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Car Color Preferences Shifting To Lighter Shades In North America

Automobile buyers are choosing lighter car color shades in North America, according to GM coating supplier BASF, which just released its 2023 BASF Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings, with silver tones edging out gray in the popular achromatic lineup.

The study indicates the achromatic car color choices – white, black, gray, and silver – are still the most popular options both in North America and worldwide, but the specific palette buyers prefer is changing.

North American car color preferences in 2023.

Via the 2023 BASF Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings

Car color preferences are getting even more achromatic in North America, with these colors gaining two percent from the previous year. The company’s North American color designer Elizabeth Hoffmann remarked that ” lighter shades are getting more popular, taking market share from gray,” though she also noted “more and more choices have effects pigments to give them intensity and excitement.”

Silver accounted for 14 percent of car color for new cars purchased in 2023, solidly outperforming gray at 10 percent. White still has the largest percentage at 34 percent, with black trailing but catching up at 22 percent. Among the chromatic colors, blue is still outperforming red at 9 percent and 8 percent respectively.

Side view of the 2025 GMC Canyon in Sterling Metallic.

GM’s current car color lineup has several light gray or silver colors available, including two for the Chevy Corvette:

  • Ceramic Matrix Gray Metallic (color code G9F)
  • Silver Flare Metallic (GSJ)

Meanwhile, a single color in the category is offered across The General’s overall model lines, with the same color known by various color names among the automaker’s four brands:

  • Sterling Gray Metallic (GXD) for Chevy
  • Sterling Metallic (GXD) for GMC
  • Moonstone Gray Metallic (GXD) for Buick
  • Argent Silver Metallic (GXD) for Cadillac

Rear three quarters view of the 2024 Cadillac Lyriq in Argent Silver Metallic.

Interestingly, BASF also showed a light chromatic color, a pale green tint it called Electronic Citrus, in its 2023-2024 “On Volude” passenger vehicle color trends collection. This color bears some resemblance to the Cacti Green (color code GVR) paint GM made available on the 2024 Chevy Trax starting in April 2023 and announced for the 2024 Chevy Corvette in November, suggesting The General may be paying attention to its coating supplier’s color trends research.

As noted earlier, BASF says effects pigments are also becoming more popular, and could be added to light colors such as silver just as readily as darker hues. Marcos Fernandes of BASF says “whether it’s a pearl or metal flake or other pigment, the effects make the color leap from the vehicle into the eyes of the beholder.”

Side view of the 2024 Chevy Trax in Cacti Green car color.

Fernandes added, “colors aren’t just colors any more. They are experiences.”

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Comments

  1. Yeah, seeing black, white, gray/silver on almost every vehicle got old to me. I switched to blue on my most recent purchase. Had a black car previously.

    Reply
    1. Me too, my 2024 Silverado is glacier blue . My 2010 Silverado is silver.

      Reply
  2. Red has 75% market share in my household.

    Reply
    1. Red has 66% at my house. Malibu and Corvette.

      Reply
  3. White, black, gray, and silver, are all what I like to call “Rental Car Colors” to me with the exception of Cadillacs Crystal White Tricoat. Otherwise all the cars I buy new I get either blue or red.

    Reply
    1. And if you buy used or have to get a deal to buy new, your choices are white….. yeah, that’s about it. I wonder how much this color pallet is actually customer preference, and how much is manufacturers pushing a cheaper pigment on dealer lots. I’d love a forest green full size SUV, but settled for a black CUV due to my budget.

      Reply
      1. Kik me bals.

        Reply
      2. My The flip side of that coin is inferior color. Almost every damn color has a black interior!!! You can’t tell me it’s not the dealers choice. However, there may be one exception to this “rule”… If all the planets and their moons line up EXACTLY, the you might find a new car with some down of gray tint! What’s with that???

        Reply
      3. My thoughts exactly. Most people buy cars like buying a bicycle at Walmart. They are content with what they find on the lot so long as they get a deal. That’s fine nothing wrong with that. But to me a car is too big of an investment to accept any color. Why not get it the color I want? Find it for me or order it from the factory for me. I can wait. I don’t want it in generic shades like White, gray, or black. I want color in my cars.

        Reply
  4. Enough of the drama-seeking narrative excess already.
    Please just TWO words to describe any color!
    We are on the verge of Ceramic Matrix Accelerate Tint Coat Caribbean Metallic Sky Flare Sterling Puce on next year’s C8.

    Reply
  5. It has become a very depressed world we live in today, based on the vehicle colours people choose (or dealers push). In Canada 90% of all vehicles in any parking lot or on the road are black, white or some shade of grey in-between. Rarely can a color outside of that spectrum be found and when we do see one, 80% of the time they are dull and dark reds and blues. My Caddy XT-4 is in the Autumn Metallic color and I get so many positive comments on it, but would those same people that really seem to like it order one? Oh no, too risky? The same goes for interior colours, what a drab choice o ugly colours with fancy names. I have passed over many new vehicle purchases of a favoured make/model in the past due to lack of decent colours on them.

    Reply

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