Back when automobiles could be ordered in (and people were proud of choosing) colours other than black / white / silver or some other shade of lemming-ness.

One of my early childhood memories was visiting my aunt and uncle's farm in East Texas, and riding in my aunt's 1953 Dodge Coronet four-door.

Looking at the color chart for the '53 Dodge on paintref.com, it looks like Uncle Dave's car had Silhouette Green for the lower color, and possibly Fairfax Blue for the top:

http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?year=1953&make=Dodge&mo...

I am a librarian and I drive a Chrysler product--a 300C with a Hemi! Hemis and librarians are a natural pairing--we like to go out on a limb and fly! :)

The owner of this Dodge had every right to be proud. Having suffered anemic sales in previous years (along with its sister makes from Chrysler Corporation) due to its chronically stodgy image as a librarian's car, Dodge woke up in '53 featuring a "Red Ram" Hemi V8 putting out enough suds to set quite a few Bonneville Salt Flats records. (A few years later, impressive performance combined with innovative Virgil Exner styling to enable Chrysler Corporation to throw a major scare into the fine folks at General Motors.)