2008 DuPont Automotive Color Popularity Report shows White still most popular among North Americans
12/09/2008, 6:23 PM
By Drew Johnson
DuPont – one of the auto industry’s leading paint suppliers – released its 2008 Automotive Color Popularity Report, with the results proving North Americans like to keep it simple when it comes to paint colors.
For the second year in a row, White took top honors, just edging out Black and Silver. However, like all good survey, the results weren’t without controversy. White on its own took a 16 percent share of the report – trailing Silver’s 17 percent take – but when combined with White Effect’s (essentially Pearl and other derivatives of plain White) 4 percent share, combined for a chart topping 20 percent.
Same story for Black – Black alone had an 11 percent share which grew to 17 percent when combined with Black Effect’s 6 percent.
Silver checked in with a 17 percent share, followed by Blue at 13 percent, Gray at 12 percent, Red at 11 percent, Beige/Brown at 5 percent, Green at 3 percent and Yellow/Gold at 2 percent.
Although some of the more tame color pallets emerged as the favorites in North America, DuPont says the trend looks to be shifting to less traditional colors. Moreover, DuPont says Blue is becoming more popular, largely due to its links to the ‘green’ movement. “Blue is being utilized as the ‘new green’ because it is well understood by people all over the world that blue can also represent the preservation of nature,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Imagine a clear blue sky mirrored in a pristine blue lake and you will get the picture. It is a universal favorite.”
Several automakers already use the word ‘blue’ on their greenest models.



12/09, 6:34 PM
posted by:
howsmydriving
Uh, instead of the convoluted environmental explanation of why blue is gaining in popularity, how about just that sometimes there’s no accounting for shifts in public taste?
12/09, 6:54 PM
posted by:
bmwmpower
Howsmydriving, maybe it’s called ‘research.’
12/09, 7:00 PM
posted by:
johnnycanuck
Just how many white Challengers are out there with “Kowalski” vanity plates already?
12/09, 7:04 PM
posted by:
inspire
I’m surprised “white” took top honors. Just doing an informal survey with the cars beside me crawling through rush hour traffic, it seems to me that silver or black would take top pick. Guess I haven’t looked at enough MY2008 cars, I suppose… ???
12/09, 7:04 PM
posted by:
mayer_ray_nagin
Obama thinks otherwise.
12/09, 7:08 PM
posted by:
t-ak-box
All this show is that dealers are lazy. Order the most simple color cars to sell.
I guess most either came with Black or Grey or Beige interiors too. Probably Black.
12/09, 7:20 PM
posted by:
DrFill
Silver
Definitely
DrFill
12/09, 8:19 PM
posted by:
Lawnchair88
White + black + silver + gray = 66%
I agree with t-ak-box, because how many people out there actually take the time to order their car from the factory? And I’m sure dealers hear more people saying “I’d buy this car if it weren’t that ugly teal color” than “I would buy this car if it were an ugly shade of teal”
12/09, 8:45 PM
posted by:
A4
or blue is being used as the new green because unless you own a british car green is ugly.
jaguars
aston martins
land rovers
mini’s
tvr’s
lotuses
all look great in green
audis look horrid in green, along with most other german cars
american cars are pretty ugly in green, with pickup trucks maybe being the only exception
the mx-5 looks good in green, but id even contribute that to its hint of british style.
12/09, 8:49 PM
posted by:
A4
and i also agree with takbox, the dealers are very lazy, the reason cars like imola yellow S4’s are as rare as they are is cause nobody wants to wait for the dealer to order one in.
12/09, 9:27 PM
posted by:
1c3d0g
White sucks. Silver, blue, black and any of the other colors rock (except pink, which sucks more than white).
12/09, 9:35 PM
posted by:
A4
what about baby sh!t green
12/09, 11:28 PM
posted by:
Jax
White is the best color.
Light dust, minor scratches and swirl marks barely show. Low maintenance. Easiest to touch up. Keeps you cooler on hot summer days. Safer at night. Holds up best against fading over time. Doesn’t go out of style and get dated.
Most practical color ever.
12/09, 11:37 PM
posted by:
gugy
I agreed Jax.
I do also like Silver, but my favorite is dark grey.
Black is too hot for CA.
12/09, 11:44 PM
posted by:
zeeck
out here in colorado, white shows dirt the most, which makes it pretty damn ugly if it isn’t a truck or rally car
also shows no taste in creativity, i did see a white challenger srt-8 that didn’t look so bad, but only because of the black stripes…
12/09, 11:45 PM
posted by:
Jon
If you think it’s fair to lump “white” and “white effect” together to overcome silver’s lead, then I believe that it is equally fair to lump silver and gray together (which would put that combined category at a leading 29%).
With so many shades and subtleties available nowadays, a dark silver can just as easily described as a light gray. The reality is that silver to gray is just a continuum.
If you look closer at DuPont’s annual report, the combined white category is only the most popular in North America. Silver still holds a substantial lead in many Asian countries while black is the most popular in Europe.
And in a nod to A4 and 1c3d0g, no Imola Yellow, pink or sh!t green on the list.
