Grey still UK’s favourite new car colour

Most popular new car colour for fourth consecutive year

Grey still UK’s favourite new car colour

British drivers doubled down on their preference for monochrome cars in 2021, with grey increasing its dominance as the UK’s favourite new car colour for the fourth year in a row, according to figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

During a year of pandemic-related disruptions impacting total new car registrations, 408,155 grey cars were sold, up 2.8 per cent and accounting for a quarter (24.8 per cent) of the market.

Black, the most popular car paint in Britain from 2009 to 2012, wrapped 20.5 per cent of passenger cars, while white was in third place (17.2 per cent), meaning UK drivers were most likely to choose a monochrome car for the 11th year running.

More than six in 10 (62.4 per cent) of all new cars joining British roads in 2021 were painted in one of these shades, although blue edged closer to the top three, increasing its sales (1.4 per cent) for the first time in five years and trailing just 2,638 units behind white.

The rest of the top 10 remained largely unchanged from 2020, although green overtook orange to gain seventh place, cladding 17,927 cars. Sales of green cars rose for the first time since 2015, with 24.0 per cent more buyers opting for the colour than in the previous year.

Related: Driverless car users not responsible in event of crash, watchdog says

A record number of drivers also opted for ‘green’ under the bonnet, with battery electric and plug-in cars accounting for more than one in six registrations – up from around one in 10 in 2020 and one in 30 in 2019.

However, whether battery electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, petrol or diesel, grey was the colour of choice across all fuel types.

White was the most popular shade for mini-sized and sports cars, while larger dual purpose, luxury saloons and executive cars were, as usual, most likely to be black.

At the niche end of the colour palette, gold, yellow and turquoise were the fastest growing colours, with gold more than tripling its appeal (up 231.8 per cent), yellow up by a third (31.3 per cent) and turquoise up by a fifth (19.2 per cent), although together they accounted for less than one percent of the market (0.9 per cent).

SMMT chief executive, Mike Hawes, said: “2021 was anything but normal, but British drivers stuck to their familiar favourites of grey, black and white cars.

“But while last year’s new cars might share the same shades as previous years, under the bonnet there has been a real shift, with one in six buyers choosing to go green.

“With car registrations still low compared to pre- pandemic, helping even more drivers move to greener cars – whatever the actual colour – has never been more important. Incentives are helping move the market and should continue, but the speed of this shift to electric must be matched by an acceleration in the pace of charging infrastructure investment.

“Drivers should expect to be able to recharge irrespective of wherever they live, work or visit.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

Have your say!

0 0

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.