Few things in life are as black and white as what’s the most popular car color.
That’s according to a new study from iSeeCars, which examined over 6.1 million used vehicles, from the 2017-2021 model years, that were sold between January and August of this year.
The findings aren’t exactly shocking as white was the most popular color at 25.8%. It was closely followed by its dark counterpart as black came in a 22.3%. Rounding out the top four spots were gray (18.4%) and silver (12.1%).
Also Read: These Are Best Colors To Fight Depreciation
All told, grayscale-colored – white, black, gray, and silver – vehicles accounted for 78.5% of the vehicles in the study. The only popular ‘colorful’ hues were blue (9.5%) and red (8.6%) as brown, green, beige, orange, gold, yellow, and purple only accounted for 3.3% combined.
Interestingly, the popularity of grayscale colors has increased from 2017 to 2022. However, the change is relatively minor as the percentage of grayscale models only increased from 76.2% to 78.6%.
Putting national level results aside, white was the preferred color in 36 states. Black was only more popular in 14 states including Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
So which state is the most ‘colorful’? That honor goes to West Virginia, where 28.1% of vehicles had a non-grayscale color. Other adventurous states include Vermont (27.0%), Wyoming (26.6%), and Alaska (25.8%).
The national average of colorful cars was 21.5%, but some states fell well below that percentage. California was the least adventurous and it was followed by Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Jersey.
At a local level, the Harrisburg-Lancaster-York area of Pennsylvania had a 26.3% share of colorful cars. It was followed by Pittsburgh (24.8%), Indianapolis (24.8%), and Detroit (24.4%). The three least colorful cities were all in California as they were Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto area.
