idea in Munich to barking at a doorbell in Los Angeles is a long one, taking up to four years in some instances. It starts with a car's project team commissioning a new color with BMW's design team. That team then reaches out to BMW's color suppliers with ideas and to explore any new up-and-coming paint technologies and mixtures. Most colors can then move straight onto the next step from here, but newer ones need a bit more work. They're often first incorporated into the Individual line, where BMW trials more adventurous shades before potentially putting them in regular rotation.
Things can also get really complicated for wild paints. As a BMW representative put it to us, everyone has an opinion. 'Colors are an emotional topic. You can't prove someone right or wrong in the design phase. This is a very tricky situation for a color engineer. A [financial] controller wants to offer only five different blacks because we know that black is usually the most common choice. A designer wants to offer all the fancy ideas he has in his mind, and a product manager wants to offer 100 different colors because the customer might love those.' Making matters more complicated, sometimes the negotiations between the different teams result in a compromise on a color choice that looks great in sample form but terrible on a car. Somewhere exists an archive of BMW's rejected colors that we're dying to see.
Once the human hurdle is tackled, BMW moves on to industrialization (effectively setting up the supply chain and factories to produce the new color) and testing begins.
Testing sounds tedious. During the process, BMW trials the new paint colors for opacity, UV resistance and compatibility with radar-based driver assist systems. While 'stealth' radar-absorbing paints aren't exactly a problem, some colors might be too light or too dark in certain parts of the light spectrum, causing reflections that make it hard for radars to 'see' the car. There's a standard homologation process to ensure this and other issues, such as paint volatility, don't happen.
Once those things are cleared, BMW integrates the color into its factory and has its paint shop test to make sure that the color is suitable for its spray chambers, meaning that the color sprays evenly and doesn't linger in the air, which would cause problems for cars not destined to be painted in a fantastic shade of purple.
The final step is ensuring the paint shows its true color when sprayed onto the various plastics, fibers and metals that make up a modern automobile's exterior. If the color passes that final test, it's approved and introduced into BMW's product line.
Why did BMW choose purple?
BMW views Twilight Metallic Pearl Purple — and indeed all its more extroverted colors — as an extension of what it's done in the past. Looking back on the company's color catalog of the last 40 years or so shows that to largely be true. São Paulo Yellow, for instance, is a modern take on Dakar Yellow, which appeared on the E36 BMW M3. Other colors, such as Zandvoort Blue, were developed specifically for the M team and named for racetracks or locales, such as Brooklyn Grey Metallic and Portimão Blue.
The Twilight Purple Pearl on our M2 was inspired by Daytona Techno Violet, which like Dakar Yellow, was found on the E36 M3. BMW told us Twilight Purple was one of the more controversial additions to the current M2 in 2025, but, as a spokesperson told us, 'Sometimes the progressive voices prevail.' Thank goodness for that.
The gamble — if you can call it that — on Twilight Purples has already paid off, with the color proving a hit among customers. BMW says Black Sapphire metallic is by far the most popular color on the G87 M2, with nearly one in four being painted that way. Zandvoort Blue and São Paulo Yellow are the second and third most popular colors, respectively, with purple close behind — a pleasant surprise, BMW told us. If my anecdotal experiences (and Rosie's reactions) are any indication, Zandvoort Blue and São Paulo Yellow shouldn't get too comfortable.
Photos by MotorTrend staff
