SMMT Chairman Mike Hawes said: “While 2024 saw more new car buyers go green with a record number of electric cars reaching the road, the ‘face’ of the market remains familiar, with grey and black proving perennially popular.
“While manufacturers strive to ensure every driver can have their pick of a vast choice of paint colours and personalisation options to suit their individual tastes, it seems UK car buyers’ preferences remain steadfastly monochrome.”
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Other than stereotypical British prudishness, Bridgman says that perhaps one of the biggest deterrents for buyers looking to choose a brighter colour for their new pride and joy is that “more unusual shades typically offer less enticing resale values”.
According to Bridgman, the shades that most negatively affect resale values, as well as how quickly a car might sell, are brown and those that he described as “extremely bright colours – like a vivid yellow or pink”. Indeed, the latter, as you might expect, was the least-popular new car colour, despite Jaguar’s recent attempts to make it fashionable on the Type 00.
“If you had two identical cars – one grey and one brown – the former could sell within a few weeks, while the other could take a few months,” Bridgman said. “[Furthermore], if you had two mainstream used cars (circa £15,000) with one in grey and another in brown, the latter could suffer anything between £300-500 in terms of resale value.”
Despite the superstition that green-coloured cars bring bad luck, Bridgman suggested that UK buyers may be beginning to warm to them. “Green was a popular colour many years ago,” he said. “But it seems to be having a bit of a revival right now.” SMMT figures show that it is more popular than it has been for 20 years – although it still only accounts for three-and-a-half per cent of new registrations.
Top 10 car colours in 2024
Grey – 27.8%
Black – 21.7%
Blue – 14.9%
White – 14.9%
Red – 7%
Silver – 6.3%
Green – 3.5%
Yellow – 0.6%
Orange – 0.6%
Bronze – 0.3%
What’s your favourite car colour? Tell us in the comments section…