Ask people which car color is best for resale value, and most will say white. After all, it’s one of the top picks among new car buyers, so demand is high. Seems pretty safe.
But demand doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It must always dance with supply. And that high purchase rate leaves the secondary market flooded with white cars, opening the door for a less pale color to hold its value at a higher rate.
And new research shows just that: white cars are not the safe investment many assume.
Car Color and Resale Value
So, which car color depreciates slower than white? Eight of them, actually.
ISeeCars.com compared the prices of more than six million new and used cars between 2017 and 2020. Here’s what they found:
| Vehicle Depreciation by Car Color – iSeeCars | |||||
| Rank | Color | Avg Price New | Avg Price Used | 3-year % Depreciation | Compared to Overall |
| 1 | Yellow | $37,742 | $30,027 | 20.4% | 0.54x |
| 2 | Beige | $28,487 | $22,004 | 22.8% | 0.61x |
| 3 | Orange | $30,714 | $22,400 | 27.1% | 0.72x |
| 4 | Green | $35,012 | $24,052 | 31.3% | 0.83x |
| 5 | Gray | $35,096 | $22,331 | 36.4% | 0.97x |
| 6 | Red | $35,295 | $22,255 | 36.9% | 0.98x |
| 7 | Blue | $35,061 | $22,100 | 37.0% | 0.98x |
| 8 | Silver | $35,026 | $21,847 | 37.6% | 1.00x |
| Overall Average | $37,144 | $23,187 | 37.6% | ||
| 9 | White | $39,167 | $24,279 | 38.0% | 1.01x |
| 10 | Black | $39,447 | $24,309 | 38.4% | 1.02x |
| 11 | Purple | $36,159 | $21,263 | 41.2% | 1.1x |
| 12 | Brown | $42,369 | $24,517 | 42.1% | 1.12x |
| 13 | Gold | $39,868 | $21,693 | 45.6% | 1.21x |
Yellow at the top, with “safe” colors like silver, white, and black barely cracking the top ten? What’s happening?
Why Obscure Car Colors Hold Value
“There’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy going on here, with many consumers picking these mainstream colors not because they like them, but because they assume everyone else does,” iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer tells Autoweek. “This makes white, black, and silver appear to be in high demand, yet our analysis confirms that more obscure colors tend to hold their value better than common and popular colors.”
So as you’re shopping for your next new vehicle, don’t get FOMO when you see all the white cars leaving the dealership lot. Think of all the value you’ll retain riding around in something more scarce.
Or maybe just pick a car that you love enough to keep for more than three years!
What Are Current Car Color Trends And What Will Be Populate Soon?
Car color trends in 2022 were focused on safety and convenience. According to Kelley Blue Book, white, black, gray, and silver remain the most popular colors. This should not come as a surprise. But what the near future holds is kind of surprising.
One industry leader, PPG, is predicting that Lambent Earth, a coppery, dark brown color, will be a popular color for cars in the 2024 to 2026 model years. Say what?
In addition, the color gray is becoming increasingly popular according to PPG’s car color trend report.
The current king, however, is still White. It was the most popular car color in 2022 according to a study by iSeeCars that examined over 6.1 million cars on the road to determine the car color trends.
