Nissan Calls Its Newest Paint Color ‘Aurora Blue Metallic’

Neutral car colors seem to be popular these days. About 80% of current vehicles are some shade of gray, silver, white or black—up from 60% in 2004, according to iSeeCars.com. Meanwhile, blue vehicles accounted for just 9% of sales in 2024, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Nissan says that it is bucking the trend by offering a brand-new blue for 2025. Debuting on the all-new 2025 Murano as an option on the SL and Platinum trims, Aurora Blue Metallic is the perfect fit for the redesigned crossover’s crisp lines and muscular rear haunches.

Yasuhito Oba, a color designer in Nissan’s Advanced Design Department, specializes in creating colors for the North American market, which is the primary target for Murano. Oba was a key player in developing the new paint—a process that takes over two years. He said that just like the rest of the all-new Murano’s design, Aurora Blue Metallic was inspired by nature.

“The Murano name comes from an island in Italy, so something inspired by the ocean made sense,” Oba said. “This color shares shades of blue found in the sea.”

The Complexities of Color

Creating an all-new color is a complex process, and designers create countless versions of the color to get it just right. They make samples and see how they look in a wide variety of light conditions, on different materials, and during different times of day. The new Aurora Blue Metallic features greenish-blue highlights and reddish shades. Oba explained that to achieve this, designers added two special pigments to the paint.

“A blue aluminum flake enhances the depth of the blue, while a color-shifting flake brings out reddish shades,” he said.

Nissan says the paint looks remarkably different depending on the time of day, sunlight, its location on the vehicle and the viewing angle. At midday, in the sunshine, it appears as a bright blue; in the evening, it transforms into a deeper shade of blue. Much like the northern lights, Aurora Blue Metallic looks like it’s constantly changing color. Oba said that it was an effect that took years of refinement, but it was time well spent.

Oba’s team in Japan collaborated with Nissan Design America (NDA) to ensure the color-shifting elements in the paint looked correct at all angles. The NDA team then traveled to Nissan’s assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, to validate the paint’s appearance on pre-production units.

Aurora Blue Metallic is just the latest example of how Nissan is moving to provide drivers with options that defy convention, according to a press release. Every vehicle sold in the U.S. is available in a shade of blue.

In addition to Aurora Blue Metallic, the 2025 Murano is available in 12 colors, including two-tone options that feature a contrasting black roof.