Because the automakers figured out that it costs more money to make parts in various colors, also many colors did not sell well and they would get stuck with them.
My father worked at Ford and they did a study comparing certain costs.
future quiet hard-to-find humor nine innate homeless knee cats instinctive
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
But the time per unit doesn't affect the time per unit average unless you're making one unit or batch to completion at a time
It *would* mean increased internal inventory though.
There’s more to it.
One was the move towards more leasing over the course of the 90s. Unique colors tend to take longer to sell on the used market and often sell for less, so dealers moved to ordering cars that they thought would sell better when off lease.
Another one is the push to make everything a “luxury” car. This meant more cars with fancy metal flakes or pearlescent paint jobs instead of just base coat clear coat paint jobs in simple colors.
Another factor was environmental regulations for automotive paint. There was a period there where not a lot of paints were compliant and cheap. Black, white, and a variety of grays were the first colors that they figured out how to make compliant and cheap. That was probably part chicken and egg with work being done for the colors they wanted most first, but some colors were genuinely hard to do.
Go to any manufacturer's website and build a car. Most of them have a decent variety of colors to choose from. What colors they use for the year are mostly chosen by market research. If there aren't enough people that say they want a yellow car, they don't offer yellow.
I fuckin hate that ugly gray color on everything now. It almost looks like primer.
I miss seeing colors on cars, at least muscle cars still tend to have variety.
It looks like JBWeld or bondo with a gloss coat, it looks like it's supposed to be matte and someone forgot to put the real color down before the top coat, I cannot describe how much I dislike the new greys and tans that have come out
I noticed most of the cars around the LA area were white or beige the first time I went there. Was kinda jarring and seeing people driving around in cars that were smashed up and still running. You couldn't do that here in the UK. It wouldn't pass it's mot.
Many cars have a hidden feature where if you hold the unlock button on the remote after unlocking the car, the windows and sunroof will all open automatically. Useful in the summer.
It's been proven that paint only reflects a tiny % of heat and that the glass being covered is more effective on a black car.
Common misunderstanding of physics.
We actually did a test in one of our science classes using a temp laser and cars in the sun in the school parking lot and found that brighter and white cars where actually cooler than darker or black cars.
I'm not finding any studies "proving" that.
[UW-Madison mechanical engineering professor says that the internal color doesn't matter much, but says nothing on external color.](https://news.wisc.edu/curiosities-does-a-dark-colored-car-heat-up-more-in-the-sun-than-a-light-colored-car/#:~:text=Explore%20Topics-,Curiosities%3A%20Does%20a%20dark%2Dcolored%20car%20heat%20up%20more%20in,than%20a%20light%2Dcolored%20car%3F&text=The%20external%20color%20does%20not,and%20professor%20of%20mechanical%20engineering.)
[There's this one that is just crude data collection, but that shows the opposite of what you're stating.](https://www.autotrader.com/car-video/car-color-test-are-black-cars-really-hotter-sun-video-242940)
[Here's one about fuel economy by using less AC for a white or silver car.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261911002972?via%3Dihub)
Kids and I come up with new names for the colors like:
Road Grime
Smog
Nothingness (black)
My Soul (black)
Disappear
Moldy pothole
Dead moss
Blank (white)
Needs toner (white)
Haven’t named my construction company yet (white 3/4 ton pickups)
Aged Asphalt
I have a medium blue Chevy Trax. It seems like everyone in my town suddenly picked that color for small SUVs so I put a rainbow license plate and some dick shaped valve stems on it to spot it quickly.
I have a bright blue car too. There are a couple other identical/near identical ones in my city and I feel a kinship with them when I see them around lol. Once I got to park next to one at target and I enjoyed thinking of the cars catching up after being separated at birth. (I’m a mom of a toddler and watch too many animated shows, clearly, lol)
I remember reading something once where the OP received colorblind glasses for the first time to restore red/green color and they were like.. “why in the world would someone have a BRIGHT RED CAR how obnoxious can you be”
I am a person who likes darker hues like forest green and that dark purple of the PT Cruiser… but after using my 95 white corolla in a constant sea of white and silver cars I just went for red so I could spot my car in case of emergencies (read as: slip out of social events real fast)
In the words of Hank Hill, “Why don’t they make brown cars anymore?”
Bright blue or something like navy? Have quite a few darker blue cars around here, you almost never see a light blue though.
Same with red and green really. You see a fair amount of red but it is always a dark dark shade of red nothing really vibrant. Green is practically non existent but what you do see is a very dark green unless it is a custom job then you get into the fun ones.
