81% of all cars worldwide are white, gray or black. 81% of you are boring

The chemical company BASF, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of car paints, publishes these every year BASF color report 2023 for automotive OEM coatings – the report on the popularity of car colors. For 2023 it looks like this:

Black won +3%. Silver is the loser (-3%). EXCITING.

Yes. Globally, a vast majority of 81% drive cars that are white, black, grayscale or – ugh, bold! – are painted silver.

You know that:

The vast majority of all car colors are… actually no colors at all: black, shades of gray, silver, white. What in technical jargon is called ‘achromatic’; “achromatic”.

Of course there are regional differences, but the non-colors are the most popular everywhere.

If that’s not a reason to celebrate, BASF can report that “the Asia-Pacific region is the only region where color diversity has increased” (it still represents a small minority of 21% – and only as beige is called “colorful”). Europe/Middle East/Africa? Not really. “Achromatic colors, including white, black, gray and silver, have increased significantly in popularity.”

What else? “By 2023, silver will overtake gray to become the third most popular color in North America.” And in South America “the share of achromatic colors on the streets is higher than anywhere else.”

Or to put it another way: the vast majority of all drivers are DISCOURAGEOUSLY BORING.

Why? Yes, don’t you notice? Could the neighbors talk? Or are we just greedy, shit bunnies? (It has been proven that bolder car colors fetch lower prices on the used market.)

It makes you think back nostalgically to the past – for example the two-tone color schemes from the 1950s.

Unbelievable today. Later, around 1970, something incredible was offered for the muscle car segment: Ford Mustangs Grab BlueDodge Challengers in that glowing one Sublime; Hug Orange for the Chevrolet Camaro…

Admittedly, this was a fairly small, very specific market segment. Loud colors for loud cars, that is. Lamborghinis and the like are still available in bright green today. Clearly.

But even the average consumer likes to treat himself to a Göppel in colors that are hardly available nowadays. My grandmother’s 1974 Fiat 128 was pea green:

Unbelievable today. So is that Ford metallic brown – certainly not a “bold” color, but one that was one of the most popular paint finishes for the Cortina at the time. And one that is now as good as dead.

So is that classic Ermine White from the 1960s, seen here on a 1966 Lotus Cortina, with stripes in it Sherwood Green:

All very iconic colors – just because of the name. “Sherwood Green” – great. And while the above color schemes aren’t too flashy and certainly suit the neighborhood,… well, how many cars do you see these days? Ford metallic brown?

What happened?

In an interview with Automagazine “Jalopnik” In 2020, BASF North America’s chief color designer confirmed: Paul Czornijthat car colors have become less and less colorful since the 1980s. The causes sometimes lie in technological progress:

And then there is inevitably the psychological component: since the 1980s, technological gadgets in cars have become increasingly common.

Fitting the market means – logically – playing it safe. Yes, there is still a small minority of high-end sports cars in bright red shades or traffic light yellow. And at the lower end of the small car price segment you can experiment with more playful colors: Fiat 500 and Co. are available in colorful. But in the middle and upper middle class, people rely on respect.

So let’s summarize: the current (non-)color palette is based on technological developments in color painting and how the market offers it to the consumer, linked to the primal human psychological associations of the customer. That’s why green, a popular color in the 1970s, has largely disappeared. The hungry caterpillar from the children’s book is green. Anthracite metallized, on the other hand, is progress.

Unfortunately.