80% of New Car Buyers Opting for Grayscale, Missing out on Higher Resale Values
Cars are getting much less colorful than they were in recent years. While automakers are offering as many exciting colors as always, buyers are ignoring them and going with “grayscale” options (white, silver, gray, black, etc.). While some buyers may think this is a smart choice to maximize resale value, some of the highest resale value colors are very much not grayscale.
When I think about the Detroit muscle cars and trucks of the 1970s, I tend to think of bright colors. For example, Mopar’s “High Impact Colors” line included iconic hues such as “Plum Crazy,” “Limelight,” “Go Mango” and “Top Banana.” No list would be complete without “Hemi Orange,” originally mixed for engine blocks, later offered on cars, and made famous by The Dukes of Hazzard.
In fact, the peak of colorful car sales was 1973. Only 20% of cars sold that year were grayscale. The other 80% of them were some color or another.
It would be easy to blame car companies for modern parking lots filled with grayscale vehicles. But the iSeeCars website–which analyzes sales data–points out that the average new model offers 6.7 non-grayscale colors. People just aren’t buying them.
As recently as 2004, 60.3% of new vehicles were bought in a grayscale color. I know this number sounds high, but remember that it includes white and black cars. In 2023, that number skyrocketed to 80%.
What is going on here? Did automakers offer fewer options? Nope. The average number of non-grayscale colors offered per model has stayed around 6.7%.
Perhaps fewer customers are able to custom order cars, and have to make do with whatever’s on the dealer’s lot. Dealerships are notorious for only ordering grayscale cars, because these will appeal to the largest possible group of buyers.
Another possibility is that the “non-grayscale” colors have more gray than color. I’m thinking of Ford’s “Area 51” which is gray with a touch of blue, or Toyota’s “Lunar Rock” which is gray with a touch of green. These underwhelming “non-grayscale” colors may not be something customers want to special order, wait for, and pay more for.
A final possibility is that customers don’t want to jeopardize resale value. But I’d say this is a myth. The truth about resale value and used vehicle value is fairly complex.
Let’s look at truck colors and resale value. A ton of pickup trucks are sold in gray and white, as fleet vehicles. They lose just about as much value as the average vehicle. So does a black truck. Interestingly, silver trucks depreciate the fastest.
What about non-grayscale trucks? The most common non-grayscale colors are blue, followed by red. These depreciate a bit more than average (but less than silver). But if you opt for a completely unique color, they depreciate slower. The color that depreciates the less is beige, followed by orang,e then green, and finally brown.
If you look at cars, the results are similar. The slowest depreciating car colors–in order–are: yellow, beige, orange, green, and red.
What in the color wheel is going on here? I expect there are special edition trucks in these unique colors (think the beige Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro or a Hemi Orange Dodge Challenger) that are in high demand on the used market. So if you really want to maximize resale value, it might be worth rolling the dice on a tasteful, special edition color. And you’ll also be fighting the flood of grayscale cars and trucks.
Next, read why car color names (i.e. Starfire, Manganese Luster) need to chill out, or find out more about the most and least valuable car colors in the video below:
