it was once prohibited by law to sell cars with their bodies painted in red or white in Japan? In fact, it was Honda forced this regulation to be revised in 1960s.

A styling designer at that time painted a prototype of the SPORTS 360 in reddish orange to make it stand out just little bit more. As Soichiro Honda liked it when he saw it, he gave it a go-ahead to adopt the red color on the next new model.

But back then in Japan, due to the fact that red vehicles could be confused with emergency vehicles such as fire engines and ambulances, using red on car bodies for the domestic market was restricted by law.

Soichiro Honda appealed through a newspaper column: Red is a basic color of design. How can they ban it by law? I have heard of no other top nations in the world in which the state monopolizes the use of colors. And Honda’s person in charge paid frequent visits to the Ministry of Transport (currently Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport) to finally obtain approval to use red.

https://global.honda/en/stories/104/