A recent trend is of having black colored pillars. It can be seen in 2010-2021 local Suzuki Swift where the A- and B-pillars are black and the C-pillars are the same as the body color. It gives a low-slung and large-cabin appearance (continuous glass) to the car. In fact doing it only with the B-pillar is an old practice usually done in the form of black plastic trim.

There was a trick in which people colored the lower parts of the doors, fenders etc. black to hide the signs of rusting. At that time car buyers were advised not to buy any car with lower parts of the door painted in black color (unless it was painted black from the factory which was unusual – most of the models had lower trimming in silver, golden, gray or brown). In fact there used to be a rubber trim on the doors in those days too. The practice ended when matching bumpers became common and the bumper itself became large (enough to be at least ~40% of the front and rear exposed surface).

These days even the sports cars don’t come with stripes neither do the SUVs come with decals. In fact the design trend is to show one-piece (matching bumpers, door handles and wing mirrors) rather than bifurcation of different parts with different colors. Body kits are still relevant like in Jimny and BR-V.

This wasn’t just done by Toyota alone, many car companies like Ford was doing it with their Explorers and F150 Trucks.

The Dual tone paint job died off when car designs became more round and smooth and weren’t usually “sectioned” into two different parts thanks to trim design.