New Study Shows the Most Popular Vehicle Colors

A new iSeeCars study shows that grayscale finishes now account for 80% of the market. The study analyzed more than 22 million used cars from model years 1996 through 2025, and the numbers confirm what most drivers already sense. Grayscale colors now make up 80.4% of the market, up from 47.3% in 1996.

White, Gray, and Black

White remains the most popular car color at 25.7% market share, the same ranking it held 30 years ago. Black ranks second at 23.4%, and gray is right behind at 22.9%. Those top three colors account for 72% of the modern market.

Gray climbed from just 3.6% in 1996 to 22.9% in 2025. That is a 528% relative increase, the biggest gain of any color in the study.

Red and Green Faded Out

Red and green ranked second and fourth in 1996. Today, they appear on fewer than one in 10 vehicles combined. Red fell from 20.1% to 7.0%. Green dropped from 13.4% to 2.2%. Gold and purple have nearly vanished entirely.

The Breakdown by Segment

Trucks went the most neutral. Grayscale colors jumped from 43.4% of 1996 trucks to 83.5% of 2025 trucks. White leads at 33.6%, meaning more than one in three trucks now wears it.

SUVs followed the same path, with grayscale rising to 79.3%. Green took the hardest hit, falling from a 21.3% share in 1996 to just 2.9% today.

Passenger cars embraced gray more than any other category. Gray went from 3.8% to 28.4%, a 652% relative jump, and now leads the segment outright.

Sports Cars Keep the Color Alive

Sports cars remain the most colorful category, with non-grayscale finishes accounting for 36.2% of the segment, nearly double the overall market share.

Blue, yellow, purple, and orange all gained ground. Red is down but still more common here than anywhere else at 10.8%.

According to iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer, the grayscale share stabilized around 80% starting with the 2020 model year, suggesting creative colors will hold on to at least a small slice of the market going forward.

Whether the trend reverses depends on what automakers offer on the paint sheet and what buyers actually ask for. For now, the lot stays neutral.