12/09, 11:48 PM
posted by:
zeeck
also, Jax, some of your comments don’t make sense, since White is obviously the lightest color, any marks or scratches (which cause a shadow) would be most noticeable against a white background, and also, white can’t really fade because fade means the color goes away, and since white doesn’t have color (I guess technically it is all color just reflected back at you) it can’t just fade to a lighter color…
12/10, 5:53 AM
posted by:
-Bullitt-
I wonder if they are taking into account fleet sales. If that’s the case than I can see why white is the front runner given that a large majority of police vehicles are white or start off in that color. Factor in the number of companies that purchase utility vehicles which are more often than not white.
12/10, 7:26 AM
posted by:
JohnnyBlazE
A4 – I have seen an… A4… in dark green looking very very nice (with the right kit) in my area.
My car is Laser Blue… (Dark and Metallic for the non BMW people)
12/10, 8:23 AM
posted by:
Ramatai
Don’t certain colours just work better with certain design trends? The modern trend being to duplicate Audi styling, except BMW which seems to be more Dali insprired.
12/10, 9:13 AM
posted by:
hangonbig3
Maybe dealers don’t stock the colors that don”t sell….Maybe years of experienece have told them that the best sellers are White. Silver , Black…..Maybe the leftover inventory at the end of the year is all of the “Off ” color choices….maybe..tak-a-box…instead of attacking a business you know nothing about, you should process your thoughts before you s**t them out on your keyboard.
12/10, 9:46 AM
posted by:
Z06ified
I love my Electron Blue Z06. To me, that color was the most perfect shade of metallic blue ever created. Not too light, not too dark.
12/10, 9:51 AM
posted by:
HoosierHero
I have a crystal white pearl Highlander and it looks sweet, especially when you get some light on it. Flat white just sucks. Teal is probably the worst color out there, but maybe I’m still having a bad flashback from the mid 90’s when there were a billion teal Cavaliers driving around. Ugh…
12/10, 10:32 AM
posted by:
ricky_b
I just had a discussion about this with a friend this weekend.
Is it really that these are the most “popular” colors OR is it that the car companies perceive these as the popular colors and chose to make inventory cars in these colors? If more people ordered their cars from the factory, we’d probably get a better feel for what the numbers really look like.
Personally, I would never buy a car in white, black or any flat exterior. They just don’t do a thing for me. Metallic or pearlized. And the more color the better.
12/10, 10:35 AM
posted by:
yarddog82abn
This year my auto group (Pen***), so far has sold 28,000 commercial vehicles nation wide, only 2% was not the color white…
12/10, 10:40 AM
posted by:
johnnycanuck
Good job at not giving it away there yarddog!
12/10, 11:05 AM
posted by:
caperdf
I think White is the worst. I believe it must be fleet sales that give it such a strong showing. It would be interesting to see if the imports, that are not normally sold as fleet cars.
I think black looks best , but is hard to keep looking good. Grey is almost as easy as silver to keep looking good, but looks the better. Some Blues are as nice as black.. Like Z06ified’s car.
12/10, 12:10 PM
posted by:
jonmiles
These results are skewed… while there are a million different shades of silver, most of the time being called “gray” or some other variation, there is only one white.
12/10, 12:14 PM
posted by:
RaineMan
So… blue is the new green… indeed.
I’m gonna have to say if I ever got another new car it would be silver. Blends in with traffic better… a lot harder for the cops to pick out.
12/10, 12:47 PM
posted by:
mayer_ray_nagin
Yarddog works for Penthouse Auto Group?
CooL!
12/10, 1:37 PM
posted by:
sakio327
The problem with unique colors is that three years from now they will be out of style. I remember the first time I saw a Dodge Ram Sport Pickup in yellow with the blue lettering. I thought it was hot. 8 years later, it looks kinda goofy.
Not that I haven’t owned cars in weird colors. My favorite was a 1970 Mustang Grande Coupe that was Olive Green with a houndstooth vinyl top in green and black. That was really nasty…..
12/10, 1:44 PM
posted by:
tastyorange
Car companies are not interested in making “some” people happy….. they just pick the same colors everybody else is using and go with that. Some car lines right now only have the white, black, grey, dark grey, silver, sand, red and dark blue… It’s almost the rule now with some cars. I’m surprised Toyota even has a green on their Corolla. If you go to a luxury car lot now all you see is black and silver. WTF?
If people could custom paint their cars right from a website before they got their car, only THEN would we know what people like the most.
Corporations give us few choices and then marketing people tell everyone what we are supposed to like.
12/10, 2:05 PM
posted by:
megeebee
…………zzzzzzzzzzzzz…………………zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
12/12, 11:58 AM
posted by:
jackjimturkey
I’ve had two white cars, two grayish-gold cars and one dark brownish car … I was determined not to get run of the mill. My current car is metallic blue.
White and that gold color every other camry is are non-offensive, conservative colors, so they sell. Black is too hard tio keep clean, but it seems to be de jure for luxury cars,
I like the idea of choosing color on the ‘Net.