Is Car Color Important?

Is car color important or is it simply a matter of personal taste? The color of your car may reflect your personality or make a statement to others on the road. Your color choice may have been a careful selection or determined by availability at the time of purchase. It may have been influenced by the style of vehicle you drive such as a red Ferrari or a black Bentley.

The automotive industry invests heavily in color “science”. The Axalta Global Automotive Color Popularity Report has tracked global color preferences for 63 years. White holds a commanding lead with 35% of vehicles worldwide, black at 18% takes a distant second and silver 13% and gray 10% vie for third place. In the U.S., silver holds the lead at 23%, white 15% and black 12%.

Why does it matter? According to Kelley Blue Book, car color can impact resale value. Some advocate choosing neutral colors, while iSeeCars.com touts basic supply and demand principles and that unusual colors such as yellow and orange fetch more because they are rare.

The Kia Color Team knows that both interior and exterior colors are an important element of car design. They research market trends and customer feedback. Ultimately they strive to choose colors that will appeal to consumer’s emotions.

The all-new Optima was influenced by the planets and environment and launched Gravity Blue, Pluto Brown and Moss Grey. The Sportage sought to define the urban warrior with new palettes of Burnished Copper and Hyper Red. The subcompact Rio  made a bigger impression this year with Digital Yellow and Urban Blue Metallic. And Kia’s iconic Soul is easily recognized by both its unusual shape and color palette which includes the distinctive Alien and annual special editions such as Caribbean Blue.

Browse Kia’s color palette and let us know what your favorite car color is.