If you’ve ever taken a look at the thousands of cars dotting the roads these days, there’s a good chance you’ll have noticed that the vast majority of vehicles tend to be painted white.
White is indeed the most popular vehicle colour around the world, with most estimations indicating that at least one in every four cars on the road today features a monochrome appearance, if not more.
This was not always the case, however, and white cars have actually been growing in popularity for the past decade owing to a number of different factors.
Sign of the times
The earliest cars in the world, dating back to the time of Henry Ford, were often brightly coloured – not that the black and white photographs of the time did them much justice.
The issue was that the earliest forms of vehicle paint were oil-based, just like horse carriages, making them incredibly expensive, and compounding this issue was the fact that these paints would fade or turn yellow over time due to sun exposure and other environmental factors.
This meant that those who were wealthy enough to own a car in the first place would need to fork out additional cash periodically to keep their fancy new transportation method in a presentable condition.
To combat this, Ford developed a new asphalt-based paint which was much more durable, but came at the cost of colour choices as the asphalt effectively meant black was now the only colour in town.
This is when Henry Ford made his famous statement that “any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black.”
Another factor that limited colour options was World War I, as vehicle manufacturers had to shift priorities to assist in the war effort and more superficial notions like paint colours fell to the wayside, and the sombre nature of the period also meant that citizens were not interested in showing off their expensive cars with flashy paint jobs.
Cut to the Roaring 20s, and car colours became much more vibrant to reflect the over-the-top nature that the decade is famous for, which was possible thanks to developments in chemical and metallic paints that expanded the number of available colours and, crucially, also made it much cheaper to get an exciting colour like yellow, blue, orange, red, or purple.
However, just like with the First World War, the Great Depression and WWII put an end to the more ostentatious vehicle appearances, before they were once again resurrected in the post-war 1950s era when economic conditions improved.
This cycle would repeat itself during the Vietnam war and the 1970s recession, where drab colours like brown became the new norm for most vehicles, save for muscle cars, before the 1980s would once again rekindle interest in more creative appearances.
This is where we find ourselves today with regard to car colours.
The lesson of history is that car colours reflect the times we are living in, and so it likely comes as no surprise that the latest wave of monochrome cars was largely brought about by the 2008 financial crisis.
Roughly 78.6% of the cars currently in the United States are white, black, grey or silver, and it’s a similar story in South Africa where the three most popular paint schemes in 2020 were white, silver, and grey.
Boring colours are cool, apparently
There’s more than just economic factors at play here, though, as global trends are playing a big role in the current popularity of neutral colours like black and white.
Silver was the preferred colour for cars around the world during the late 90s into the early 2000s, which is attributed to silver having a space-age look that reflected people’s feelings around the turn of the millennium.
Now, however, we are living in the age of the smartphone, and as such, everything these days from kitchen appliances to home décor can usually be found in a sleek, modern palette that uses neutral tones, much like the iPhone sitting in your pocket.
Neutral colours are more practical
An exciting car colour can certainly be appealing, but there are downsides to giving your set of wheels a striking makeover.
The first of these downsides is the cost, as most cars these days are produced in white by default and offer a choice of paint as an optional extra.
For many people who are just looking for the best car for their budget, paying thousands of rands more for a fancy colour is understandably something that most would rather save money on.
Similarly, extravagant colours can actually hurt the resale value of your car, as not everyone may share the same fondness for the lime-green paint job you chose for your vehicle.
Neutral tones like black and white, on the other hand, never really go out of style and thus have very little bearing on the value of the car once it joins the pre-owned market.
Curiously, even black and white don’t have equal bearing depending on the climate, as white cars tend to be preferred in hot countries due to how it reflects heat better.
The opposite is true of colder regions, where darker colours like black, grey, and navy tend to perform better.
Keyword: Why car colours are so boring these days