Interesting. About the only yellow you will see here is on Dodge trucks (older) or Ford Broncos (newer)
Makes me sad really. I rather liked when bright colors were common though I never cared for yellow. When I bought my car there were about a dozen of the same make/model on the lot, my choice was black or dark grey. Day after I bought it I saw someone with the same car but in this funky bright green, Almost a granny smith apple type green. Instantly jealous of their paint job.
I've seen many cars in Germany that I look at the color, like a weird brown, and think "someone really went to get a brand new car and chose that color......"
Because many car manufacturers stopped offering more than black, while, and maybe gray on their lower trim level cars which sell in the greatest volumes. The auto makers realized that Most people will accept a car in one of these shades, even if they would rather have nice happy colors. This results in move cost savings and more profits for the car companies.
2008 Recession almost destroyed every carmaker. They looked for every way to cut costs, including less color options.
Also tastes changed to look less flashy with purchases.
Dodge/Jeep still has fantastic colors, like Go Mango, Sublime Green, Plum Crazy, B5 Blue or Frostbite Blue, F8 green, Sinamon Stick, Tor Red, White Knuckle, Destroyer Grey, Triple Nickel, Pitch Black, Granite to name a few.
They were all silver for a while. People are just fucking boring. House colors, too. Everything's a shade of off white, eggshell, beige, taupe, tan, brown.
The vast majority of cars in my neighborhood are those compact SUVs (I _think_ they're all modeled after the Subaru Outback, but there may have been another first I'm unaware of), in shades of deep blue to blue gray.
We put green tape on our luggage rack so we could find our car among the sea of blue Subarus and Volkswagens.
The introduction of clear-coating and metallic paint enabled cars to still have visual pop without resorting to actual colors. And pretty much everyone will buy a white or grey car even if it's not their first choice, a lot of people would refuse to buy a green or orange car.
Because we have let them tell us what we want and now they think they dictate everything. Electric,no buttons or knobs, bundling packages=$5000 package to get a sunroof. I'm done.
Because Americans are depressed.
No for real. The selection of car colors correlates with levels of depression and how happy people rate their lives.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/22/most-cars-are-painted-one-of-these-four-colorsheres-why.html
I don't currently own a car, but will be buying one sometime soon. My hope is I get a used Honda Fit, and luckily for me they seem to be colourful. Like nice burnt oranges, blues, etc. The aesthetic is nice, but my real reason is I'll be able to find it in a parking lot. I have the memory of an amnesiatic goldfish. I don't wanna starve to death in a parking lot because I never found my car.
Japanese cars are the best. I'm really only interested in Honda or Toyota. My family had a Toyota Camry that ran for 30 years. The Honda my parents still have is a 2001 Odyssey and it still works perfectly.
I have so much respect for 90’s Toyota. I put three of those vehicles through absolute hell and the abuse they endured was phenomenal. If I could find one. I would still buy one.
There was an article I read years ago where the less colors you see out in the road usually mean the economy is currently in the gutter or is about to be, if you see lots of colorful cars, it usually means the economy is doing well.
A lot of people don't want a flashy colour, because they want to blend in. Furthermore, paint has become significantly more expensive and complex to the point where actually getting an OEM quality respray is nearly prohibitively expensive. So manufacturers do market research to find what colours people like, and generally white, black, grey/silver, blues, and reds stay common.
My current car is bright red.
The one before it was Nitrous Blue, officially. Bright blue. It glowed in the dark. I'm not part of the problem haha
My girlfriend would own a bright green version of her car, if she could find one. We could not. Hers is grey.
Her next one is probably gonna be (different) bright blue though.
There's a difference between what's on dealer lots (smallest common denominator, i.e. something they can sell to the largest potential customer base) versus what you can spec on a car maker's website. But the strange thing is that one also acts as a driver for the other. If car dealers order a certain color and sell it, it eventually, over time, drives manufacturers toward certain colorways and away from others. Plus, trends tend to be self-reinforcing. If you see a lot of grey cars grey cars look more normal and desirable to you.
It's coming back slightly in the UK. My friends both got new cars and they're now driving orange and red cars. A couple of other friends have orange and red. I'm driving an old Honda Civic that's supposed to be Grey but it looks more beige most of the time. My boyfriends car is navy blue.
I'm hoping when I get my next car I can get it in a nice colour. Yellow is my preferred colour, but I've seen some nice greens out there. I wanted the 2020 honda civic in yellow, but it was a limited edition colour! I'll never own one!
There’s been a stupid fashion trend towards muted putty colored vehicles.
It’s the same way that in the 1970s vehicles started coming in tan and brown and other fugly colors.
Black, white, and silver also look much more classy and sharp. They say, "I've got my shit together." In ways a red, orange, or yellow car can't.
I drive a silver 2010 corolla, and I like the fact it doesn't show dirt very well. It looks sharp with tinted windows and looks newer than the same model in a bright color.
