Shades of grey as buyers stick with monochrome cars

Grey retained its position as the UK’s favourite new car colour in 2020, according to the latest figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

While it was a tough year for new car registrations overall, 397,197 grey units were sold over the course of 2020, which means that just shy of a quarter (24.3 per cent) of all new cars sold were painted in the shade.

Black and white took second and third place overall, completing a monochrome podium, with more than six in ten (61.6 per cent) of all new cars entering British roads in 2020 painted in these three colours.

The rest of the top 10 remained unchanged, apart from yellow and bronze which reversed places as yellow increased its market share by 50 per cent but equivalent to only 6,816 sales.

Red saw its registrations drop below 200,000 for the first time in a decade to 147,222, recording its worst tally since 1997.

While the top colour for both petrol and diesel cars was grey, with 248,182 and 84,489 registered in the colours respectively, white was the most in-demand tint for zero emission battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with 25,689 painted in it whilst black was the most popular shade for plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) with 17,989 registered.

It was a record year for these electrified vehicles, which together accounted for more than one in 10 registrations – up from around one in 30 in 2019.

Luxury saloons and executive cars were most likely to be black.

Unlike 2019, which saw Scotland and the Channel Islands bucking the national trend, in 2020 grey was the unanimous colour of choice across the UK.

Indeed, the only counties to not opt for grey cars as their number one choice were the Isle of White and Borders, where blue was the most popular tint, and Strathclyde which saw white take the top spot.

Leicestershire, meanwhile, was the most popular location for pink cars, with 23.7 per cent of the UK’s total registered in the region, while buyers in the West Midlands snapped up the most orange cars.