I’ve been grousing about the grim, grayscale, paying-the-gas-bill-level of excitement that is the current state of the automotive colorspace for years and years, to the point where I once actually reached out to Paul Czornij, BASF’s North American lead designer to ask him why the world is like this, and what happened to the era of orange family sedans and yellow hatchbacks and teal trucks? I asked him those questions because BASF North American releases a report every year about automotive color trends across the globe, and the results are always interesting, even if they tend to be disheartening to those of us who enjoy full-spectrum color vision (sorry, sharks). The report for 2022 is now out, and while the dominance of grays and whites and blacks continues unabated, there are a few, small gains made by actual, real, chromatic colors that may be just enough of a hook to support a small bag of hope. It’s not much, but it’s something, and I’ll take it.
For this past year, it seems the big news is that the achromatic (you know, grays, white, black) dominance is finally showing a few tiny cracks. According to the report:
As they have for several years, achromatic colors dominated the automotive market around the globe in 2022. But as BASF’s designers found in the company’s Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings, the automotive color rainbow is expanding to allow colors like yellow, orange, green, and violet to take market share.
The most popular chromatic, actual colors that buyers chose instead of some gray miasma were reds and blues, making up five and eight percent of the global market. Here’s the full breakdown:
So, the Grayscale Monolith still controls a shocking 81% of the market. And, it looks like blue and red, despite holding the highest chromatic percentages, dropped one percent, along with green, brown, and gold. But! There’s a surprise here, with violet – freaking purple – making a one percent gain and getting on the big board, along with yellow and orange! Hot damn! It also says green gained share, but then it also shows green dropping a point, so I’m verdantly confused.
Man, violet, who would have guessed? I mean, we sure as hell champion the color here, but I’m a bit skeptical this was because of us. Was it? No. But a boy can dream.
Let’s look at the regional breakdowns:
For my fellow Americans looking for an actual, genuine, unassailable reason to be patriotic, here you go: America’s percentage of real colors sold on cars is up, a glorious, rainbow bulwark against the cloudy gray mass encircling the globe. From the report:
Blue is still on top, and the gap between blue and red is widening as blue continues its dominance. Achromatic colors like black, gray, and silver lost some market share, especially in larger vehicles. That allowed earthy tones like beige, brown, and green to increase, and violet to gain market share as car buyers’ tastes change.
Black, silver and gray losing market share? Damn, it feels good to read that. Of course, the achromatics still dominate in America, like everywhere else. There’s other interesting details to note, like how South America tends towards lighter colors and yellow, oranges, and greens making European gains, while Asia grows even grayer.
It’s interesting to look at all of this over time, too. A couple years ago someone on Reddit scraped 3.5 million used and new car ads from Polish websites between the years 1990 and 2020 to come up with this graph of color distribution:
Look at 1996! Achromatics were on the run! And look at all that green! Oh, and if you want to see the raw data, you can click here.
And this chart only goes back to 1990; going back further, you can see that our carscape was once vastly more colorful, like the earthtones and colors of the 1970s:
…or the fearless pastels and two-tones of the 1950s:
So, while the global state of color in cars is still pretty boring, I’m going to allow myself to feel a little bit of hope, and maybe even a little bit of pride that America is leading the way back to color. Come on America! Let’s keep it going! And, rest of the world, don’t be afraid of color! Let’s push back the gray with a blast of cheerful yellows, elegant blues, vivid oranges, and, yes, glorious purples.
It’s time.
We need more two-tone vehicles! My dad had a red and white 1990 Chevy Suburban; you certainly couldn’t lose that in a parking lot. I thought the Ford Flex looked especially nice in red and white too (red body, white top). I’m trying to do my part with two red vehicles and one blue. My ZJ is in the grey family – Bright Platinum according to the window sticker – but the paint has aged amazingly well, and it looks awesome in the sunlight.
Pink made a little bit of a comeback, too! Not enough to be on the list, but Jeep sold a non-zero number of Tuscadero Wranglers. Pink always makes me smile.
Who is making purple cars? So far I only noticed the ones from FCA (Charger/Challenger, Jeeps) and I dont recall what other big manufacturer is producing them. I bought a Blue and Red recently, I am trying to avoid the white/gray/black from now on
I don’t understand the growth in white, other than it’s often the “base color” that doesn’t have an associated mark-up. The silvers/greys I at least understand from a practicality standpoint of not showing the dirt as bad. I prefer a color, but I buy what is available and color always takes a back-seat to the options that I want, so I’ve ended up with grey, silver, or black because that’s what they have (and I can’t do a white car). We just leased a “Volcanic Red” GMC with the black trim package and it’s been a nice change from our last bunch of colors. We haven’t had a car with a bright color since our 2005 Saturn Vue in bright blue (with the speedy for it’s time Honda V6).