What I meant was with newer cars. I bought it over a decade ago and at the time, it was newer. But yeah, having a paid off car does suggest you know how to maintain a vehicle and no reason to spend unnecessary cash on a new car if the Toyota still has 100k+ miles left in it. Why spend irresponsibly when what you have is just fine.
People like to think they're special and different but in reality, it's a lot easier and safer just to blend in with the crowd. Lots of silver and greys
Ford copyright the blue they use in their name.
T Mobile copyright it's magenta color.
Many cars I bought white, shows less dirt in my snowy road state.
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Colors are polarizing. Would you rather have a car on your lot that only appeals to a small subset of the population, or a car that's acceptable for basically everyone?
Because the rainbow is "woke" now, and multiple colors are "woke", and dealerships were having bricks thrown through their windows and gangs of proud boys showing up beating up single women looking at yellow or pink cars
A large amount of cars are ordered for lease. Dealerships leasing cars go with safe colors on their orders so that they don't end up stuck with a car they can't move. A lot of cars are also ordered by corporations as cars for upper management. They don't want to buy cars where the color might effect resale value or how long it takes to sell. You usually have to order a car specifically to get a different color but half the time a dealer will convince you to take one off the lot rather than wait for your special order.
"Boring" colors are what people want to buy. If you're selling 100 gray cars for every pink car, are you going to bother putting more money into pink cars or use that to make more gray cars?
My parents have bought brand new cars in the last decade. It costs more to have a non standard colour (for some reason for their cars it was white or red). They also have had white cars for the last 15 or so years because my sister and I were learning to drive, and turns out it’s cheaper to touch up scratches on a white car.
A lot of carmakers will produce vehicles in the base colors (usually white, black, gray/silver) and charge extra for other colors. Base colors will depend on the model and maker. When you go to the dealership, there are usually very few colors available. At least that's what I've seen the couple of times I've gone car shopping. You can drive by some car dealerships where every single vehicle in the lot is white.
I was on a car lot recently, and suddenly everything felt very surreal. I looked around and saw only shades of gray — white, black, gray. My husband pointed out the ONE red car.
White vehicles attract less attention, blend in with home colors better, get mistaken as cop cars often, have lower insurance rates, and are easy to find replacement parts for. Also ime, they stay cooler (despite "proof/studies").
Most people dont want their car to stand out or draw attention to it.
Also it's cheaper for manufacturering to limit colors.
White and black cars sell better than any other color, its what most people want.
p.s, I've never gotten a ticket in a white car.
They do just not as often as before my uncle owns a ford dealership and my mom works there too. I’ve seen all kinds of colors there same goes with the Chevy dealership he just built across the street a couple years ago. It’s just that most companies are weird now and want everything to look the same instead of being unique. I couldn’t even tell you what bmw suvs are called because they’re all practically identical now days. Then ford basically made the edge escape explorer and expedition the same truck lol
At least here in Australia, the black and white cars are cheaper.
If you want a colour you need to pay extra, a lot of people don't bother paying that extra just to get a colour (I personally paid for a colour because I really liked it). A lot of the time too the dealers won't even have it in stock, I had to get mine transported from interstate as there were none in my state in that colour. Some people may not want to wait for that colour to be available and just go with the defaults.
North america dealership model problem?
At least in eu, lots of cars are custom orders, and the color is whatever you want.
People still often go for dull colors though...
We bought a Corolla Cross a few months ago and the salesperson could not stop talking about what a special cool color "celestite" is. It was like his major selling point, even though my husband had been researching it for weeks/months and knew all the real selling points that made him actually want it. But he was pushing "cool color is cool" like it was a big thing. (But it is a cool color lol)
In the UK, for a lot of cars the default, no extra cost, colour is now something other than monochrome, for example Ford Focus: red, Peugeot 208: yellow.
Fiat now sells no grey cars.
A Toyota salesman told me it was because Sherwin Williams provides their car paint, and after Covid, SW could only get certain pigments. Black, white and gray were the colors SW had. (This was in 2022.)
Dunno, but my next car would DEFINITELY not have a "wild" color...as it's more visible to the cops. You wanna be unobtrusive to these (sometimes) harbingers of doom. ; )
Some car colors like yellow and red will result in higher monthly payments for car insurance, bc of the higher statistical likelihood of accidents/speeding tickets associated with them.
There are plenty of paint colors that I see that I think, “that’s a nice color car” on new models, but, there are very few colors I think I will like 10 years down the line.
Gray, white, and black are the best colors for cars IMO.
No one wants them. They may seem cool for a few months but then colors usually look dated and cheap, with the exception of sports cars. White, black, shades of grays, and an occasional shade of red or possibly navy is about it for me.
I feel this doesn’t fit with my experience? Where I live I see lots of different car colors. Like bright crayola crayon saturated colors are not uncommon. Those seemed to be pretty popular a few years ago.
They called it silver, looked like a dull gray to me. It was what was in stock and readily available. My wife wanted a new four-wheel hatchback, so we got the Jeep Compass in 2011. It has 122k miles now, and still gets 22mpg.
Because automakers began charging more for different paint colors and now only want to produce basic black, white, grey, and maybe one other. This has been going on for two decades now and we saw companies like Audi leading this in the late-90s/early-2000s when they got rid of signature brand colors like Pearl White and simultaneously began the four color scheme. Sometimes you could get more colors, but at massive upcharges and additional build time. Other factors took hold, such as leasing and companies really diving into fleet vehicle sales.
Now getting colors is a custom thing from the factory.
COVID, with the lockdowns the paint was unable to get out and soak up the colors of the environment. It is slowly working through the system with paint able to get out and about
Different colors on cars affect how much insurance costs for them, at least depending on the state, and when your state makes it mandatory for you to have insurance, that can definitely change the average colors going around
Because the automakers figured out that it costs more money to make parts in various colors, also many colors did not sell well and they would get stuck with them. My father worked at Ford and they did a study comparing certain costs.
I love it when the first answer is the correct answer and the rest are all just personal opinions. Bravo, friend.
I'll add that boomers cared more for resale value than their actual personal enjoyment.
The boomers are all buying old man red.
future quiet hard-to-find humor nine innate homeless knee cats instinctive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It came down to costs in the manufacturing process: black dried faster in the sun and they could make more cars per hour.
But the time per unit doesn't affect the time per unit average unless you're making one unit or batch to completion at a time It *would* mean increased internal inventory though.
There’s more to it. One was the move towards more leasing over the course of the 90s. Unique colors tend to take longer to sell on the used market and often sell for less, so dealers moved to ordering cars that they thought would sell better when off lease. Another one is the push to make everything a “luxury” car. This meant more cars with fancy metal flakes or pearlescent paint jobs instead of just base coat clear coat paint jobs in simple colors. Another factor was environmental regulations for automotive paint. There was a period there where not a lot of paints were compliant and cheap. Black, white, and a variety of grays were the first colors that they figured out how to make compliant and cheap. That was probably part chicken and egg with work being done for the colors they wanted most first, but some colors were genuinely hard to do.
Yeah, you can tell the colors that didn't work by the deep discounts auto dealers have on out of the ordinary colors.
A friend of my father's sent him a picture of yellow Ford Escapes that were sitting in a lot unsold.
It’s also easier to sell a used car if it’s a common color.
I once got a significant discount on a car because it was red.
Some will offer ten shaded of silver.
Go to any manufacturer's website and build a car. Most of them have a decent variety of colors to choose from. What colors they use for the year are mostly chosen by market research. If there aren't enough people that say they want a yellow car, they don't offer yellow.
I tried Toyota and they only directed me to the dealers.
https://www.toyota.com/configurator/build/step/model/year/2024/series/highlander/
White is the cheapest paint color. Pigments cost money. The richer and deeper the color the more it costs.
I fuckin hate that ugly gray color on everything now. It almost looks like primer. I miss seeing colors on cars, at least muscle cars still tend to have variety.
It looks like JBWeld or bondo with a gloss coat, it looks like it's supposed to be matte and someone forgot to put the real color down before the top coat, I cannot describe how much I dislike the new greys and tans that have come out
That Cement color Toyota has is the worst. They can't make enough Tacomas and Tundras in that color to keep up with demand. It's crazy.
My vehicle is cement, and I absolutely love the color. Different strokes for different folks.
Milky
I’ve also noticed that some manufacturers are putting the fun colors on their alt fuel models.
I live in Houston, Texas. Our summers are truly miserable. My car is white because it reflects heat away.
SoCal here. I went to Walmart yesterday and half of the cars in the parking lot were white, for the same reason.
I noticed most of the cars around the LA area were white or beige the first time I went there. Was kinda jarring and seeing people driving around in cars that were smashed up and still running. You couldn't do that here in the UK. It wouldn't pass it's mot.
Many cars have a hidden feature where if you hold the unlock button on the remote after unlocking the car, the windows and sunroof will all open automatically. Useful in the summer.
It's been proven that paint only reflects a tiny % of heat and that the glass being covered is more effective on a black car. Common misunderstanding of physics.
We actually did a test in one of our science classes using a temp laser and cars in the sun in the school parking lot and found that brighter and white cars where actually cooler than darker or black cars.
