Currently reading: The UK’s best-selling car colours in 2017

Colour is notorious for having an effect on the ease and price of resale - so what colours have you been choosing?

There’s nothing quite so divisive as a car colour - it’s a key decision for carmakers launching their cars, buyers picking their cars, and second-hand buyers dictating what will sell. 

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has compiled the top ten biggest-selling colours in the UK, where the six most common colours dominate, taking almost 95% of the car market.

The most popular car colours in the UK: 

1 - Black

Jaguar xf black edition

515,970 registrations, 20.3% market share

Black cars ruled supreme in 2017, with more than one in five registrations being for a black car. It’s the first time black has overtaken white in five years. 

2 - Grey

Amg gtr web 2289

500,714 registrations, 19.7% market share

Grey has shot to second place, with more than half a million registrations. It’s the favourite car colour for buyers in the East Midlands, and has pushed white from first place in 2016 to third place in 2017.

3 - White

Vcc11085 1

482,099 registrations, 19% market share

Close but now usurped, white cars have slipped to third place, despite being the colour preference for drivers in the north. It’s the first time since 2012 that white hasn’t been the colour of choice for UK motorists. 

4 - Blue

Ford focus rs 2015 0001

405,758 registrations, 16% market share

Blue cars haven’t been the UK’s most popular since 1999, but have been in the top ten since records began. It’s now the only primary colour in the top five, as red slipped to sixth this year.

5 - Silver

Aston martin vantage tungsten silver 18 0

254,192 registrations, 10% market share

The nation’s favourite between 2000 and 2008, silver is a neutral, safe bet for those wary of residual values. One in ten cars registered across 2017 were silver.

6 - Red

 P  7166

251,104 registrations, 9.9% market share

For the first time in five years, red has slipped out of the top five, replaced by more neutral tones. It’s only by a small margin, but 1.4% of the market has turned away from red in the last year.

Advertisement

Read our review

Car review
Peugeot 108
The Peugeot 108 is the French car firm's rival to the Volkswagen Up and Hyundai i10

New-shape baby Peugeot fares well with improved rear end and small engines. Can it threaten the class leaders?

Back to top

7 - Green

Luc 7742

26,834 registrations, 1.1% market share

1996’s most popular car colour is relegated to seventh these days, despite modest growth in the last year. It’s got a long way to go before it catches up with sixth-place red, which had nine times the number of registrations in 2017.

8 - Orange

Seat ateca cornering

19,064 registrations, 0.8% market share

Orange has crept back into fashion thanks to cars such as the Seat Ateca, meaning a top ten appearance for the first time on record. It remains a niche choice, though, making up just one in every 125 registrations. 

9 - Bronze

Bentle mulsanne speed fd 2014 109

12,421 registrations, 0.5% market share

Bronze, not brown, made up 0.5% of the UK’s new car registrations last year. Brown fell out of favour, slipping to 11th place, while bronze - part of an orange and bronze trend - came back into the top ten for the first time in six years.

10 - Yellow

Lamboextra 1234

10,301 registrations, 0.4% market share

Despite a fall in demand for yellow cars of nearly a fifth, yellow remained in the top ten. Being a rather extrovert choice, it’s not featured in the top five. Ever.

Further down…

Mclaren fux 720s 050

Predictably, pink remains an incredibly rare choice, with fewer than one in every 1900 car buyers thinking pink. The already not-really-substantial bottom fell out of mauve cars, too. Registrations dropped by a third compared with 2016. 

Read more

Join the debate

Comments
13
Add a comment…
xyphox 29 May 2019

We're a bit boring aren't we...

Although, Lamborghini's always have the best colours out there. Great mixture here: https://carcolours.co.uk/search/vehicle/HURACAN_PERFORMANTE_LP640-4_SA/

cdp 15 January 2018

Everybody thinks it’s black...

But really they are very very dark blue...

catnip 15 January 2018

You wonder how accurate these

You wonder how accurate these figures can be, considering how manufacturers name their colours, and how they appear on the registration document, which can often be different again. Many greys are called silver, some oranges are really bronze, etc. Its depressing that black is at number one though.