Car colors: freedom of choice?

colors cars

The Mass Customization should satisfy the desires of each individual client, preserving the typical efficiencies of the mass production, as low costs of production and sale.

To complicate matters, it often happens that customers and Companies do not speak the same language, also the excess of supply is confusing to the buyers.

In the age of mass customization, the color of a new car can accelerate its success?

AutomotiveNews TV shows the Top 10 car colors: white is the first choice in the World (25%), followed by silver and black (18%), gray (12%), red (9% ), neutral colors (8%), blue (7%), green (2%). All the remaining colors represents 1%.

Statistics, however, change depending on Continents.

Reports published by the manufacturers of paints show the black as the favorite color in Europe (26%), followed by white (19%), silver (16%), gray (15%), blue (9%) and red (7%).

In the Asian regions, customer especially likes the silver (25%), followed by white (23%) and black (17%).

In US wins the white (20%), followed by silver (19%), black (18%) and gray (15%).

Motorists are very careful in the choice of color: 31% claims to be willing to spend more for a vehicle of the color he likes. The 40% calls for a wider color range; Yankelovich shows that 39% of consumers were unavailable to change the car brand if they couldn’t get the color they wanted.

F1 colors ENG

A non fashionable color may affect the value of new and used cars?

Dealers well know that a color in fashion today probably will make a car more or less attractive within 5 years. The “probably” is related to cyclical trends and fads.

Someone is convinced that colors demanded by consumers heavily influence the tints created by the manufacturers.

Based on my experience I can say no!

At the launch of the Opel Corsa C, a german guru of the GM marketing decided that the most suitable tint for this economy car was a sort of dark green, called “petrol-blue”.

In the TV advertising, on the newspapers, in all the European Opel dealerships, the cars were of this dark and opaque color.

There are still those who are studying this “unique case of coordination” between marketing, production and logistic!

Customers, however, did not liked this tint: they wanted other colors available from the factory: silver, dark grey or light blue (white wasn’t fashionable).

The “petrol-blue” cars started to accumulate in the storage facilities at the dealerships, and after several months, sales had to be pushed with discounts and promotions.

Paradoxically, this error dragged on for a couple of years: the system of automatic reordering at the factory – observing that the “petrol-blue” cars has been allocated to dealers and clients – systematically reinstated thousands of other orders of this tint.

Other examples: Saab in 2004 launched the last convertible in “yellow acid” tint; Renault Scenic first series was ordered in thousands of “bright metallic green” that still haunts the internet announcements of used cars in Europe; not to mention the “lime metallic green” for 10 years the nightmare of the Mercedes european salesmen (in US this color was removed from the catalog).

F2 colors ENG

Are still possible wastefulness like these?

Apparently yes: who does not remember the TV commercials of the new Ford Fiesta “metallic purple”? Who was not startled seeing the Chevrolet Spark “techno pink”, or the Toyota Prius “orange” which wanted to imitate an American “muscle car”?

There are exceptions: a yellow sport car is desirable, a red cabriolet is perfect, even if – using the words of Julius Caesar: “de gustibus non est disputandum”!

This is the reason why – into the dealer showrooms – 95% of the clients exclaims: “for the color I have to return with my wife”.

This is freedom of choice… with the color of a new car!

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