Car Buyers Love To Be Conservative

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

When it comes to car colors, silver and gray still dominate. But in view of the ecological trend, one can hope that our streets will soon be more colorful.

A look at the streets shows that car buyers tend to be conservative when it comes to choosing paint colors. The crowd has been relying on silver and gray for years. Now the topic is slowly moving again: the silver is to be given a different shine by adding other tones. And with the interest in alternative drives, there will also be an eco-trend in color, which is expressed in brownish or greenish tones. Above all, black should be more than just pure black in the future.

Color preferences hardly changed

The color preferences of motorists have changed again and again over the years. According to the statistics of the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) in Flensburg in 1996, almost 20 percent of new cars were painted a green shade. Today the green share is bobbing below the 5 percent mark. Red, on the other hand, was still almost 30 percent in 1992. Since then, however, things have been steadily downhill - since 2002 this paint color has also leveled off at 5 percent.

It looks completely different with black: in 1991 a black car was the absolute exception, not even 3 percent of new cars were painted that way. After that it went steadily uphill. In 2005, black paint exceeded the 25 percent mark for the proportion of new car paintwork. Only the color group gray made it even further, including dark gray tones and metallic colors such as silver. In 2004 a share of more than 45 percent was achieved here.

Silver and black dominate colors

Even in 2008, silver and black are still the dominant themes when it comes to paint colors. Of the 2,110,089 vehicles newly registered between January and August, 791,225 were painted in a gray color, and 660,302 were black. Blue (284,368), red (121,046) and white (118,034), which has been trendy again for some time, follow at a great distance. On the other hand, only 3,518 buyers had the courage to order their car in purple or violet.

According to the will of the color designers, the monotony should now be replaced. This will initially be based on popular paint tones and then continue in the direction of other colors. "So far, the silver tones have mostly been high-gloss or very light paints," says color designer Eva Höfli from paint manufacturer BASF Coatings in Münster. Now you want to combine silver with color nuances: it can be pink or a shade of blue.

You have big plans for the popular black. BASF wants to make black paint shine. With admixtures you want to make it possible that it sparkles or is combined with colored highlights.

New trend

The interplay of several colors is also seen as a trend at the paint manufacturer Dupont Performance Coatings in Wuppertal. Here we speak of bicolor effects and of the fact that such mixtures should lead away from the clear assignment to a color family. In the future, there could be a choice of lacquers that would be called brown-blue or gray-beige. In addition, something will happen in the rest of the color palette. The long-scorned white has established itself as a trend color - and according to the experts it will remain so for a while.

Interest in alternatives related to propulsion and fuel will also have a bigger impact. Because just as silver with color additives is supposed to say goodbye to its technical look, the rest of the color palette will also experience an ecological movement. "We will certainly see a little more shades of green," says Eva Höfli. (dpa / tmn)