Every year, our pals over at BASF’s Automotive Coatings division release their Color Report, and every year I excitedly leer at the graphs and findings, hoping for a revolution of real colors overthrowing the tyranny of the grayscale hordes – but it never actually happens. And, for 2023, it once again didn’t happen, though BASF’s report does suggest that “the traditional automotive color wheel is going through a transformation.” However, this transformation is happening in the dominant achromatic space, so forgive me if I’m not all worked up. Still, it’s interesting, as always, and worth digging into.
I should also mention I seem to have called something one of the nice BASF color-analysts said “psycho-babble” at some point and they’re not letting me forget that, nor should they.
Let’s get started here, with a global overview of car colors. This is how humanity is painting their cars in the current era:
From my perspective, this remains a pretty grim picture. We’re still at a staggering 81% achromatic/grayscale colors, and only 19% actual, real colors, of which 12% are just red and blue. What’s the situation here in North America?
About the same, 80% grayscale. Ugh. Blue and red still dominate the true colors, but orange and yellow don’t even show up, and green is down to 1%, compared to the global 2%.
The big shift that our BASF color-divinators are all worked up about is how white, the globally dominant car color, is slipping, losing ground to the literal Dark Side, black:
“Achromatic colors, which have always formed the foundation of automotive color, are experiencing a significant shift. While white continues to hold its position as the most popular color for light passenger vehicles, it has seen a notable decrease in market share. In contrast, black has surged in popularity, gaining market share at the expense of white.”
So, the huge transformation is that black stole three points from white. Oh boy.
Let’s take a quick look at how things break down in the four regions BASF divides the Earth into (likely for ease of future conquering):
We’ve looked at North America, so let’s go around the rest of the globe and see what’s happening. Asia Pacific is the lone rainbow ray of hope for real color-colors, showing an increase in color diversity, which BASF attributes to “more varied body styles.” That could be, but personally I suspect the wild diversity of the Chinese car market is a big factor here, with so many new brands and models popping up, and a customer base interested in newness and novelty. It’s not unrelated to the BASF justification, really.
In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) the boring achromatics gained two percentage points, but there are some interesting bright spots in Europe, like Italy’s impressive 30% share of chromatic colors; BASF also notes interesting regional preferences:
“When European consumers chose colors, there were country-specific preferences. Germany loves blue (11%), Spain and the UK prefer red and orange (approximately 9%), France adores green (6%), and Italy shows its love for all the colors, with its share of chromatic colors being the largest among all five countries (30%).”
South America is a bit of a disappointment, with 86% achromatic colors. Yawn. It seems like BASF is trying to make this sound more exciting by noting that “effects pigments” are popular, stating:
“Colors aren’t just colors any more. They are experiences,” said Marcos Fernandes, director, BASF Coatings South America. “Whether it’s a pearl or metal flake or other pigment, the effects make the color leap from the vehicle into the eyes of the beholder. It gives a certain flair that’s becoming more and more popular.”
At the risk of pissing off my BASF friends even more, I can’t not note that reading “Colors aren’t just colors any more. They are experiences” in reference to, what, a slightly metal-flaked gray(?), made my eyes roll so far back that I think I puked out a bit of my pupil. Sorry, I appreciate interesting pearlescents and glittery metallics and matte finishes, but in the end that’s still just a lot of cars in boring non-colors.
Perhaps the one bit of chromatic good news here is the surprise Verdant Tsunami, the doubling of the percentage of green cars globally, from 1% to a staggering 2%. This is an encouraging sign, as green cars are fantastic. I shared this excellent news with my lovely wife, Sally, and she was so moved that she asked if she could write a little something about it.
I said sure! Sally likes cars but isn’t quite the hopeless car geek many of us are, so I like getting this more rational-human perspective. Plus, she’s a very talented designer, which I think gives her good insight into colors generally. And she even made this great graphic to head her section!
First off, full honesty, as a person who’s only ever owned used cars, I’ve never owned a green car. Reading about their lack of popularity over the years (only 2.15% of cars are green according to CarMax), I feel partly responsible. As a teenager, my dream was to own a green VW Beetle or a 1994 convertible Chrysler Lebaron. I never owned either by the way – my first car was a 1980 Silver Honda Accord and I loved it like a brother, but what I would have given for a green Honda Accord! My dreams would have partially come true.
I’ve settled over the years for the silver, white, and occasionally blue cars that seem to cloud the freeways and parking lots with their monotoned predictability. Where was the creativity, where are my people, where are the green cars?
One auto maker that has consistently produced cars in beautiful shades of green is Lexus. Now, while they aren’t my favorite cars – sorry to the Lex-Heads out there – I can’t deny the brand’s color choices and quality of paint are definitely some of the best I’ve ever seen. Damn, even the white that Lexus uses is undeniably beautiful, with its pearlescent flecks of gold and pink that seem to sparkle like a glass of champagne!
When Lexus’s color mavens does a green, they do it with heart, in what seems to be a silent but undeniable nod to the enthusiasts that cut and crop pictures of Lexus Nori Green LC 500s to mount on their vision boards.
When I saw the BASF Color Report this morning, one of my first thoughts was, “where is green on this report,” fully expecting to blurt out a profanity when its rank didn’t meet my expectations.
But to my surprise, the color green has actually gained a popularity point! I like to think that green is having a moment with the cool kids, much like nerds did in the late 80’s or girls with glasses did in the mid 00’s.
The time has come, and hopefully will continue to come, for green cars to shine their olivey-limey rays of light down upon us from their brilliant viridescent 2% pedestal. Hooray for green cars!
Reports from Autotrader point towards green having “above-average resale value” along with its cousins gold and blue. This says something to me, or rather it hints at something having to do with class and car color, but I’m a goony simpleton who drives a black SUV that blinds me with the glare of screaming warning lights that seem to permanently have residence on my dashboard.
It’s okay though, my day will come. My vision board of green cars, green Chanel purses, and green size-6 Fashion Nova dresses will definitely not let me down and perhaps (PERHAPS) writing about this longtime fantasy of mine will somehow bring a four-wheeled knight in shining green paint to my driveway.
Well said, Sally. Maybe we’ll get rid of that ass-pain of a Tiguan and find you something nice and green and without a constantly-burning check engine light.
Can’t wait to see David’s Monday update “The Sienna made it, but Sally doesn’t like the color, so I’m driving it to Galpin to get it painted Green.”
Among art students, the Sienna gets a little bit of a snicker, it’s literally a fancy name for the color of dirt.
Green can be fantastic or terrible. I’ve had one green car: avocado green 260Z. The black vinyl roof actually helped its appearance. Never liked non-metallic forest greens that came on ’90s Explorers or that metallic teal that came on everything and that everyone seems to be enamored with for whatever reason (nostalgia and a bit of tiredness of seeing an endless parade of non-chromatic cars, I imagine).
That LC500 green is a good one, but all the chromatic colors I’ve seen them in are excellent. I’m not a red guy and yellow is usually at the bottom for me, but damned if I would have any trouble buying an LC500 in either the bright metallic yellow or that deep red they have. I see a BMW every so often—ugly beaver tooth M3 (I think, I stopped GAF)—that is saved by a shade of green so great that I have to comment out loud to myself about it every damn time I see it. The current Alfa Romeos have a nice green, too, and one of my all time favorites was a metallic emerald green that came on the Montreals.
I have 3 colors and 2 greyscale, so I guess I’m better than average. I’ve got one blue (nearly blurple), two red, one silver, and one dark grey. The truck would be a color if it had been available, but silver was all they had in the metro area on the lot. I’ve never had a green car though. If my MG wasn’t red, then BRG would be the only other color I would want though (with a tan interior of course).
I didn’t realize that owning a green car puts me in America’s 1%.
I’ve owned 6 of them. Which is close to half my cumulative car ownership. I knew I was odd, but I didn’t realize I was 50 times odder than average.
So…Sally wants a green beetle. And Jason already has a beetle in the driveway.
Sounds like Torch needs to buy some green paint. Eh?
I’m sure the reply will be that the beetle is already a color that’s RARER than green.
To this potentially-true statement I say: “Happy wife, happy life.” And he did say that she has “good insight into colors.” Probably worth listening to those insights.
Am I right? I think I’m right.
Right?
Like all things in a North Carolina forest, Jason’s Beetle slowly becomes more verdant.
My car is green every pollen season.
My wife leased a Subaru in a color that they call plasma, which truly is the color of blood plasma, which not coincidentally is also the color known as bile green, because plasma and bile are well sort of the same color at the very least.
Blue-green, black, dark green, silver, titanium(? a darker silver), and now green, the last 2 being new purchases. I’m surprised I haven’t owned a blue car yet as that would normally be my go-to.
