We don’t live in a black, white or gray world…unless you look at the roads.
Over the past five years, research firm iSeeCars took a look at the most popular car colors on American roads. Among the 10 million vehicles it analyzed between 2018 and 2023, the most popular colors are white, black, gray and silver. According to their data, “grayscale” colors continue to dominate color preferences in the market, and the trend has actually shifted toward more white and gray cars than folks bought back in 2018.
My, we’re really dull when it comes to color choices, aren’t we?
iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer suspects rental fleets at least somewhat influence that trend, and that’s likely true. But even among privately-owned vehicles, some visually distinctive colors like red and yellow have lost serious ground over the past five years. Yellow, as it happens, is by far the least popular color, with just 0.1% of buyers opting for the shade this year. That’s half the take-rate of 2018, when 0.2% of folks chose that hue, so that’s good news if you’re like my mother and loathe seeing yellow cars on the road.
Here’s a full look at the 13 most popular colors and how preferences shifted:
| 2023 Rank | Color | 2023 Market Share | 2018 Rank | 2018 Market Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | White | 26.2% | 2 | 23.3% |
| 2 | Black | 21.8% | 1 | 23.6% |
| 3 | Gray | 19.2% | 3 | 15.2% |
| 4 | Silver | 11.7% | 4 | 15.1% |
| 5 | Blue | 9.7% | 6 | 8.5% |
| 6 | Red | 8.2% | 5 | 10.6% |
| 7 | Green | 1.0% | 8 | 0.8% |
| 8 | Brown | 0.8% | 7 | 1.7% |
| 9 | Orange | 0.6% | 8 | 0.3% |
| 10 | Beige | 0.4% | 11 | 0.3% |
| 11 | Purple | 0.2% | 13 | 0.1% |
| 12 | Gold | 0.2% | 10 | 0.3% |
| 13 | Yellow | 0.1% | 12 | 0.2% |
Contrasting market conditions in 2018, quite a few external factors could well play into the today’s most popular colors. The pandemic and resulting market shortages as well as nothing short of gut-wrenching price hikes are pushing buyers toward whatever they can get their hands on, regardless of color. Thanks to economies of scale at work, automakers also tend to make white a no-cost color option, while rarer colors like blue, red and brown (and indeed yellow) demand a premium.
iSeeCars dove further into the data beyond just seeing which colors are popular, too. In terms of pricing, black cars saw a price change of 46.5% on average, while white cars increased by 48.1. Rarer colors, on the other hand, saw a larger price increase. Yellow cars increased in price by an average of 85.6%, green went up by 75.1% and red by 57%.
Interestingly, beige cars increased by the greatest amount: 103.3%. Purple and orange cars increased by the lowest amount at 33.5% and 38.5%, so which color you choose can (as you probably suspected) impact resale value after a 5-year period. Rarer colors show larger increases, although with a significantly smaller market share, finding a buyer willing to take certain colors may be difficult.
You can check out the full study here, where iSeeCars cover more detailed data points. The study shows Alaska as the most “colorful” state and Hawaii as the least colorful, at least as far as having the highest and lowest share of non-grayscale colors.
Do you go for colorful cars, or do you stick with the tried-and-true resale shades?
Full disclosure: I can’t complain too much about people being so boring with their color choices…because I own a gray car. In my defense, though, certain kinds of gray (like Mazda’s “Polymetal” color) can be cool!
I know, glass houses and all that.
Some brands have a penchant for offering livelier colors (like Jeep, for example). On the whole, though, it seems folks are content with flying a bit more under the radar.
How about you? Would you go for something orange, like our F-150 Raptor R?