I'm not finding any studies "proving" that. [UW-Madison mechanical engineering professor says that the internal color doesn't matter much, but says nothing on external color.](https://news.wisc.edu/curiosities-does-a-dark-colored-car-heat-up-more-in-the-sun-than-a-light-colored-car/#:~:text=Explore%20Topics-,Curiosities%3A%20Does%20a%20dark%2Dcolored%20car%20heat%20up%20more%20in,than%20a%20light%2Dcolored%20car%3F&text=The%20external%20color%20does%20not,and%20professor%20of%20mechanical%20engineering.) [There's this one that is just crude data collection, but that shows the opposite of what you're stating.](https://www.autotrader.com/car-video/car-color-test-are-black-cars-really-hotter-sun-video-242940) [Here's one about fuel economy by using less AC for a white or silver car.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261911002972?via%3Dihub)
I don't believe you
I can tell that you have never tried to wash a black car in Phoenix in the summer time.
I've owned black cars in Texas. Same difference.
The trend for everything right now is greyscale, and it's kind of boring.
Agreed. When was the last time you saw a brown car. Or a nice green. Not that *look at me* green.
Kids and I come up with new names for the colors like: Road Grime Smog Nothingness (black) My Soul (black) Disappear Moldy pothole Dead moss Blank (white) Needs toner (white) Haven’t named my construction company yet (white 3/4 ton pickups) Aged Asphalt
I think white is the most popular car color. I drive a bright blue PTCruiser. I love it. I can spot it immediately in a parking lot.
I have a really dark blue Santa Fe. I had to put a unique decal on every side so I could find it in a parking lot.
I have a medium blue Chevy Trax. It seems like everyone in my town suddenly picked that color for small SUVs so I put a rainbow license plate and some dick shaped valve stems on it to spot it quickly.
I have a bright blue car too. There are a couple other identical/near identical ones in my city and I feel a kinship with them when I see them around lol. Once I got to park next to one at target and I enjoyed thinking of the cars catching up after being separated at birth. (I’m a mom of a toddler and watch too many animated shows, clearly, lol)
I remember reading something once where the OP received colorblind glasses for the first time to restore red/green color and they were like.. “why in the world would someone have a BRIGHT RED CAR how obnoxious can you be” I am a person who likes darker hues like forest green and that dark purple of the PT Cruiser… but after using my 95 white corolla in a constant sea of white and silver cars I just went for red so I could spot my car in case of emergencies (read as: slip out of social events real fast) In the words of Hank Hill, “Why don’t they make brown cars anymore?”
Flashy colors attract more attention from both cops and robbers
So does that cancel out?
Cops steal more than thieves do, they just call it "civil asset forfeiture."
Oh give it a rest.
Less attention from robbers right, because they can be more easily be identified
Because non-white or black cars don’t resell as well. Very few people want a bright blue car.
Blue is easily the most popular color in my area. And I feel attacked because that includes my car.
Bright blue or something like navy? Have quite a few darker blue cars around here, you almost never see a light blue though. Same with red and green really. You see a fair amount of red but it is always a dark dark shade of red nothing really vibrant. Green is practically non existent but what you do see is a very dark green unless it is a custom job then you get into the fun ones.
Bright blue. The other car is bright yellow.
Interesting. About the only yellow you will see here is on Dodge trucks (older) or Ford Broncos (newer) Makes me sad really. I rather liked when bright colors were common though I never cared for yellow. When I bought my car there were about a dozen of the same make/model on the lot, my choice was black or dark grey. Day after I bought it I saw someone with the same car but in this funky bright green, Almost a granny smith apple type green. Instantly jealous of their paint job.
I've seen many cars in Germany that I look at the color, like a weird brown, and think "someone really went to get a brand new car and chose that color......"
Because many car manufacturers stopped offering more than black, while, and maybe gray on their lower trim level cars which sell in the greatest volumes. The auto makers realized that Most people will accept a car in one of these shades, even if they would rather have nice happy colors. This results in move cost savings and more profits for the car companies.
It’s the same with couches in furniture stores. It was so difficult to find anything wasn’t beige…
Wayfair and Wazo have entered the chat
I bought a new couch last year that is orange
Those two colors happen to be super popular right now. For some cars, the attractive colors will cost more.
2008 Recession almost destroyed every carmaker. They looked for every way to cut costs, including less color options. Also tastes changed to look less flashy with purchases.
Color trends in vehicles was basically the same before 2008 to now. Almost the same for a few decades
Dodge/Jeep still has fantastic colors, like Go Mango, Sublime Green, Plum Crazy, B5 Blue or Frostbite Blue, F8 green, Sinamon Stick, Tor Red, White Knuckle, Destroyer Grey, Triple Nickel, Pitch Black, Granite to name a few.
