Is Rivian mulling the idea of offering customers a purple exterior?

A Rivian owner and EV enthusiast recently shared images of a purple R1S Quad out in public with manufacturer plates. Could it be a new exterior color Rivian will offer customers, or is this just a rare shade applied to a one-off test vehicle? Regardless of its future, a purple Rivian is already garnering plenty of comments from the online community.

Rivian owner shares images of a purple R1S Quad

Hilbert (@Hilbe) shared the three images above on X, with the caption, “What do you think Rivian will name this color? Wrong answers only.” The answers are funny, and many are precisely what you probably imagined.

If you immediately thought Grimace from McDonald’s lore, so did I and several commenters to Hilbert’s post. Upon doing some digging, I found that images of this exact purple Rivian were actually leaked eight months ago, making their way through the Rivian community on Reddit. See below:

As you can see from the second image above, this Quad Motor R1S is donning manufacturer plates, meaning this isn’t a custom paint job from a personal owner, but a bona fide model still owned and operated by Rivian.

Furthermore, those plates are the same in multiple sightings, hinting that there is currently only one purple Rivian R1S Quad out in the world (at least on public roads).

Whether this is just a unique color the paint shop experimented with on a one-of-a-kind test vehicle or could become an actual option in the Gear Shop remains unclear at this time, although we did reach out to a representative for Rivian for more details and received an expected response:

We have nothing to add. As you know, we don’t comment on any speculation.

They didn’t say that purple was off the table (or the configurator!)

Rivian’s R1S and R1T configurator could use purple or any other unique exterior color options, as its boldest currently available option is “Rivian Blue.” Be sure to let us know what you think about a purple Rivian in the comments, much like X users did for Chris Hilbert, of which I read through all 130+ and have a few to highlight below.

I will stick to the PG responses and leave out anything related to an eggplant emoji and how that may have anything to do with any fictional purple characters (you sick puppies). Here we go:

• “Gross Purple”
• “Barney”
• “Purple Rain”
• “Plum Crazy”
• “Thanos Purple”
• “Violet Beauregarde”
• “Purivian”
• “Electric Eggplant”
• “Grape Ape”
• “Amethyst Twilight”
• “Afternoon Purple IV”
• “Grape Escape”
• and last but not least… “Poiple.”

What would you call this shade? Should Rivian bring purple to the Gear Shop configurator? Let us know in the comments below. As a Rivian owner, I highly recommend doing a test drive to see what this brand is about. Afterward, email me and let me know what you thought of your ride. I’m interested to hear about it!