Grey is Britain’s favourite car colour – again

After securing the top spot in 2018, Grey cemented its position as the UK’s favourite new car colour again last year. According to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the number of grey cars registered in 2019 rose 5.3 per cent to 521,273. This means that 22.6 per cent of all new cars sold were painted grey, 1.6 per cent more than in the previous year.

With black and white rounding out the top three colours of the paint chart, 60.7 per cent of all new cars joining British roads in 2019 were shades of monochrome, even though registrations of black cars were down 2.4 per cent and white cars down -4.1 per cent. The top ten was largely unaltered year-on-year, save for the reappearance in 10th place of yellow, which was knocked out in 2018 by beige.

With the overall new car market down 2.4 per cent in 2019 to some 2.3 million units, grey and turquoise were the only colours to increase their numbers in the 12-month period, the latter up 29.3 per cent with 2,358 registrations.

Once glistening, silver is now looking a little tarnished. The colour that occupied the top three 16 times in the last two decades posted its lowest number of registrations for 20 years, with just 201,008 silver cars registered in 2019.

Grey remained consistently the favourite choice across the UK in 2019, apart from in Scotland and the Channel Islands, where white was the preferred hue. Meanwhile, the least popular colours nationwide were maroon, cream and pink, together accounting for less than one per cent of all registrations.

There were different tastes on show at opposite ends of the market – the smallest cars in the mini segment were more likely to be white, while executive and luxury saloon cars were more commonly found in black. Diesel and petrol drivers tended to opt for grey, but the most popular colour for zero emission battery electric vehicles was white.

“For most buyers, the colour is the first of many options they’ll select on their new car, and today there are more possibilities to personalise your car than ever before,” comments Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive. “Drivers can choose from many hundreds of models equipped with the latest low and zero emission powertrains, advanced safety and connected tech and exciting comfort and convenience features. There really is something to suit every driving need – and colour taste – on the market in 2020.”