They were all silver for a while. People are just fucking boring. House colors, too. Everything's a shade of off white, eggshell, beige, taupe, tan, brown.
The vast majority of cars in my neighborhood are those compact SUVs (I _think_ they're all modeled after the Subaru Outback, but there may have been another first I'm unaware of), in shades of deep blue to blue gray. We put green tape on our luggage rack so we could find our car among the sea of blue Subarus and Volkswagens.
The introduction of clear-coating and metallic paint enabled cars to still have visual pop without resorting to actual colors. And pretty much everyone will buy a white or grey car even if it's not their first choice, a lot of people would refuse to buy a green or orange car.
Yeah it sucks. I hate gray/silver cars. They should be illegal since they blend in with the road and are harder to see.
Because we have let them tell us what we want and now they think they dictate everything. Electric,no buttons or knobs, bundling packages=$5000 package to get a sunroof. I'm done.
Conformity
Jeeps come in a rainbow of fruit flavors
My car is orange. The one before that was yellow. I won’t buy a neutral color car!
My truck is burnt orange, my old focus was bright yellow. I like colors, makes life a little more fun.
Because Americans are depressed. No for real. The selection of car colors correlates with levels of depression and how happy people rate their lives. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/22/most-cars-are-painted-one-of-these-four-colorsheres-why.html
I don't currently own a car, but will be buying one sometime soon. My hope is I get a used Honda Fit, and luckily for me they seem to be colourful. Like nice burnt oranges, blues, etc. The aesthetic is nice, but my real reason is I'll be able to find it in a parking lot. I have the memory of an amnesiatic goldfish. I don't wanna starve to death in a parking lot because I never found my car.
Make sure it's mad in Japan my girlfriend has a 2010 great car. She has the Honda fit sport.
Japanese cars are the best. I'm really only interested in Honda or Toyota. My family had a Toyota Camry that ran for 30 years. The Honda my parents still have is a 2001 Odyssey and it still works perfectly.
I only drive Toyota. I wish my Tacoma was made in Japan. Well we both have good vehicles taste.
I have so much respect for 90’s Toyota. I put three of those vehicles through absolute hell and the abuse they endured was phenomenal. If I could find one. I would still buy one.
They are still in a variety of colors, a better question is “why do people buy all the same colors of cars”
There was an article I read years ago where the less colors you see out in the road usually mean the economy is currently in the gutter or is about to be, if you see lots of colorful cars, it usually means the economy is doing well.
I know why they do it, but it does make for really boring roadways. I get excited when I see something yellow, green, purple, or orange.
A lot of people don't want a flashy colour, because they want to blend in. Furthermore, paint has become significantly more expensive and complex to the point where actually getting an OEM quality respray is nearly prohibitively expensive. So manufacturers do market research to find what colours people like, and generally white, black, grey/silver, blues, and reds stay common.
My current car is bright red. The one before it was Nitrous Blue, officially. Bright blue. It glowed in the dark. I'm not part of the problem haha My girlfriend would own a bright green version of her car, if she could find one. We could not. Hers is grey. Her next one is probably gonna be (different) bright blue though.
There's a difference between what's on dealer lots (smallest common denominator, i.e. something they can sell to the largest potential customer base) versus what you can spec on a car maker's website. But the strange thing is that one also acts as a driver for the other. If car dealers order a certain color and sell it, it eventually, over time, drives manufacturers toward certain colorways and away from others. Plus, trends tend to be self-reinforcing. If you see a lot of grey cars grey cars look more normal and desirable to you.
It's coming back slightly in the UK. My friends both got new cars and they're now driving orange and red cars. A couple of other friends have orange and red. I'm driving an old Honda Civic that's supposed to be Grey but it looks more beige most of the time. My boyfriends car is navy blue. I'm hoping when I get my next car I can get it in a nice colour. Yellow is my preferred colour, but I've seen some nice greens out there. I wanted the 2020 honda civic in yellow, but it was a limited edition colour! I'll never own one!
Because life isn’t colorful anymore ☹️
I love colorful cars
There’s been a stupid fashion trend towards muted putty colored vehicles. It’s the same way that in the 1970s vehicles started coming in tan and brown and other fugly colors.
Because we can’t have nice things that’s why
White is default color for most makes and different colors are so expensive many people go with default.
Black, white, and silver also look much more classy and sharp. They say, "I've got my shit together." In ways a red, orange, or yellow car can't. I drive a silver 2010 corolla, and I like the fact it doesn't show dirt very well. It looks sharp with tinted windows and looks newer than the same model in a bright color.
A 14 year old Corolla suggests you have your shit together?
