cars

Your next car should be yellow.

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants,
so long as it is black,” said Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford - but to what extent does that hold true today?
 

The car lease experts at LeaseCar.uk have been exploring the most popular colours of cars in the UK, taking a snapshot of trends from the 1950s onwards with some interesting results.
​

1950s - pale green:
during this decade crisp, clear pastel colours were favoured and pale green was a top choice for drivers. Mid-tone colours such as salmon and turquoise were also popular while pink is synonymous with Hollywood films of the period such as the Pink Cadillac.
 

1960s: beige:
Greys and beiges were popular colours across Europe in the 1960s. Other colours in fashion included light yellow, blue and green with metallic gold emerging as a sought-after choice during the middle of the decade.
 

1970s: brown:
‘Earth-toned’ colours were in fashion during the Seventies with the likes of burnt orange, ochre yellow and apple green. But the most common colour of choice among consumers was said to be brown with many hazel and mud coloured paint offerings on the market. Brown has tried to make numerous comebacks and failed in more recent years.
 

1980s: black:
More traditional colours were sought by motorists in this period with black and bright red among the most popular in this period.
 

1990s: red:
Red topped the charts for a time as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) charted the number of sales by car colour. For example, in 1997, there were 6,733,640 red cars sold, beating blue into second place with 6,284,838. There is special mention for green here in fourth place behind white, as with 2.2m sales nationwide, green was considered popular due to ‘greater natural interest.”
 

2000s: blue:
Exactly a decade later, and SMMT figures showed blue was top of the pile with 7,522,576 car sales in 2007. Silver was a close second with 7,345,841 cars sold with red now third on 4.4m. Black and green made up the top five.
 

2010s: black:
Black held off grey to take top spot for the first time since the 1980s with a 20.3 percent market share and 515,970 cars sold in 2017, according to SMMT. Half a million grey cars were also sold in that year. The top five was made up of white, blue and silver, in that order.
 

Today: grey:
Last year, grey topped the charts according to SMMT, with 397,197 cars of that colour sold, despite the pandemic. It meant 24.3 percent of the market share for new cars were grey. Black was relegated to second place, with white in third place. 
 

The future: yellow?:
​Also in 2020, according to SMMT figures, yellow increased its market share by 50 per cent with almost 7,000 vehicles sold, with orange and green also increasing their market share. Could yellow continue on this positive upward trajectory, do the unthinkable and take top spot in ten years’ time?!
​Only time will tell!