The most and least popular car colors

White is still the most popular paint finish chosen by new-car buyers, PPG's annual automotive color popularity report confirms, capturing 35% of shoppers worldwide — more than blue, green, gold, beige and red tones combined. Grey, silver and black all slot in above any real colors, all but guaranteeing a dreary spread at just about any car dealer worldwide.

It takes nothing more than a glance at a busy parking lot or a quick scroll through a handful of online car configurators to see which colors are the most popular for new cars. For those who relish the full spectrum of the rainbow, it's dire. And what you see in the real world is reflected in PPG's annual global popularity report, which was recently updated to include sales data from 2021. Here's a snapshot:

While there's not much good news here, some interesting options are actually rebounding in popularity. Two-tone, for instance, is making a comeback after waning in the early aughts. While "interesting" isn't always synonymous with "good," we'll take some variation over the monotonous grays that have come to dominate modern automotive color palettes. The rise of two-tones finishes reflects a consumers’ desire for personalization, PPG's report says, and "considerable" progress in color science and application technologies help make these unique treatments more accessible.