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Black, white & silver are the most popular colours.
Unfortunately, I agree with you.
I'm in the market for a used car of a particular make and model. The car was only offered in black, white, sliver, red, and blue. It seems like 90% of the available cars are black, white, or silver. I hate black, white, and silver.
I'm in the market for a used car of a particular make and model. The car was only offered in black, white, sliver, red, and blue. It seems like 90% of the available cars are black, white, or silver. I hate black, white, and silver.
This goes back to my original points, which I cannot "prove" absent sales, marketing, and manufacturing data. Finding that would ruin all my fun: was more curious about opinions.
Non-scientifically, about 70% of the cars I note in Seattle metro are black, white, or some sort of metal (silver, bronze, gray). There are "metallic" in blue, red, green, and yellow, but I'm counting those as "colors" somewhat arbitrarily.
An area with muted colors half the year, PacNW, has mostly non-colors cars: seems a bit odd to me. Thus, it's a trend being driven (bad pun) by something. We, the people (consumers) ultimately drive trends, but it must come from somewhere: I'm guessing fashion, which reflects immediately in pop culture, which trickles down just as fast to one of a person's largest expenditures: his or her automobile.
And as one or two have already touched on, a red or yellow car probably speaks to the driver's disposition. I know how the police think, their eye is drawn to anything in the herd that doesn't...quite...belong. More often then not, they're right: something's amiss, or at least needs an extra few cycles of attention. And then they've gotcha, guilty or not.
In some fancy-schmanzy sports cars I'm examining (but may never buy), white with black seems to be a big trend. I dunno, seems kind of cold to me, though they are 'striking'. Orange Lambos, Audis, and McLarens are big or have been big a few years, which I think is a fad for exotic cars.
I much prefer actual colour on a vehicle (Red, Blue, Green, Purple, even Yellow or Orange on some vehicles). Maroon and Blue are my favorites. However I do not get to exercise my preference. Because it is important any vehicle I might use for work not stand out, I am relegated to drab and common colours (or rather non-colours - black is the absence of colour, white is all colors combined and grey is just a shading, not really a colour at all). I prefer actual colors to non-colors, but I pretty much drive grey or black vehicles. At least the manufacturers have the grace to call their grey vehicles "silver" so it does not sound quite so drab.
I spend a lot of time watching vehicles. In my experience, Grey seems the most common everywhere, Black and White are fairly common (White is somewhat more common in warmer locales, Black seems equally popular everywhere), Red and Blue next most common. Green is probably next and then bright colours (Yellow, Orange, Pink, Purple,) are the least common. When I need to watch or follow a vehicle, the bright colours are the easiest to keep track of, so for other people's vehicles, those are my favorites. It does seem to vary somewhat with location and the age of the owner of the vehicle, but that is not consistent.
I believe many people choose a non-colour because it is safe. Others will not think them brash, foolish or childish if they choose a drab non-color. Those who choose colors either want attention, or they simply do not care what others may think. Young buyers probably never think about it at all, they simply buy what catches their fancy in the car lot.
I believe this is probably all subconscious decision making, not something actually thought out by a car buyer.
Last edited by BrendanSWM; 02-24-2014 at 09:55 AM..
I don't think color has ever been a factor in my decision whether to buy a car or not.
But I'm getting really bored with silver and very neutral colored cars, and hope the trend will be changing soon. When i was a kid in the 70s, there were a lot more different colors. Our parents used to keep us busy on long trips by having us pick a color and counting all the cars we saw in that color. The winner back then was more likely to be blue, green or brown. Now I think the game wouldn't work; silver/gray would kill the competition.
I have a silver car now and will admit that it hides dirt well, but it's also a bear to find it in a parking lot! Since it's also a popular model, I've found myself more than once trying to open someone else's car and wondering why my key fob didn't work. If I stay with a neutral, safe color for my next color, I'll be looking more towards a gold/champagne color, I think.
The car I miss most is my 96 Intrepid in an eggplant color. I have no idea what that color was called, but let me tell you that car stood out, LOL. It was the most uniquely colored car I've ever had. And personally, it's a color I loved. It looked like this, but nicer:
My first new car was a black 86 Mustang. Loved the way it looked, but if you live in a wintry state that uses a lot of salt and sand, owning a black car means your car will look like crap much of the time.
If I think about all the cars I've owned (some for only a few months, LOL), I had:
1 black
2 brown
1 beige/gold
1 maroon
1 purple
1 blue
1 silver
I have tended to buy cars the color of dirt, LOL. Silvers, golds, light browns tend to hide dust and dirt more. I did have 2 white cars, and now, got a great deal on a lightly used, mint dark red Lexus which I can tell is going to be harder to keep up. My first car was a great looking emerald green and white Pontiac in 73 which was a beautiful car but it got faded and was not easy to keep up.
1968 Galaxy Red/White
1974 Mustang Mustang Green (Mrs. NBP)
1976 Grand Prix Light Blue
1978 Impala Dark Brown (Mrs. NBP)
1979 Grand Prix Medium Brown
1984 Cavalier Two Tone Blue
1989 Reliant Dark Gray
1991 Lumina Silver*
1995 Taurus Wagon Red* (Mrs. NBP)
1995 Taurus Wagon Tan*
1995 Taurus Sedan Blue
1998 Taurus Sedan Green+
2002 Taurus Wagon Blue* (Mrs. NBP)
2002 Cavalier Tan+
2003 Focus Silver+
2003 F150 White*
2010 Forester Red* (Mrs. NBP)
2014 F150 Green*
I dig oddball colors like MINI Ice Blue or that Verde Green on the FIAT 500 or that Khaki tan on the new Subaru’s.
I’ve had a number of white cars, two metallic beige cars, one black car, and two silver cars. I’ll never buy an all black car ever again. It was just too much of a mess to keep clean and the smallest ding/scratch stuck out like a sore thumb.
My MINI S is silver with a black roof
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