Harley-Davidson’s trippy new color-changing paint reminds us that paint used to be special – Jalopnik

Interesting car and engine colors these days are a bit like the first chips of a freshly opened but still mostly frozen pint of ice cream: we’ll take what we can get, but look forward to more. Sometimes, though, a color bursts from a manufacturer that makes us feel alive again, like we’re picking a pint that’s the perfect consistency for an instant heaping spoonful. Harley-Davidson’s dazzling Mystic Shift paint is that pint on steroids, where a combination of your favorite flavors thrills your senses from the first bite to the last. If you’re frustrated by the plethora of boring motorcycle “color” options and the overwhelming ocean of clay-colored cars, this is the shade for you.

Can we even call Mystic Shift a ‘color’? It sparkles as if embedded in the stars of the night sky, switching between hues like a Rorschach test mood ring. As the sun pelts it with photons, you’ll see bursts of blue, purple, gray and orange. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, “the color you see is true, from a certain point of view.”

What is certainly true is that Mystic Shift is not cheap. If you order a new 2025 Harley-Davidson Road Glide, the MSRP starts at $27,999, and Mystic Shift adds $2,200. Perhaps this is to feast your eyes as you see your wallet bleeding money, preparing them to take in the stunning kaleidoscope of colors of your new bike. Ultimately, it’s a small price to pay in the battle against bland. Did you know that beige is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, Africa and the Middle East? Please don’t paint your vehicles like a 1998 Dell desktop.

In 1996, long before Harley’s Mystic Shift, you could walk into a Ford dealer with your nicest Gap clothes and Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ haircut to order a new Mustang SVT Cobra in a beetle-like green-purple called Mystic. It cost an extra $800 ($1,652 today), and Ford made only 2,000 of the Mystic ’96 Mustang Cobras, the first production cars with such color-changing paint. For the 2004 SVT Cobra, Ford turned to DuPont to create a variation on the original Mystic paint, now called Mystichrome, and limited production to just 1,010 units. Mystichrome may be the best car color ever sold.

This amorphous color came thanks to the ChromaFlair pigment first produced by JDS Uniphase Corporation (now by Viavi). ChromaFlair’s embedded multicolored flakes reflect light in different colors depending on the viewer’s viewing angles. It was a revolutionary technology, even appearing on the redesigned 1996 $100 bill and the 1998 $20 bill. Grab one and look at the “100” or “20” at the bottom right. It changes from green to black depending on the light thanks to ChromaFlair pigment, a feature added to prevent easy counterfeiting.

But protecting money wasn’t the original purpose of changing corners. The concept was developed by the pioneering Arthur Francis Turner, who co-developed groundbreaking anti-reflection and interference coatings at MIT in the late 1930s. His idea was to embed thin-film flakes in a finish to display different colors depending on the observer’s point of view. In particular the University of Arizona Notes, he thought it would be a good paint for a getaway car, as a bank guard would report, “There goes that red – no, green – no, blue car.” If anyone ever used a Mystichrome Mustang Cobra to rob a bank, Turner might be proud.

That voluptuous shine on your Mystic Shift Harley deserves preservation, and you may want to purchase a Mystic Shift touch-up pen from ColorRite for about $20 to keep on hand. Just be glad it doesn’t cost the same $26,600 per gallon that Mystichrome will charge you.

If you know the basics of washing a bike, this process will seem familiar. Park in the shade, clean the paint with a scratch-free microfiber cloth, use mild cleaning agents and always dry the paint with a super soft towel. Then wax the finish for protection and extra shine. The hardest part is deciding how much you want to ride around and show off your Mystic Shift Harley, versus how much you want to hide it in a climate-controlled garage to protect it from the elements. Investing in a protective cover is worth it, especially as it will be a fraction of the cost of the Mystic Shift paint.

And if you choose black, white, gray or silver on your Harley, that’s fine. Developing colors that retain their shade and shine takes time and money, and those costs are passed on to you, the customer, so you may want to save money. Plus, a color you find enchanting may be stomach-turning for someone else, and you may worry that selling your uniquely colored car or motorcycle could be an uphill battle, netting you less money than you’d like. Yes, traditionally dealers like black and white finishes because they are the Sprite of colors: harmless and acceptable to just about everyone.

But times change and cars with different colors retain their resale value better than cars with a chromatic defect. Maybe this is the Mystic Shift we’ve been waiting for.