What's a color you wish your favorite manufacturer would bring back?

No one : Ford Lightning: hold meh beer

Delorean: *laughs in unpainted stainless steel*

I think we're also just currently in an aesthetic period of mass minimalism; it's not just cars. Just look at all the flat design icons and logos. Even renovated fast food restaurants like McDonalds, Wendys, Taco Bell, etc, literally just look like giant gray and black blocks now.

I had a nice pearl blue 15 years ago and had to settle for buying a silver in 2019 because that’s all they had. Thank you for outlining this.

"Silver was the most popular car color..." *shows white as number 1 and silver as 2* "...till it was dethroned by white." *silver and white change places so silver is number 1*

Can we just appreciate that dodge brought back/tried to bring back all those wild colors they had in the past.

I loved the two-tone color schemes and matching interiors, especially during the 70s. The faux wood trim on station wagons exterior side panels wasn’t that bad either.

For years (around 20), I've felt the dominance of black, white, and silver was because those were the colors the automakers predominantly produced, not because those were the preferred colors of the consumer. I'll stand by this opinion. I, for one, prefer color. I've noticed a lot of nice colors on the new Chevy Blazer and the Jeep Renegade. I don't know how difficult it is to actually find one of those vehicles in a bright color, though.

“Im thinking there will be another recession in the next couple of years” Ya don’t say, more like right now

And I quote: ”I’m thinking that there is going to be a rescission in the next couple of years” that didn’t even have time to age lol

I agree with your correlation of car colors and the general mood of the times. The current times are not like the confident and exuberant 60s and 80s. Take a look at new home and condo interiors, all neutrals: gray, white. black and maybe a little beige.

I'm glad to see it's not just me thinking why today's cars have boring colors. I love that Plum crazy color!

'I think there might be a recession' Corona: 'Interesting'

6:54 "Silver was the most popular car color 10 years in a row" *shows white at first place* "And then it was replaced by white" *shows silver replacing the white*

Another thing is that carmakers usually offer cooler colors, but only when you go up to the higher trim levels, so it isn't just the extra cost of the paint job. It's also the extra cost of going up to a trim level where the color you want is available. If you're buying a $30,000 car, and you want that cool shade of red, before you can even get that $2,000 paint option, you have to add the $3,000 trim package.

I think the colors are starting to get more lively. My car is a royal blue. And I’ve seen cars that were either orange or teal (a color that was common in the 1990s).

Funfact: in the Middle East many cars are painted white as the sun isn’t as harsh on it and doesn’t fade it like black, it also means the car doesn’t get as hot inside when it’s sat in a car park.

You also gotta take into consideration, although it is cheaper to paint a car white, it can also make it reflect heat radiation from the sun during the summer… thus making it cooler than a black car

OMG! I've been saying this for a couple of years now. I said that if some people invented a drinking game based on the cars that drove by, the person drinking for silver cars would need to go to the hospital, white, black, and gray would all pass out, red and blue would each have a nice buzz and the person who literally had to drink for "every other color" could probably safely drive the others to the hospital and/or their homes.

A number of people I've talked to throughout my car buying research have mentioned that they like boring colors because they stand out less, especially to police.

My theory is that the car dealers believe it's easier to sell white, black, and silver so that's what they load their lots up with. From there, the whole "boring colors sell better" becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. I'm a Jeep Wrangler guy and even though Jeep offers some interesting cool colors, it's difficult to find the options I want in the color I want, so I either have to be willing to expand the geographic range of dealers I will buy from or consider special ordering. I think a lot of car buyers just settle for the boring colors the dealers have on the lot, rather than hassle with getting their first choice.

car companies: *produce cars with boring colors* wrap shops: _its free real estate_

i like multiple colors, like say red with white stripes, or light blue with black stripes, or yellow with a black lightning zigzag on the sides, or orange with white and black checker pattern on the rear, or faux wood trim on a station wagon, or an entire Bob Ross-style mural on the side of an RV

I feel we can only choose the few options available on the lot, unless you’re loaded and can afford to customize it from the manufacturer.

Apple: *Uses White* Car Industry: "We were using silver but white looks good let's use that." Apple: *Uses Silver*

"I"m thinking there may be a recession in the future" 2 days later: 3.2 million unemployment claims in the US

I noticed this at least 10 years ago, that 9 out of 10 new cars were white, black, or grey. A few dark blue, but almost no reds, greens, yellows, orange (except CalTrans trucks), or purples. I figured it was due to cost for color pigments. White paint just needs titanium dioxide or talc. Black is just carbon black, and you can make any share of grey by just adding varying amounts of carbon black to white paint. So the paint is a lot cheaper and the car manufacturers save $5 on each car by not offering the old range of colors.