I’m sat facing a hotwheels display showing all the cars I’ve owned, all painted the correct colour. They are a couple of greens, two reds, four blues, four blacks, five whites and five greys. One of them was green, white, yellow and red before I painted it black and orange.
I’ve experienced all the colours.
I like grey cars. Silver shows off the surfacing really well, darker greys show the silhouette as well as black does but retain the glasshouse graphic and don’t look immediately dusty after cleaning.
I’d have been happy to have had all my cars in grey. I don’t get the obsession with colours. I can’t see it when I’m in it.
That said: both my Kawasakis were lime green. So maybe I’m full of shit.
I readily admit that I’m a big fan of white cars. I just like white cars, and it’s a color that doesn’t hide shit. Like, if the design is good, it’ll look good in white. You can hide a lot of sins with a dark color. BUT… When I got my 4Runner last year, I ended up getting Lunar Rock. It’s not wild, but it’s a weird color, because it looks different in different light situations. Sometimes it’s gray, sometimes it’s blueish, sometimes it’s a weird seafoam green color, and I ended up loving it. Oh, and my lady got a Lime Rush 4Runner, so she’s definitely not scared of color. That said, when we add a GR86 or a GR Corolla to the fleet in a year or so, it’s gonna be white.
I’m shopping for a car right now, and I really only have two requirements: 1) I want a car. Not an SUV, not a CUV, not a truck – a goddamn CAR. 2) I want COLOR. I will consider black, but no gray, no silver, and under absolutely NO circumstances is it to be white.
Why #2? Not because I necessarily have anything against white, but because I have only ever bought used cars, and I buy used cars by finding the best example of what I’m looking for at the time, and over the last 20 years, the best I can find has inevitably been white, along with a few other achromatic colors, and I’m just sick of it. In reverse chronological order, my last several personal cars have been white, white, gray, gray, gold, white, white, white. My last daily in an actual color was in 2000, and it was a 1987 – a red Mustang LX four-banger I used as a long-commute beater, so the color was the only exciting thing about it. My next car absolutely must be some kind of actual color. Even 1974 baby-shit green would be awesome by now.
Just, please: No periwinkle!
Those 90’s Chrysler minivans killed it for me.
I can’t talk much, I love color (especially green), but both of my cars are currently refrigerator white. In fairness, one was a nearly 60 year old used car, so someone else chose that, and the other one I was forced to buy by my employer at a time when inventory was tight and all other options within a reasonable radius were also greyscale (it replaced something red that I liked better and had planned on keeping ’till 2024).
What is even more amazing is the bright colors are growing in popularity when a majority of the cars for sale dont offer any colors. Can you imagine the market share if all cars were offered in these colors?
TIL that aggressive tailgating and cutting people off on the highway without a signal have been problems for 70 years.
It’s funny. In the late 60s every other car was green and people were complaining about that. Most of them were Pontiac GTOs. Go figure. I, for one, am sick of black interiors. I don’t care how much you want to hide your dirt, lighten up!
What I wouldn’t give for a new car with an interior in the navy blues, burgundies, or whorehouse reds of my youth.
I am doing my best to colorize my little corner of the world – with one green, one yellow, and two red vehicles.
I think leasing helped kill car color diversity. Dealers would be far more likely to welcome back an achromatic drudge bug that would be acceptable to more buyers on a used car lot than a jeweled scarab that sits for months waiting for just the right customer to come along. Plus, buyers are more likely to accept limited color choice in a used car.
I think people are pickier about interior color than exterior, which is understandable since that’s where you’re spending your time. Now obviously, we’re not talking about great interior colors 90% of the time, but then the occasional red or blue interior often locks you into a grayscale exterior (like red interiors on the Kia K5, or at Acura).
Given the wait times for a new car now, it’s likely people are deliberately choosing a color they want – not a “oh it’s fine” for whatever shade of gray is available to take home that day.
I think a low-key reason I didn’t keep my 2nd Accord longer, which I should have kept for a number of reasons, was because it was silver. I was shopping used and it was an EX-L manual, so couldn’t be too picky/had to take what I could find. I didn’t even replace it with a better color right away! More change just for change.
Green or blue is my preference usually, and I like something that’s different but not really loud, so a bright color doesn’t do much for me. I get a compliment almost weekly on the color of my GTI (see username). It’s the first new car where I truly sought out a specific color, and naturally I’ve experienced more dings than any car I have had before…so I don’t know how picky I’ll be next car should it be from inventory. But I’m still happy I held out for it.
Yay! I’m in the one percent. Not the money one percent, but I’ll take what I can get.
One thing that the Holden v Ford rivalry in the mid 2000s gave us was a great deal of bright colours and those colours seemed to be quite popular on the performance models!
