Photo: PPG
As we roll into 2017, it’s imperative to look back at how the automotive industry evolved in the year that has just passed. As far as car paint finishes are concerned, white rules supreme.
According to numbers collected by PPG, 38 percent of the cars sold last year were finished in white. Second place goes to black, with 16 percent to its name, whereas silver and gray settle for 12 and 10 percent, respectively.
Moving on to colors with single-digit popularity, natural hues (gold, beige, yellow, orange, brown) and red are tied on fifth and sixth (8 percent), respectively. Blue ranks next (7 percent), followed by green (1 percent) and other colors (less than 1 percent). According to PPG’s data for 2016, white is most prevalent in the Asia-Pacific region, where the achromatic color was specified by customers for 47 percent of all the vehicles sold this past year.
Jane Harrington, the PPG manager for automotive OEM coatings, highlights that “silver is the leading color for compact vehicles” in North America, “while black is preferred for sports cars.” Data also shows that men prefer metallic colors, whereas members of the opposite sex are enamored with pearlescent finishes. Blue, though, could be the next big thing for automotive coatings.
“In our 2016 data, blue increased by 3 percent on luxury, midsize and compact cars,” said Harrington. “Blue was very noticeable the last three years at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit,” she concluded.
Remember the FoMoCo triad that overshadowed Acura’s long-awaited debut of the NSX? All three cars, from the Shelby GT350 to the F-150 Raptor and the all-new GT, all of them were finished in Liquid Blue. Even the Focus RS show car was painted as such when it made its first public outing.
However, blue becoming the favorite color in the coming years is nothing but a case of wishful thinking. As long as fleet managers buy white-painted vehicles by the bucketload, you know how things will pan out.
Moving on to colors with single-digit popularity, natural hues (gold, beige, yellow, orange, brown) and red are tied on fifth and sixth (8 percent), respectively. Blue ranks next (7 percent), followed by green (1 percent) and other colors (less than 1 percent). According to PPG’s data for 2016, white is most prevalent in the Asia-Pacific region, where the achromatic color was specified by customers for 47 percent of all the vehicles sold this past year.
Jane Harrington, the PPG manager for automotive OEM coatings, highlights that “silver is the leading color for compact vehicles” in North America, “while black is preferred for sports cars.” Data also shows that men prefer metallic colors, whereas members of the opposite sex are enamored with pearlescent finishes. Blue, though, could be the next big thing for automotive coatings.
“In our 2016 data, blue increased by 3 percent on luxury, midsize and compact cars,” said Harrington. “Blue was very noticeable the last three years at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit,” she concluded.
Remember the FoMoCo triad that overshadowed Acura’s long-awaited debut of the NSX? All three cars, from the Shelby GT350 to the F-150 Raptor and the all-new GT, all of them were finished in Liquid Blue. Even the Focus RS show car was painted as such when it made its first public outing.
However, blue becoming the favorite color in the coming years is nothing but a case of wishful thinking. As long as fleet managers buy white-painted vehicles by the bucketload, you know how things will pan out.
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