Repainting costs

I couldn't consider having MAACO or anyone else paint a new car a different color. My tack would be to learn to live with, or adapt to, a color that I didn't orignally select. Since you can't see the color when inside the car, the getting all worked up about color is a bit silly.
When I was considering color, after I realized that I might not get the Seaside Pearl I wanted, I thought about how I would live with my least favorite color selection. I have friends living with AIDS, so my having to "live" with an unacceptable color seemed self indulgent and superficial.
I'm a graphic artist and have painted many cars with mural designs, including the last four cars I owned. Not wanting to do a full mural on a brand new Prius, I considered doing something more Japanese, more subtle, like a few twigs of bamboo down the front door at the hinges, with a moon above the crease and the reflection below.
I went a Toyota website where the car was shown with a color bar across the bottom; all you had to do was click on the color bar at the desired color and the car would change. I copied each color and saved it as a jpeg file which I loaded into Photo Shop. I drew various motifs on the car ranging from cherry blossoms to bamboo, to see how it looked. The exercise was really fun as it allowed me to experiment graphically without doing anything to the car, which, of course, I didn't have yet so couldn't do anything to anyhow.
Silver was my last choice, and, oddly enough, the first Prius offered to me by my broker was a Silver number 1 demo for 1500 above MSRP with 3500 miles on it. I reacted with mixed feelings, but after doing my graphic exercises on the silver jpeg Prius in Photo Shop, I thought I could live with it pretty well.
As it happened, I did get my Seaside Pearl and have decided, for the present, not to paint anything on the car. If any of you have artistic talent, you might consider doing something very subtle like that. It does customize your car and it makes it more fun to drive. I can give you some pointers and caveats.
We were followed by then passed by a black Prius last evening. My partner said that the Prius is the only car he's seen that looks good in black. I agree. I almost had a black 9 with tan interior, which I thought looked pretty nifty.
B

 

On my previous car, my Escort wagon, I did a mural of Puget Sound on one side and Eastern Washington on the other. The murals were connected thematically by clouds which ran over the hood and on the roof. Canadian geese were painted in profile on both sides and in top view on the hood and roof. Thing about this paint job was that it not only looked classy (others thought so, not just artistic pride), but it hid minor imperfections in the original paint. Dings and such could easily be covered by a new cloud if touchup in the original color didn't work.
If your paint job has been damaged, rather than simply being the wrong color, you probably have nothing to loose by going the high end MAACO route since your resale value has already dropped because of the damage. What happened? Acid rain? Hailstorm? Sand Truck ahead lose its load?
B

 

Bob, these mural designs sound lovely. Care to post photos of your noodling on cherry blossoms and bamboo or your previous mural work?

Back when I was a teen and our family had a '71 Volvo that got passed around from kid to kid, I always wanted to paint it tie-dyed.

When it was passed on to him, my little brother ended up giving it fangs and flames ... a very odd combo on a maroon Volvo. He also replaced the rear seat with a settee (with the little legs cut down) and a coffee table instead of a passenger seat. Kids.

 

I'd love to post pictures of Froggie taken just before he got sold to a guy who's taking him to Texas of all places. Unfortunately, my previous attempt to upload photos failed and I don't understand why.
If anyone reading this post knows the trick to uploading photos let me know, i.e. what format do they need to be in, is there is max resolution, etc. Thanks, Cybele.
Hugs,
Bob