First video I watch and I loved it! Your personality makes it so fun to watch and to know history! Keep it up Nolan!

This is simple. To most people cars are just appliances. White washing machine, stainless fridge, black can opener etc.

6:54 'silver was the most popular...until it was dethroned by white' while the video has white being dethroned by silver

nice video, I appreciate all of the editing and research you did. awesome!

Using herring scales wasn’t wasteful. If anything it was extremely useful to a part of the fish that is usually thrown out

“Dethroned by white.” White goes to second place for some reason.

Long ago I saw a documentary on television about trucks in india. They talked about how in india they treat their trucks like they were mansions because they cost as much and the trucks really look like very decorated lavish mansions on wheels rather than rented bland tools to move things. I like that approach, I want more of it everywhere, more people being creative and proud of their things and putting work and care into them.

Great topic and info! Kept me interested to the very end!

Moved to California and bought a Tacoma in Indigo ink. Beautiful color, faded and peeled after 5 years parking it at work in the sun. It's white only now, for as long as I live in the sunny west.

There's more going on. Home interior colors have disappeared.

Nolan: there’s gonna eh a recession in the next couple years: Coronavirus: _observe_

I can confirm that the Ford Fiesta is a fun and colorful hatchback that draw even more attention when modified

Couldn't agree more! I am very happy with my volcano red option on my C5 Aircross but all the other colours in the range were boring greys or desaturated blue hues.

"There will be another recession in the next few years" Literally right after this was uploaded: Corona: allow me to introduce myself

10:50 That awkward moment when you realize the video was written/filmed at least a month or so ago.

Background matching. When everything looks the same, it becomes a metaphorical blur in the mind and it goes unnoticed. This is very useful in cars when wanting to avoid break-ins or carjackings along with excessive attention due to various media.

Years (decades?) ago, Road & Track ran an in depth article about why certain colors appear on cars. Entertaining article, but the bottom line was that the car designers looked to the fashion industry for clues as to which colors and tones were becoming the most fashionable. They looked most closely at the colors used for under garments on the run way models (hard research assignment I'd say). So, concisely, the color of the car offered to you today owes it origins to the panties modeled in Paris back in 2019.

Honda is pushing blue, Mazda is pushing their soul red. I'm glad some companies are making an effort to bring some colour into the Industry, be it for profit or not

Nolan: "Every car on the road is white, black or silver" Me: *looks in the driveway my white truck, my black truck and my silver car*

A big part of it is those older car shapes and use of chrome lent themselves well to color. The new Beetle def lent itself well to COLOR!

Also if you get a car from your company you are usually not allowed to get any flashy colors if it doesnt fit their fleet strategy.

Spongebob: "in the future everything is chrome" The future: -"Where do you want the plastic?" -"Yes"

"Before it was dethroned by white" *proceeds to make animation of silver moving to first and white to second* Buhscuse me?

I just bought a used 2021 car in yellow. It stayed on the lot for a long time, particularly because of the colour. Yellow happens to be my favourite colour, so I was happy to take it off their hands.

Detroit used to offer a killion colors spread out over a gillion models supplied to them by a jillion jobbers. And each manufacturer had their specific company colors specific to their brands all except black. In modern times there's a few hundred colors that ALL manufacturers use, so about 99% of the variety availablity is gone. However discontinuing availabity on puke green and rasberry interior colors...is a good thing

Cybertruck: Paint? Nah, I'm good.

Everybody knows that *red cars* are faster...

One of the most popular colors that I have seen in recent years is Dodge's destroyer grey and when Scion still existed they had cement grey. I'm still scratching my head to understand why, but at least this video does shed some light on it.

Asked myself that question a lot... Thanks for the awesome video!!!))

"Might be a recession in a few years." Hold my Corona

“It comes in titanium, carbon fibre, and aluminium” In a video about dull colours

I wanted to watch this video when it came out and didn’t know about the watch later option and OMG IT FINALLY MADE IT BACK TO MY FEED YAY

So glad you addressed this issue.

As a car enthusiast, it's sad for me when I see a sports car painted in a boring silver.

Car colors are so ugly now. I just want a pastel colored car like the ones in the 50s & 60s😪

My Father's 1960 Buick Invicta, was a red convertible with a white roof, and red and white interior. My used first car was a1957 Chevrolet, in gold with beige roof, and my new 1969 Ford Torino was light yellow with a black stripe, and a fake hood scoop. I had a black 2001 Camaro, not Z28, and now almost 5 years, a Jeep Renegade in Blue. Yes I have noticed the lack of variety of car colors in recent years in recent years, I have heard they have a better resale value too, as a main reason for this for the most part, sadly, I hate it.😢

I work at paint shop that coats Auto, Industrial, and Agricultural equipment and supplies and there’s been paints/coatings we can’t even get anymore.

"Coming from a guy who drives a black car" "Laughs in Henry Ford"

I want an orange car, but it has to be the perfect orange.

White is so common cuz it’s used for fleet cats which are a significant section of the vehicle market . Also, you can put colorful signage on it to stand out . I wish dark plum was more common but apparently it’s a difficult color to do and doesn’t age well

White and Silver are very popular because they are most forgiving to people who don't like to clean their cars every day. They hide scratches. White and Black are also easy to color match. In case a single panel needs to be repainted. Many countries Cabs are either white or black with some silver cars. And like you mentioned these three colors command best resale values. Personally I hate white cars, they look very boring and turn yellowish after few years. I personally prefer Black but they are a headache to maintain, a spec of dust or a scratch becomes easily visible.

"There may be a recession" COVID: Your wish is my command

Green was always my favorite car color. Everybody offered it on every car. Then around 2005 it just seemed to completely disappear from every company's color palette and for the most part it still remains that way now.

I live in the desert, it hit 103 yesterday. Its the triple digits from here till fall. I buy white and silver cars for the heat reflecting capacity.

I recently bought a Blaze Orange Metallic Honda Fit. I agree with you about the drabbening. I like color!

"Lamborghinis are yellow! Ferraris are red!" …..and Subies are blue.

Nolan: statisticians say there's gonna be another recession in the next few years Corona virus: hold meh beer

My mini-suv is high-vis orange with black trim (with black or red lettering/logos stickers outlined in white to identify it). I work Search and Rescue with my detection dogs, and mostly I'm called to do wilderness search, so you can see that puppy in a mountainous forest from a helicopter, no problem. You can also see it on foot through the trees, and telling my dogs to load up in scent-baffling weather conditions without my assistance is no problem, since it's very visually distinctive among a bunch of other vehicles or alone out in the middle of nowhere. It also makes it really easy to find from a distance in the parking lot. Way more helpful than you'd think! I actually got mine used in that colour. I just had to modify the interior to suit my dogs' needs and add the K9 SAR and Red Cross stickers to the body.

I kinda miss those colors, too, but my cousin painted his Mustang Mach 1 gloss black and removed all the Mach 1 markings and it looks incredible.

Nolan: "Im predicting another recession in the near future" 2022: Hold my beer

Interesting subject and info! I’ve never really the option of picking the color I really wanted. I’ve always been quite limited by what was available at the time. I bought my first car in ‘05, an ‘02 Honda Civic LX. It was beige inside and out. Color wasn’t even a consideration for this first car. I just needed a small, inexpensive car and that was what was available. It ended up being a very good color choice because I live in South Florida and the heat can be brutal. For other personal reasons, I strongly dislike a dark interior, like black or gray. Unfortunately, these days, you can’t find any car without at least some black! And most are ENTIRELY black. 😡 After driving that ‘02 Civic for 18 years, I bought a brand new 2023 Honda Civic Touring this year in January. Due to inventory shortages, my choices were VERY limited. (Civics no longer come in beige.) My first choice was white, but there were no white Civics at the time, so I bought the meteorite metallic gray Civic. I really didn’t want a gray-colored car, BUT I was determined to get the light-colored gray seats (they look ivory to me though) instead of black seats. Only the white and gray Honda Civics currently have gray seats. All other colors have a solid black interior. In South Florida?? NO! The interiors still have a LOT of black. Far more than I’d like. But I have to admit: the two-tone black and gray interior looks pretty classy! My Civic’s exterior metallic gray has a subtle, beautiful sparkle. In certain lighting, the gray appears to have a very subtle blue undertone. The bluish gray is gorgeous! (Objectively though, I don’t think there’s actually any blue undertone. I think it’s just a trick of the light.) If I had my choice of color combo, I’d choose a deep, sparkly wine red exterior with an ivory/tan interior. I’m actually not a fan of red cars and really dislike the plain, flat red of most cars. Red has absolutely no appeal for me…. UNLESS it’s a sparkly wine red! I think some Mazdas are a sparkly wine red? Those are just gorgeous! However, I pick interior color first, then exterior color. I need that cream/ivory/tan interior, then I pick the exterior from there. My mantra is NO BLACK SEATS in South Florida! It’s just too hot for that.

