Whether it's dealers or consumers playing it safe, the color choices for vehicles are now lacking vibrant hues, with an iSeeCars study showing that more than 80% of cars being sold are white, black, gray, or silver.
Going gray: Over the past thirty years, the percentage of grayscale vehicles (white, black, gray, or silver) has nearly doubled from 47.3% in 1996 to 80.4% in 2025.
More specifically, white vehicles make up a quarter of vehicles in the market.
Black, meanwhile, is the second choice at 23.4%, and gray at 22.9%.
“With a lot of drivers, the grayscale is a way to play it safe, and dealers buy a lot because they know they will be able to sell them,” said iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer. “They feel the three or four colors are easily transactionable.”
Influence of fleet sales: Among trucks, the percentage of grayscale vehicles is even higher at 83.5, with more than one-third being white.
Brauer explained that the versatility of branding white trucks makes it adaptable.
“It’s a blank canvas, practically,” Brauer said.
Fading colors: Think back to 1996, as even grunge was taking over the airwaves, there were more colorful vehicles on the roadway.
At the time, 20.1% of vehicles were red, a figure that has now dropped to just 7%.
Green also had a double-digit plunge over the past 30 years from 13.4% to just 2.2%.
Blue is the only non-grayscale color above 7% at 9%.
Sports cars retain color: Sports cars were the only category to maintain their colorful options, with 36.2% being non-grayscale.
Brauer pointed out that many of the high-end options from Lamborghini and Porsche are in demand in the brighter colors.
“You still see some of the creative colors in the sports cars like the 911s and convertibles,” Brauer said.
Safe colors don’t translate to resale values: Another recent study from iSeeCars shows that the grayscale colors don’t retain their values as much as the more colorful options.
Yellow vehicles had only a 24% depreciation, and orange 24.4%
Black (31.9%) and white (32.1%) were both above the average depreciation of 31%.
“Market value is popularity versus supply. Yellow holds up. There may only be a few people who want a yellow car, but there are even less of them,” Brauer said. “White, black, silver, and gray are everywhere.”
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Takeaway for dealers: The iSeeCars study does show that grayscale vehicles’ growth has plateaued at around 80% since 2020. Brauer pointed out that Dodge has been introducing more variety of colors with its performance lineup. But the numbers show no one should expect to see a full lineup of red vehicles on the front row anytime soon. Though a little variety is worth it, especially on the used lot.
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