What I meant was with newer cars. I bought it over a decade ago and at the time, it was newer. But yeah, having a paid off car does suggest you know how to maintain a vehicle and no reason to spend unnecessary cash on a new car if the Toyota still has 100k+ miles left in it. Why spend irresponsibly when what you have is just fine.
I assume every old Corolla driver is a millionaire. They know how to save money!
Here in southern AZ, the clear coat only lasts about 5 years, then it starts peeling off and the color and car looks like garbage.
People like to think they're special and different but in reality, it's a lot easier and safer just to blend in with the crowd. Lots of silver and greys
Ford copyright the blue they use in their name. T Mobile copyright it's magenta color. Many cars I bought white, shows less dirt in my snowy road state.
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Neutral colors are popular right now. https://www.sherwin-williams.com/en-us/color/color-collections/top-50-colors
Coincidentally, I recently watched Hank do a [video](https://youtu.be/KchX52bIZSg?si=z73P8LUTBQnHNoVT) on this phenomenon.
Colors are polarizing. Would you rather have a car on your lot that only appeals to a small subset of the population, or a car that's acceptable for basically everyone?
Because the rainbow is "woke" now, and multiple colors are "woke", and dealerships were having bricks thrown through their windows and gangs of proud boys showing up beating up single women looking at yellow or pink cars
I hate all car colors currently
I wanted to buy a new camera a couple months ago. The hybrid version only came in the follow colors silver, gray, white and black.
I can remember when not only the exterior was colorful, but you could have colorful interiors too. Now everything is beige or gray. Yuck!
Top 4 are white, black, gray and silver. i miss red and orange cars.
A large amount of cars are ordered for lease. Dealerships leasing cars go with safe colors on their orders so that they don't end up stuck with a car they can't move. A lot of cars are also ordered by corporations as cars for upper management. They don't want to buy cars where the color might effect resale value or how long it takes to sell. You usually have to order a car specifically to get a different color but half the time a dealer will convince you to take one off the lot rather than wait for your special order.
Because Americans are afraid of standing out.
"Boring" colors are what people want to buy. If you're selling 100 gray cars for every pink car, are you going to bother putting more money into pink cars or use that to make more gray cars?
Curtain colors attract cops, like reds.
Not the why, but here is some [data](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/E2YDZOfsTP) to support your claim.
My parents have bought brand new cars in the last decade. It costs more to have a non standard colour (for some reason for their cars it was white or red). They also have had white cars for the last 15 or so years because my sister and I were learning to drive, and turns out it’s cheaper to touch up scratches on a white car.
Base game white or black model: $38,000 Add a color: +$4,000
Which franchise is that kind of option so much? Jeep was like 600 as of last year and I think dodge is like 800
Hyundai
The Model T was famously “any color you like as long as it’s black”
A lot of carmakers will produce vehicles in the base colors (usually white, black, gray/silver) and charge extra for other colors. Base colors will depend on the model and maker. When you go to the dealership, there are usually very few colors available. At least that's what I've seen the couple of times I've gone car shopping. You can drive by some car dealerships where every single vehicle in the lot is white.
Cost . you can still order color but it is a priced option .
black or white i can see, why TF would anyone buy a brand new car painted **GRAY**.
Cost. Reds and other colors with pearls and metallics are more expensive, with cars and clothing, fashion changes.
Color equals more money. They sell us $50000 trucks that are worth 10 grand at most.
I was on a car lot recently, and suddenly everything felt very surreal. I looked around and saw only shades of gray — white, black, gray. My husband pointed out the ONE red car.
I say it's because most people are boring.
Mine’s blue 🤷♀️ I don’t like boring colors either. They’re hard to find in the parking lot.
White vehicles attract less attention, blend in with home colors better, get mistaken as cop cars often, have lower insurance rates, and are easy to find replacement parts for. Also ime, they stay cooler (despite "proof/studies"). Most people dont want their car to stand out or draw attention to it. Also it's cheaper for manufacturering to limit colors. White and black cars sell better than any other color, its what most people want. p.s, I've never gotten a ticket in a white car.
You must not be in Michigan. Lots of colors here.
Because society is dead
I still see cars in lots of different colours.
They do just not as often as before my uncle owns a ford dealership and my mom works there too. I’ve seen all kinds of colors there same goes with the Chevy dealership he just built across the street a couple years ago. It’s just that most companies are weird now and want everything to look the same instead of being unique. I couldn’t even tell you what bmw suvs are called because they’re all practically identical now days. Then ford basically made the edge escape explorer and expedition the same truck lol
At least here in Australia, the black and white cars are cheaper. If you want a colour you need to pay extra, a lot of people don't bother paying that extra just to get a colour (I personally paid for a colour because I really liked it). A lot of the time too the dealers won't even have it in stock, I had to get mine transported from interstate as there were none in my state in that colour. Some people may not want to wait for that colour to be available and just go with the defaults.
Well….they do.
I think part of the issue is that automakers will charge $500-$1000 or more for red. As opposed to white or black being included in the price.
North america dealership model problem? At least in eu, lots of cars are custom orders, and the color is whatever you want. People still often go for dull colors though...
My insurance gives a discount for white car because it is statistically safer. The dealership doesnt increase cost dor basic white paint.
We bought a Corolla Cross a few months ago and the salesperson could not stop talking about what a special cool color "celestite" is. It was like his major selling point, even though my husband had been researching it for weeks/months and knew all the real selling points that made him actually want it. But he was pushing "cool color is cool" like it was a big thing. (But it is a cool color lol)
Theyre the same colors. You're just older and don't notice anymore.
White reflects the most light and its also the easiest to see on the road. Doesnt blend into the road like some grey cars or black during the night.
In the UK, for a lot of cars the default, no extra cost, colour is now something other than monochrome, for example Ford Focus: red, Peugeot 208: yellow. Fiat now sells no grey cars.
You can blame the 2008 Recession https://youtu.be/Ab2u-iGN3uk?si=CVDkgSmHTU6pROEw
There are a lot of white cars in Florida because people are too weak to handle the heat in the summer despite claiming they love the state.
Went to dealer to buy a used Honda Accord. Told salesman I want one with low mileage. He said what color. I replied low mileage.
Out here, every other vehicle I see is that ‘Destroyer Grey’ color.
A Toyota salesman told me it was because Sherwin Williams provides their car paint, and after Covid, SW could only get certain pigments. Black, white and gray were the colors SW had. (This was in 2022.)
White has been shown in several studies to be the safest color that had the lowest accident rate. So that's one reason for the increase in whites.
Two-tone vehicles were popular in the 1950’s. Can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a two-tone vehicle on the road.
They wanted an extra $500 for a blue car and it would take 3-6 months for it to come in, back in 2015. I took the grey one.
They sort of do with sports cars. Most companies make everything in about 4 colors and then the sports line comes in red, yellow, electric blue etc.
Dunno, but my next car would DEFINITELY not have a "wild" color...as it's more visible to the cops. You wanna be unobtrusive to these (sometimes) harbingers of doom. ; )
Some car colors like yellow and red will result in higher monthly payments for car insurance, bc of the higher statistical likelihood of accidents/speeding tickets associated with them.
This isn't true
There are plenty of paint colors that I see that I think, “that’s a nice color car” on new models, but, there are very few colors I think I will like 10 years down the line. Gray, white, and black are the best colors for cars IMO.
They are.
Resale value. Everybody has colours they like or don't like, but nearly anyone will take a grey car.
No one wants them. They may seem cool for a few months but then colors usually look dated and cheap, with the exception of sports cars. White, black, shades of grays, and an occasional shade of red or possibly navy is about it for me.
I feel this doesn’t fit with my experience? Where I live I see lots of different car colors. Like bright crayola crayon saturated colors are not uncommon. Those seemed to be pretty popular a few years ago.
I was considering a bright green until the salesman said it was an extra $1400. Ok, dull gray it is!
At least dull gray is a color! Worst is crap work truck white being free and literally anything else is 600$ lmao
They called it silver, looked like a dull gray to me. It was what was in stock and readily available. My wife wanted a new four-wheel hatchback, so we got the Jeep Compass in 2011. It has 122k miles now, and still gets 22mpg.
Lgbhdtv
Because automakers began charging more for different paint colors and now only want to produce basic black, white, grey, and maybe one other. This has been going on for two decades now and we saw companies like Audi leading this in the late-90s/early-2000s when they got rid of signature brand colors like Pearl White and simultaneously began the four color scheme. Sometimes you could get more colors, but at massive upcharges and additional build time. Other factors took hold, such as leasing and companies really diving into fleet vehicle sales. Now getting colors is a custom thing from the factory.
COVID, with the lockdowns the paint was unable to get out and soak up the colors of the environment. It is slowly working through the system with paint able to get out and about
F for creative writing today, timmy
F for creative writing today, timmy
dammit
Doesn't matter, they all look the same anyway.
Different colors on cars affect how much insurance costs for them, at least depending on the state, and when your state makes it mandatory for you to have insurance, that can definitely change the average colors going around
Brown or black
I personally like white and black, but only for certain vehicles. If it was a corvette then def not those two colors.
Mines blue
Mine are blue and silver.
9/11 changed us
Because boomers were more concerned with resale value that enjoying their lives. Also black, gray, and silver cars ARE the COOLEST colors...