Undoubtedly. The sales model for cars in the US changed from “order the options you want, the dealer sends your order to the factory, and you get your car weeks later” to “the dealer has tons of cars on the lot, so you can drive off the lot today” decades ago. My suspicion is that dealers have sussed out that black, white, and the various iterations of gray / silver are unobjectionable to most people, but unusual colors have more of a niche appeal, and can wind up sitting on the lot longer. Since a car that sits on the lot is costing the dealer money in interest, they want to avoid that as much as they can. So, other than performance cars and convertibles, I suspect that they intentionally order most of their inventory in the neutral colors. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Anecdote #1: when we bought my wife’s Mazda CX-7 (in “electric blue mica”), it had been sitting on the dealer’s lot for a year.
Anecdote #2: when I went to buy my red Mustang, I did a test-drive of a Mustang at a local dealer (the only one I could find in the area with a V6 with a stick in the area). But, the car that they had was black, and I had my heart set on the metallic red. The salesman found exactly one copy of the car in that color, with that drivetrain, in the eastern half of the U.S.
1998 Jeep Wrangler: black (because cool) with tan interior (also cool)
2001 Jeep Wrangler: reddish color with black roof (change from black body)
2003 Honda CR-V: Green, because different than red and black
2006 Chrysler 300: Black, because it looked badass
2008 Saturn Vue: didn’t care, just wanted a car that I could tow four down, and got a good deal on it
2011 Prius: dark blue, because I didn’t like their other colors
2016 Mazda CX-5: Blue Mica (silvery blue), because it looked better than their other colors
I don’t buy red cars anymore because red oxidizes so badly. I don’t buy black cars anymore because they show scratches and swirl marks worse than other colors.
I’ve had 2 red cars. I didn’t get any oxidization, but one thing I noticed (and which annoyed me) was that the second one had a metallic “sparkle” to it which the “touch-up paint” didn’t really match in with. The other one (which I didn’t have very long, I traded it to get air-conditioning, which it didn’t have; shame, because it was a nice car) was a clear pillar-box red and the touch-up paint was invisible on it. I didn’t use touch-up on any chips on the “sparkly” car, it was better to just look at the chip than a glob of non-blending ‘fix’.
After that, I’m unlikely to ever pick sparkly paint, I just want matte. It doesn’t matter, I’m likely to have my white car until I cark it or the car carks it.
I donno. I have only had… 8 cars in my life. I try to get a different color than the last, but it really doesn’t matter.
I will say that I won’t pick white, because I live in snow country. I think a dark car is easier to see. And while I’ve only had one black car, I am glad that my plow truck is black. Black helps the sun heat it up a bit so snow melts off of it.
If I have a choice of color when I’m buying a car, I’m going to pick the most unusual color they have available. I don’t want to have to pick a gray car out from fifty other gray cars in a lot, or tell people looking for my car “It’s the beige one, no, the other beige one, no, that one over there”. But if your car is “the orange one”, it’s easy.
As opposed to what? Taking whatever is handed to you? If Im going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on something that I will spend a great deal of my week sitting in, Im going to choose its appearance.
Are you surprised that people choose the color of their clothes as well?
Not the exact cars but what they both look(ed) like.
I really don’t understand the people who say they just took whatever was available on the lot. I’m spending a major amount of money and the least I can ask for is a color I want.
Red happened to be available for the model I wanted.
I’m Navarrese. Red is an extremely popular car color in Navarre; having a car that’sour flag tickles our funny bone. When some outsider tells me that he was in Navarre and saw “lots of Basquist” flags hanging from windows and he’s freaking out because he’s gotten the idea that “Navarre is full of Basquists!!!11!!”, I ask him 2 things: one, how many flag-less windows did you see? And, how many red cars? All those flag-less windows and all those red cars don’t belong to any Basquists
So, now when I’m in Navarre I may need to spend a few minutes making sure which small red car is mine, but hey, it’s a patriotic thing And in many other places it’s the only one (this morning at a secondary airport in France, for example).
I want a calico and a black one! But first I have to stand still long enough to be owned by a cat or two.
Yeah, I’ve never bought new (I buy cars about two years old—the last used car had less than 1000 miles in it, even! :)), and color is not of any importance to me. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t buy a car color that really sticks out like Barbie pink, but otherwise, as long as I like the car itself, the color don’t matter to me.
Car 1: The previous car got totaled and we needed a car that weekend. Got a great deal on a used Corolla. Happened to be blue (or green depending on the light). Still going strong. I don’t see how a different color would have made it more reliable. We were supposed to waste time and money looking for another color?
Car 2: Was FtGKid1’s first car. Was moving and wanted to sell it. We bought it. It was the same color as when he had it. What a surprise! We were supposed to turn it down because of the color. (My old car was “loaned” to FtGKid2 who finished it off after 27 years on the road. Again, the color didn’t matter. I don’t remember if there was an option for that car either.)
Clothing stores tend to have a teensy bit more variety in stock than car dealers. Esp. when it comes to used cars.
As mentioned before, ranges of configuration of cars are getting narrower. One thing I’ve seen of late is interiors being offered in only one color for a particular exterior, so that, e.g., if you take red or blue exterior the interior has to be black, even though grey upholstery is offered in other body colors.
Now, let’s see…
First bought-with-my-money car, used, cheap, and white because it was what I found that was worth what I could afford.
Two reds, both times because they were the best deals on the lot, they were a couple of zippy little cars, and at the time I liked the idea of being more visible. But eventually I too found that red in a tropical climate requires babying the paint a bit more than I like.
One “Champagne” i.e. a light metallic beige, with beige interior because it looked good on that particular model and I wanted something that would not heat up too much in the sun, yet not be white.
One of a darker more greenish tone of golden metallic because everyone else was going for white or black or grey and there was no actual green being offered on that model and trim. It’s 9 years later and a good polish job gets it looking damn fine.
(Mind you: 3 out of these 4 cars were purchased in PR where choices tend to be even further limited as a brief consideration will reveal why it’s not simple to ship over a car from a dealer another state over).
Can’t see myself looking for a black one as it would soon look like crap, I can’t be arsed to be constantly waxing and polishing being extra careful about swirls. Yet now that I’m in NoVA that seems to be what dominates the used car marketplace.
My current car is a white Prius with dark gray tinted windows. I apparently picked that because I’ve loved Star Wars for the vast majority of my life and subconsciously wanted to drive around in a Stormtrooper helmet.
And in many other places it’s the only one (this morning at a secondary airport in France, for example).