However this car has gotten more dings and chips in less miles than any car I had before. I still get frequent compliments on the color even when it’s obviously dirty, but knowing the flaws are there are disheartening on the first car I really sought out a specific color. Overall, I’m not sure I’ll be so particular next time around. I’ll still prefer an actual color, but I care more about the interior anyway, and that tends to dictate more of the exterior combos. And while I prefer the color to be different, I don’t want something loud either – I’m glad those colors exist, but they’re not for me. Give me a vivid blue over a bright one, a burnt orange over a tangerine, that sort of thing.
I don’t mind white, but might hesitate based on the number of relatively late model Hyundais, Kias, and Hondas I see with peeling white paint. Seems to be more the flat white paintjobs rather than the pearl ones.
Jason, I think you found the right person to share your life with. Sally should contribute more often.
Yes. Very yes!
I am trying my best to buck this trend. Of the (gulp) many cars I have owned: First car was emerald green (yes, it was from 1995), then black, then red, 2 browns, and 3 blue cars. I’d love a green one again, or something wild like miami blue or purple.
I’m finally a member of the 1% ers
I’ve heard that takes a lot of green.
I lament the prevalence of Gray, but at least it’s not Grey.
Oh Poupon you.
My ’97 conversion Econoline-150 was red. Not like its size didn’t help, but the red made it all but immediately identifiable in a parking lot.
My 2012 Prius v, in contrast….is grey. And somehow, in my apartment complex, there is another grey Prius v about 10 spaces down from mine.
Still, out of the “achromatic” spectrum, I’ll take grey/silver over white/black any day. I think grey/silver get the upsides (still a decent appearance) without the downsides (showing every speck of dirt).
Nothing hides dirt like silver paint.
I’d honestly be interested in a hot pink car, except that that can have major uncertain effects on resale value. But it supposedly is a major theft deterrent, which makes intuitive sense.
Maybe Kia should offer to paint or wrap all of its theft vulnerable customers’ cars pink.
Except white paint
Or ignoring the dirt.
Having owned gray, silver, white, and black cars (among a host of chromatic ones), I personally found the one that hid dirt the best *in general* to have been my gold ’97 Saturn.
It seems worthwhile point out that dirt is not the same color everywhere, so it won’t show up the same on various colors of paints. The car of my childhood, a Shiny Maroon Subaru wagon, couldn’t hide the lighter colored dirt from Eastern Washington to save its life, but the darker Western Washington soil took a long time to show up. The Saturn hid just about every kind of dirt well, except the red dirt I encountered in Idaho.
I agree, silver is the best for a daily that will be neglected. I’ve had two silver cars and it hid so many scratches and filth (except winter filth) just turned it gray until I washed it again and realized how silver it actually was. I actually ordered the second one in silver for that purpose (and because the chromatic colors were boring—basic red, old person blue, and a metallic yellow that looked decent, but was a little too much for me and I knew I’d hate it after a few weeks).
Currently have a 2005 MDX in that lovely Acura dark metallic green.
My first truck was a meadow green ’98 S-10. I loved that truck, and while I wouldn’t trade my ’06 Sierra crew cab back for it, I sure wish it was painted that meadow green instead of boring silver birch.
I specifically ordered my Wrangler from the factory 2 years ago and tried to get yellow or green and was told the only interesting color they’d even be putting down the production line was red for the foreseeable future. But I still get compliments everywhere I go.
If you want to get rid of grayscale, you need to get hold of Meister Samwell Tarly, he knows the fix.
He did do a good job with Ser Friendzone.
I had a black car and will never again. it’s always dirty and scratches show easily.
that being said, I’m looking for a used car and they are all either black or white. ugghh!
my first car was a 1981 volvo 240 in dark green. yum
I searched for my toy in Daytona Blue or Solar Orange Pearl for over eight months before having to settle on a “Magnetic Black” (It’s just black with some sparkle in the sun which doesn’t count) car a decade ago. I love the car, but still hate hate hate that I settled. I bought a DA polisher and have done a paint correction twice, but it’s impossible to keep swirls off long term no matter how gently I wash it.
My next two cars were blue and red to make up for it. Sadly, the wife has had black/white/black, but she doesn’t care.
The real abomination are these horrible 3D donut charts. If anyone reading this works at BASF: please find out who made these charts and suggest they might want to pick up a book on data visualization. I recommend Cairo’s How Charts Lie to start.
That “Celebrating a +1 bump in popularity on the BASF Color Report” got me so good. It’s the kind of thing you announce at your company’s lavish trade show takeover of the Las Vegas Convention Center or unfurl from the bridge of an aircraft carrier.
