Midnight Purple: What Made Nissan's Famous Paint Job So Popular?

Let's be real. Most colors on cars are pretty boring. You get out on the highway, and you are going to see a sea of whites, blacks, and grays. Plus, there's the occasional red car out there, which is just the white, black, or gray version of a "cool" color. Every so often, though, you see a car out on the street that is a color you have rarely seen before. For some people, that's because the color can be so garish and unpleasant that they want to divert their eyes from it. For others, that eye-popping nature makes it such an enticing proposition for car owners, and the desire to have that color only grows with how rare it is.

Few colors represent this niche desire in car coloration better than Nissan's Midnight Purple, which had a brief lifespan from the mid-1990s until 2002 when it was discontinued. Well, it was discontinued until fairly recently, as the unveiling of the 2024 Nissan GT-R T-Spec revealed the limited return of the long-coveted color. Granted, the 2024 version of Midnight Purple is quite a bit different than the classic color, looking more like a dark blue-green than a true purple, but it shows Nissan still has a connection to its past.

Midnight Purple was always a specialty color for Nissan, and very few models sporting it were ever manufactured. Over its brief run, three different versions of Midnight Purple made their way onto Nissan vehicles before the 20+ year hiatus, making the subtle variations even rarer than they already were.

Midnight Purple started its life under a different name when it was introduced in 1995 as "Deep Metallic Purple," and the only model this color was available on was the Nissan 316 Z32. Unlike the 2024 version, no one would mistake this as anything other than a deep, rich purple, but what sets it apart is its glossy sheen that warps the color to the idea depending on how the light hits it, shifting it from a light fuchsia to pure black. Right off the bat, limiting color to one specific model makes it a hot commodity. Only a select group of people will be able to have it. That model exclusivity continued to the next iteration of the color, given the name Midnight Purple II.

This name change and slight color shift is when the color made its way over to the Nissan Skyline GT-R model, and that would hold for Midnight Purple III as well for the R34 GT-R, though that color also expanded out to the Stagea and 350Z. What makes the Midnight Purple R34 GT-R a specifically sought-after item for collectors and aficionados is that the car was legally unavailable to own in the United States, and only 132 units were made. It took until 2018 for the first legal model to make its way stateside, which was only made possible by a "Show or Display" exemption. Once 2024 comes around, these models that were first produced back in 1999 will finally be able to legally be imported after the 25-year rule.

Not only is the Midnight Purple color itself very rare, but getting the actual car into the country is a total legal mess. With those kinds of boundaries, it's no wonder these are highly sought-after cars.

The classic Midnight Purple color — all three variations of it — screams the late 1990s. It is gaudy, ostentatious, and in your face, and when they were manufactured in that particular era, you could see why the color became such a commodity for that time. If you were to slap that Midnight Purple on a car from today, it could not feel more out of place. Car colors in the 2020s are far more muted, sleeker, and less metallic than those from a quarter of a century ago.

The new Midnight Purple, available only on the 2024 Nissan GT-R T-Spec, fits the modern aesthetic to a T, to the point where you could argue that it barely even fits the definition of what Midnight Purple came to mean all those years ago. While it does still feature that color-shifting sheen, the hues found here are far less red and pink and more blue and green, making it darker and less vibrant.

This version of the GT-R was not the first time Nissan brought back the Midnight Purple paint, as it did just a few years ago with the 2021 model of the car. Nissan clearly knows that there is a niche market for this color, and just as nostalgia dominates our entertainment industry, the automobile industry is just as susceptible to that same nostalgia. If you're looking to dive into that nostalgia yourself with a brand new 2024 Nissan GT-R T-Spec in Midnight Purple, it'll cost you about $144,000 at a minimum.