Our No 1 car colour … a nifty shade of grey
THERE’S nothing black and white about choosing the colour of your car – in fact, it’s become quite a grey area.
For the first time since records began, grey has become the popular shade for new cars sold in Britain.
Almost half a million grey ones rolled off the production line last year – or 495,127 to be precise.
Grey has even become the new black, which was the previous year’s winner but managed to notch up only 478,154 sales in 2018.
Just over a fifth of the 2.4million cars bought last year came in grey or black paint, according to the figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which began logging the trends in 1996.
The three most popular vehicles by model and colour were a grey Ford Fiesta, followed by a grey Volkswagen Golf and a grey Vauxhall Corsa.
Even though car-makers now offer customers a huge and exotic array of pigments with which to personalise their new cars, Britain’s drivers appear to favour an increasingly conservative look.
Six in ten new cars (59 per cent) came in black, grey or white – with no primary colour having made the top three for eight years.
White, the most popular colour for four consecutive years between 2013 and 2016, remained in third place, despite a small drop to 432,207. It has also lost the most popularity in recent years – perhaps because drivers have realised it is more difficult to keep clean.
The number of cars registered in white has fallen by more than 132,000 since 2015, when it peaked in popularity. Scotland, however, bucked the national trend, favouring white above all other choices.
Silver, once the nation’s longstanding favourite, has dropped out of the top five to receive its lowest rating since the Nineties.
Just under 220,000 silver vehicles were sold, putting it in sixth place behind red (236,522) and blue (381,591). In fact, it is almost 20 years since a primary colour was the most popular choice, after blue hit the top spot in 1999.
Grey doesn’t excite everyone, however, and there are still some drivers out there who want to make a statement. Orange jumped to seventh place, with just over 26,000 cars sold, up by 37 per cent. But some motorists are even more conservative than their grey counterparts. Perhaps to match their owners’ favourite jumpers, 9,303 beige cars were sold.
Only 559 Britons opted for cream, down by just over a third.
Although nearly 7,000 motorists attempted to bring some sunshine to Britain’s roads, demand for yellow cars also fell by a third. Last year 6,820 were registered, compared with 10,301 in 2017.
English drivers had the most varied taste, making the most of the 118 different colours available to motorists by buying cars in 116 of them last year. By contrast, the cars bought in Northern Ireland came in just 53 shades.
‘Increasingly conservative’