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Car colours: White now ahead of black

27K views 110 replies 35 participants last post by  patpending 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)


(figures from paint manufacturer Standox Germany)

http://www.openpr.de/news/686276/Autofarben-Trends-2012-Weiss-ist-nicht-zu-stoppen.html

Looking at the cars loading on the Shuttle in both directions I came to these proportions:

Dark grey/black (mainly grey) 60%
White/silver 30%
Red 5%
Everything else (essentially "blue") 5%

Surprised to see black so high up - it's used as a colour for large SUVs and limousines, but not really for everyday cars.

Brown is up to 6% from about zero!

MG is offering bright, attractive colours as well as white, black, grey and silver. Wonder how well they are selling?
 
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#2 ·


(figures from paint manufacturer Standox Germany)

http://www.openpr.de/news/686276/Autofarben-Trends-2012-Weiss-ist-nicht-zu-stoppen.html

Looking at the cars loading on the Shuttle in both directions I came to these proportions:

Dark grey/black (mainly grey) 60%
White/silver 30%
Red 5%
Everything else (essentially "blue") 5%

Surprised to see black so high up - it's used as a colour for large SUVs and limousines, but not really for everyday cars.

Brown is up to 6% from about zero!

MG is offering bright, attractive colours as well as white, black, grey and silver. Wonder how well they are selling?
Give it 5 years and you won't be able to sell a white car. Stick with black and silver and you can't go far wrong.
 
#11 ·
Quite agree with that sentiment - grey, black and silver always seem to me to be 'colourless' colours - safe, inoffensive and timeless, yes; but ultimately dull and boring, unexciting and just suggest a colourless character behind the wheel (sorry if that upsets those with such coloured cars, but that's the way I see it :err:).

White, although it appears another non-colour, does stand out in a crowd and in some ways is more of a colour than reds and blues.
 
#15 ·
I don't think it's anything to do with a colourless character, and more about residuals; neutral, boring coloured cars tend to sell better, so financially silver is a safer bet than red. As such, for people who don't care too much about colour (most people who view cars as tools) it's an easier choice.
 
#13 ·
Silver is just marketing speak for light grey and grey is just the dullest colour in the world. OK if you want to make your battleship inconspicuous to the enemy but far too drab for a car. I am delighted white is back as this was the colour of my first car, a 1957 Ford Zephyr.
 
#14 ·
Never really been a fan of white cars. A few look good and a more can be made to look good with subtle (or not so subtle) graphics, but for the most part it's worse than grey.

White says to me that the car has pretensions to be different from the primer brigade, but didnt have the courage of their convictions to choose an actual colour and defaulted to white.
 
#21 ·
Update: I've just been reading an article about the car paint development section of BASF and they expect green to be in in about three years, which is the time they take to develop a colour.

I note "green" is only 1% in that graphic and the only new green cars I have seen recently are turbo nutter Fords for people who think the orange ones are wimpy.

Apparently "green" has been seen as "deliberately environmentally-friendly" (e.g. for hybrids) recently but this is changing to "solid and dependable".

And not "turbo nutter".
 
#23 · (Edited)
Update from car club ADAC, quoting BASF again:

This time comparing Germany 2012 with 1982 in % (1982 in first brackets) [Europe as per graph in OP in square brackets]


Black 29.5 (1.8) [23]
Grey 29.4 (13.0) [15] [Germany has twice the proportion of grey cars of Europe]
White 15.7 (11.6) [24] (ignores it fell to zero in the meantime) [loads more white outside Germany]
Blue 8.2 (15.5) [8]
Brown 6.6 ( 4.5) [6]
Red 5.9 (22.7) [6]
Yellow 1.6 (12.2) [1]
Green 1.0 (14.5) [1]
Other 2.1 ( 4.2) [2]
 
#30 ·
Here's a comparison of Germany 2011 with 2000. Brown is the big winner - we already know about black and white. Green has fallen to less than white was!

Give up on this formatting!
Colour 2011 2000
Black 31.0 18.9
Grey/Silver 30.9 32.9
White 13.0 4.2
Blue 9.0 24.1
Brown 6.0 0.1
Red 5.8 7.4
Yellow 1.4 2.2
Green 1.1 9.5
Other 0.7 -
Purple 0.6 0.5
Orange 0.4 0.3
 
#36 ·
And here's September 2013 - black and silver are drooping a bit, red, brown, and yellow are going up, but the big winner is white!

Colour (Sep)2013/2011/2000
Black 28.5/31.0/18.9
Grey/Silver 27.0/30.9/32.9
White 18.4/13.0/4.2
Blue 8.7/9.0/24.1
Brown 6.5/6.0/0.1
Red 6.3/5.8/7.4
Yellow 1.8/1.4/2.2

Other* 2.8/2.8/10.3

*includes Green, Purple and Orange. Green was 9.5% of the total in 2000 (double White!)

(source for month September 2013: German DVLA quoted in auto motor + sport)
 
#39 ·
Walking past the local B*W dealership today, I noticed they had no coloured cars at all apart from one new blue one.

There were also no silver/grey ones - all the rest were either black or white, and they re-arranged in the course of the morning so that the ones by the road were all white.
 
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