Men and women biased when it comes to car colours, study reveals
Differences may have less to do with paint, however, and more to do with vehicles being purchased
While local climate plays a role, preferred automotive paint schemes largely come down to personal feelings and dealer inventory.
There is also the matter of what colours are trending within the industry and, according to a recent consumer survey tabulation from iSeeCars.com, gender.
The automotive data research company compiled survey results from over 700,000 consumers and close to 30 million used car sales between 2015 and 2016 to find gender biases for specific colours. For the most part, colour preferences are irrelevant. But there are a few standout shades that one group seems to prefer over the other.
For women, those colours were teal and gold. For men, it was yellow, orange, and black. However, colour choice may have more to do with gender favouritism among vehicle types than an attractive paint job. This marks teal’s first appearance in the women’s rankings since the initial iSeeCars’ colour preferences study in 2013. Women now have a stronger preference than men for teal cars by 19 per cent, followed by gold’s 14.5 per cent, and silver’s 9.7 per cent. Green, blue, and beige were also favoured by women, though with a less significant bias that’s almost not worth mentioning.
Interestingly, beige went from holding a 13.5 per cent larger stake of women’s hearts in 2015 to being almost dead even with men in 2016. Meanwhile, teal went from being a slightly male-dominated colour choice to women’s favourite.
Men’s new preferred car colour was yel- low, which they favoured more than women by a whopping 33.9 per cent. Orange followed closely with a 32.6-per cent bias, black at 14.2 per cent and brown’s 12.6 per cent. In the previous year, orange was ranked first and yellow second.
“Men and women don’t just like different colours,” said iSeeCars CEO Phong Ly. “Our research shows men’s preferences are much stronger than women’s, and the top colour choices for both of them have actually grown to the highest percentages we’ve seen in four years.”
Still, trends showing larger gender biases in colour choice may have less to do with the colours themselves than with the vehicles being purchased. Men had a stronger preference in 2016 for pickup trucks by over 200 per cent, convertibles by 33.5 per cent and coupes by 31.6 per cent. But women had a stronger preference for SUVs (23.1 per cent) and minivans (21.5 per cent) — neither of which are likely to come in orange or yellow, but can definitely be had in teal or gold.
“There’s an interesting connection between gender preferences for vehicle colours and body styles. Men favour pickups and sports cars more than women do, and those segments have an unusually high percentage of brown and yellow/orange cars, respectively” said Ly. “The same is true for some of women’s favourite body styles — SUVs and minivans, which have more teal and gold cars than average.”
Black is ubiquitous, though. There are few models that don’t offer a slate colour palate inside and out, yet men favoured it to a much higher degree than women. The same is true for silver, which was preferred by women despite appearing on the vast majority of vehicle types. But these seem to be the exception, not the rule. Body styles seem to dictate paint choices more than any legitimate colour bias between men and women.