DRIVING : Kermit, Now It’s Easier Being Green

Green is making a vibrant comeback in the car world. Take your pick: Cayman, calypso, Caribbean, aquamarine, teal, jade-gray metallic, dark emerald pearl, deep jewel.

While most car lines are offering green, they don’t call it that.

“If you go out and tell your friends you bought a green car, they’d say, ‘Oh, OK,’ ” says Bonnie Cunningham, color and trim manager for Ford’s North American Design studio. “But tell them you bought a Cayman metallic car, and they’ll want to see it right away.”

Buick is using a metallic aquamarine shade of its Skylark model in national ads. General Motors Corp. offers its GEO Storm in a bright aquamarine.

Ford Motor Co.’s Mustang and Probe come in bright metallic calypso-green and the Mustang also is available in deep emerald green.

“I was telling anybody who would listen a few years ago that teal would be a hot color,” says Leatrice Eiseman, president of a color-consulting company.

Teal gets “amazing consumer acceptance” in market testing, Eiseman says. It’s also a color equally accepted by men and women. Many of the new car shades are variations of teal.

Concern about the environment is another subliminal factor.

“The ‘green movement’ has affected people,” Eiseman says. “You see it in fashion. Sellers and buyers talk about their concern for the environment. Having a green product is one way to cash in on this.”