On Holden’s side we had the great Morpheus: https://cdn.justauto.com.au/ad-assets/JFFD4094224/JFFD4094224-1.jpg
One of my favourites, Atomic Green (there’s a bit of gold in the ‘flips’ in person that I love): https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2009-holden-commodore-sv6-ve-auto-my09-5/SSE-AD-14148495?pageSource=details&id=SSE-AD-14148495
Ford had some excellent colours too, such as Blueprint:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zD6VsQ4NO5M/maxresdefault.jpg
And the wild Fantasy: https://www.fordxr6turbo.com/forum/uploads/monthly_06_2007/post-8417-1183193853.jpg
There’s heaps more, pretty easy to find the range online if you’re interested
Ahhh the 1990’s, teal Ford Explorers as far as the eye could see.
I would love to buy one of the new Priuses in orange, like the early press photo showed. Sadly the US is bereft of decent color choices. Plus the early shots (and the online configurator) don’t show the front plate tumor.
You mean there are colors other than black?
Not in my world there isn’t.
What color is your Ferrari?
Off-black, of course!
Is that gray?
Resale red. I was looking at a black on black 348 convertible but it was too expensive.
Seems to me that Mazda has nailed its red of late.
I always have said that I want cars that will *not* match the road/environment under any conditions, for visibility/safety if anything else. This eliminates pretty much all of the acrhromatics, as black is common (at night), white (in fog/snow), grey/silver (October-February most places)…
My personal favorite is green, but it’s very hard to find. I keep trying to buy blue cars and end up with red ones since I’ve mostly been buying off-the-lot.
Same here. My wife and I always marvel, jaws agape, when we see a green vehicle on the road. They’re usually forest green or evergreen, which is even better. I bought my 2012 Wrangler strictly because it was in Natural Green Pearl. I looked up the stats and green only ever made up 5% of all sold Wranglers from 2011-2013. The striking part is how low that percentage is for Jeep.
I agree with your sentiment, especially on black and grey which are universally difficult to see under almost all conditions. White isn’t such a problem in Australia as we don’t get a lot of snow and is better at keeping cooler in summer by reflecting the sun.
Personally I’m a fan of brighter colours like red, yellow, orange, and lighter shades of blue. I don’t find green to be a particularly high visibility colour considering it is the colour of trees.
My first car was an ’82 VW Rabbit convertible in green with a tan top. (I found pictures here: http://museum.cabby-info.com/rabbit.htm). (This was in 2005, BTW, and the car had many issues due to a 20-year garage time-out.) Still, I think I’ve yet to see a color combination that works for a car quite as well, and I was seriously considering ordering an Chevy Equinox in their green but they discontinued it before I got the chance.
I thought the “flat gray,” or whatever it’s called, was a great color at first. Now it’s everywhere. Not only is it just another of the fifty shades of gray that represent everything I hate about current car colors, it is absolutely impossible to see in rainy weather. My wife and I have dubbed the color “wet pavement.”
There’s other interesting details to note, …. while Asia grows even grayer.
I saw the MeowMeowBeans episode of Community last night, for about the 12th time. As Abed says of the 3s wearing neutral colors, “Looking like you want to move up can get you moved down.”
In Japan the saying is, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.”
That’s great news! I love me some bright colored cars. My Fiat 500e is a lovely shade called Celeste Blù, for example. Unfortunately, my newest car, a Polestar 2, wasn’t available in any actually interesting colors. WTF Polestar – not even Polestar Blue (aka Swedish Racing Green)!? I mean, that was your thing. I ended up getting one in the stupidly named “Thunder” (naming a color for a sound? really?) because it was the most interesting monochromatic shade they had available, IMHO. I’m hoping by the time my lease is finished, they’ll have some metallic orange or bright purple or British racing green available. Probably not, but I can hope!
Don’t know what the other 92% of the world are thinkin’ – blue is objectively the correct color for a car.
Agreed
Agreed, my 2013 Veloster 6MT is blue, glorious blue!
Especially WRB
WRB?
Wisconsin Racing Blue?
Welsh Royal Blue?
Winona Ryder Blue?
You spelled green wrong
The demise of green after 2000 is a national tragedy.
There are some incredible greens out there. As the color that human eyes see best, we should definitely use it more.
We went to the Mini dealer convinced we would be walking out with blue or red.
It was a sunny day and a British Racing Green (IV I think) was sitting there.
No turning back. That’s what we ordered.
I’ve been told it doesn’t age well – but – still looks good two years later to me.
I won’t be satisfied until teal is the #1 seller.
I got tired of teal in the late 80s and 1990s, because it was everywhere. Now I miss it terribly, because it is absolutely nowhere.
Give us more purple cars, damn it!