The crowd weeps and rends their garments, given to positively orgiastic hugging. Tears of joy commingle on cheeks and shoulders of old friends and those that were strangers, but now share in the experience that is the one human family made whole, the missing piece slotted in to fill what had been missing in our very hearts and souls. We chant, sing praises, lift our voices to celebrate on high: “We’re number +1! We’re number+1!”
Ford’s Erruption Green needs to be available on more models. It behind locked to only the Mustang and Bronco seems cruel. What about the rest of us with reasonable daily drivers (ie: my Maverick)?
Yeah, that is SUCH a pretty color.
It’s certainly a breath of fresh air, but compared to Highland Green (which of course they only offered on the Bullitt), it quite literally pales in comparison.
They offered a purple on the Mustang through ’23, not that I’ve ever seen one.
#bringbackmystichrome
Blue Ember on the ’24 Dark Horse is Mystichrome-ish, but again, not available on any other model, much to my dismay/chagrin/etc.
Green = offroad and those are popular
how much is the cart pushing the horse though, it’s so hard to find something other than Black/white/gray being offered or even available.
those are what most people can reliably find for their regular cars, last car I got I had to wait some 5 months for the purple color to even show up in available inventory.
I am, unfortunately, a member of the non-color club. While I despise, DESPISE, white cars, I quite enjoy black, grey, and silver. My DD is black (with a dark blue hood, go junkyard parts!), my wife’s truck is silver, my old nissan truck is silver, etc. And I’m ok with that.
But, in a slight glimmer of hope, I want to do some serious body work to my DD and paint it metallic purple. My 1971 Travelall was light blue, but is now rust and patina over blue, which I am keeping. In a dream world, I will paint my 510 wagon rootbeer metallic brown with satin creme on top (its called half pint, colors inspired by a pint of guiness).
I went to an auto expo recently, and there is a deep deep deep blue on a Tahoe there that was AMAZING. absolutely beautiful color. Nearly black, like double take to make sure its not black, in the shadows and the highlights were deep but vibrant blue. I really want to paint my S13 that color up to the body line and the current GM black (same metallics etc as the blue) from the body line.
My ’02 Mustang is true blue metallic, a wonderful deep dark blue. I chose it because it was unusual but not garish – neither arrest me red nor the Imma badass black that many people think Mustangs have to come in.
If there’s an opposite piece to yesterday’s “what would you change about your car”, for me, the one thing I’d never change about her is the color.
My 1917 Stephens is Brewster Green (probably unrelated to Punky) and my 1964 Corvair is Fathom Green (like the depths of the Atlantic). My 1976 BMW 2002 is Pastelblau (very creative Germans!) And, I love this, my 1971 Fiat 500 is Giallo Portofino. It is that deep yellow/orange color like the sunset on the Amalfi Coast.
You are obviously a person of impeccable culture, taste and refinement and I would tip my hat to you if I wore a hat. Also, we NEED to see your car collection in a Members’ Rides feature!
Don’t judge a boor by his colors.
What Dar Khorse said. I haven’t seen a 2002 in years, and that’s way too long.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/roKWpFZCnh1GVEAd9
Beautiful. And reminds me of how good steel wheels used to look.
Its been what, a little over 21 years?
And both look better now than ever…
I bought a white car because it was the best car of that model I could find for the best price. I didn’t love the color, but it has grown on me. My preference would be a brilliant blue or silver or orange.
I similarly have a white car because the best available car I could get based on cheapness, safety, and low miles (mostly cheap) was white. In the olden times when colors existed you could sometimes get a slight discount on heinously or vividly colored cars but those cars have to exist for that to be a possibility.
Same. The make/model I have came in a navy blue, but I just could not find one for the right price, mileage, etc. over several months of looking. So it’s white. I’d love to do a wrap as soon as I have $4K to spend on something totally frivolous …
I was gonna put blue rallye stripes on mine but never got around to it, plus it seemed sort of poser-ish.
My ’02 Mustang (see above) is dark blue. I put year-correct Ford white rocker panel stripes on her, and I love ’em. A nice retro touch to go with the others on the car.
Lol. I’m an almost-40 mom with a hot hatch so I COMPLETELY understand the fear of looking poser-ish.
I bought navy blue for my last one as I’m over the grayscales, though I still wish I had some other options at the time. Give me a good green or brown on a car I want and I’ll do it!