This is a great video about a topic that often had me wondering. I miss the wild paint schemes of the 1980s and the vans of the 1970s. The cars that carried silver best were the German cars, especially Mercedes Benz. Nobody ever did silver like MB. Also, while yeah, Apple was a factor in popularizing white, I wouldn’t call the Apple of the 2010s a startup. It was a startup in the 1970s. Finally, the bright colors work best on small cars. Big cars sporting bright colors look a bit garish and overdone, they need some subtlety. Small cars are a bit more toy-like and need bright colors to have presence. A few decades ago, my Dad used to drive a small car that was painted beige. You couldn’t find a more boring-looking car. Then one day he got it painted electric blue, and that thing popped!

There’s an even worse phenomenon happening now. A whole slew of models are coming out that look like the factory skipped the colour all together and applied the clear over the primer

Mazda : *shows their entire lineup in red*

Another reason to why White and Silver are popular colours is because those colours are the most heat reflective which help with overall comfort for drivers/passengers in hot weather.

It's funny cos I noticed this a week ago after walking past the same dealership. The only other colour they had appart from the conforming colours was dark blue.

Car colors then: *H A P P Y N O I S E S* car colors now: “All around me are familiar faces...”

When I was a little kid my dad had that plum crazy car and to this day we've always referred to it as "the purple car."

I had a plum crazy 73 Dart Swinger and it was magnificent.

I like the magenta/pink Mitsubishi Mirage, they catch my attention every time I see one. Ford BA Falcon had some good colours too. Lime green, orange, purple.

“Weird colors lowers resale” *laughs in Subaru Sonic Yellow*

no one: ford lighting: hold meh beer

The nitrous blue ford focus rs type colors are my fav by far lately

I remember when I had to pick out my first company car. Right before that I was in the glass elevator on the outside of the building, on the side of the parking lot. It was one grey mass of grey, white and black cars, with 1 bright red car sticking out. I decided then "That's what I want, I want a car I can spot from miles away too!" So I did. The first one was light (But deep) blue, the current one is Yellow and the next one will be turquoise. Never a boring colour again for me thank you. Resale values were not influence in the slightest by the colours, as there are plenty of people that will seek out the non boring options.

"Why Car Colors Are Boring Now" Depression happened

Most fish isn’t sold with the skin, so it actually seems like an incredibly innovative use of something that would otherwise be garbage

I didn’t had to many choices on getting my 2020 Ford Escape SE in black and there was a 2019 Ford Escape in white. It had black leather seats. I preferred cloth seats so that is why that I choose the black one.

I love exterior and interior colors - but the manufacturers only have limited selections of boring exterior colors, basically three colors of interiors (camel, gray, black) and the dealers have rows and rows of nothing but boring cars on the lots. It isn't as though customers have a choice.

"car colors tend to be related to the economy and society" 2020: hope you like black

Henry ford: I see a red car and I want it painted black no colors anymore I want them to turn blaack.

I agree about Plum Crazy. I remember Cadillac & Pontiac had a Magenta color. The car industry forces into buying the same standard colors you mentioned. I don’t believe it has to do with any other reason. I’m not sure why they’re charging for a certain color. It was never charged to the customer in the past. Just like the auto industry forced us to buy SUV’s, Pickup & EV’s. The imports didn’t drop their cars. When I look out my window I see the neighbors cars parked on the street. Roughly a dozen or so black cars. It reminds me of a Funeral Procession. By the way, the recession scare is over. That was announced a few weeks ago. All of the price gouging by the grocery stores, auto industry, gas prices, housing market & every market around were finally called out on it.

OMFG! You are my new hero in more ways than one!!! First off, YES to purple being your car color of choice!! I owned a plum purple '94 Ford Thunderbird. It was beautiful. What about the glitter-painted boats of the 70's? Royal purple with huge embedded glitter chunks. Second...I have been asking why there are so many white cars myself. I even considered using a clipboard and recording the ratio of white cars to all others. I asked many of my friends about this and was always rebuffed for the absurdity of my thoughts. I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who considered this to be a thing of interest.