Nissan’s New Aurora Blue Metallic Color for the Murano Is the Ocean in Motion

You’ve seen it on the roads, in parking lots, and around your neighborhood. The vast majority of vehicles are colored in shades of what is called grayscale. This scale of neutral colors is bordered by white on one side and black on the other, with all manner of light and dark silvers and grays in between. To say they are everywhere is not far off. About 80% of vehicles sold in 2024 were in the gray scale, increasing from an already high 60% in 2004. The colors are so popular that Nissan can’t afford to ignore them. In the meantime, they and Dick Smith Nissan of St. Andrews want to direct your attention to Nissan’s newest color, called Aurora Blue Metallic, which is definitely not grayscale. 

It is an exclusive color for the redesigned Murano, and that wasn’t by chance. “The Murano name comes from an island in Italy, so something inspired by the ocean made sense,” says Yasuhito Oba, a color designer in Nissan’s Advanced Design Department. This color shares shades of blue found in the sea. Oba specializes in creating colors for the North American market, which is the Murano’s primary target market, and he played a crucial role in the new color’s development. Aurora Blue Metallic is the “hero” color for the Murano, meaning it is the color most often used when promoting the vehicle. 

Developing a vehicle paint color is a complex process that can take up to two years, resulting in countless variations of a theme. Samples are tested under various lighting conditions and on different materials to ensure the color appears consistent and achieves the desired effect on both metal and composite exterior components.  

A specific goal of this color was to resemble the ocean’s appearance on a sunny day, displaying a bright blue with subtle green elements. The tone shifts depending on the angle of the surface in relation to the viewer and the light source, accentuating the vehicle’s contours and character line breaks. After sunset, similar to the ocean, the paint transforms into an intense dark blue. “A blue aluminum flake enhances the depth of the blue, while a color-shifting flake brings out reddish shades,” says Oba. 

Of course, a car’s exterior paint can’t just be attractive; it must be durable, maintain its hue and shine through years of sunshine interrupted by freezing weather, and endure grit kicked up from the vehicle ahead and striking the car at high speeds. Once the paint was perfected, the team traveled to Murano’s assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, to ensure it was executed correctly in the manufacturing process.   

Aurora Blue Metallic is new and exclusive to the Murano, but Nissan offers a blue for every model in its lineup. “Some are deep, some are light – but each model has an option,” Oba said. “It was important for us to offer customers choices beyond the norm.” 

You can find the new Murano in Aurora Blue Metallic, along with its 11 other exterior colors, in the Dick Smith Nissan of St. Andrews inventory. We invite you to visit Dick Smith Nissan of St. Andrews to explore all the other innovations in the exciting new 2025 Murano.