We are a boring people...
 

I was thinking about this yesterday morning driving up the freeway. I came along side a auto transporter filled with new BMWs (and one Mini). Those trucks hold 8 or 10 cars. There was a variety of cars... 3's, 5's, a 7 an X5M. Two were black, one while and the rest Space Gray (and whatever the similar Mini gray color is called).

Sheesh... what's wrong with us? Do we all have to be conformists?

No, we all don't have to be conformists. I recently bought a white 2013 VW Touareg TDI. More vehicle than an X3 and less money than an X5. And better, cleaner stying than either, both outside and inside. In 6,000 miles, not a single flaw or problem, so it appears that VW's quality issues of a decade ago are being resolved. ;)

That's the problem with most car buyers. Inside, they like a more interesting colour but when it comes time to purchase, people want various shades of gray, silver, white, and black, which is then what dealers order. Too afraid of mundane things like "resale value" and "too shouty".

Unfortunately, the automakers respond by offering only various shades of the aforementioned colours, and few little else.

The vibrancy and variety of colors offered loosely follows economic trends, and has for decades. Better times increase the popularity and availability of brighter colors. When the financial outlook is more somber, so are car colors. It's far from an exact match but the correlation is noticeable when you look back over 60-70 years.

On the bright side (pun intended), things are looking up. My local BMW center currently has Fire Orange, San Marino Blue and Estoril Blue cars on the showroom floor. I've seen three Z4s in the area in Atacama Yellow. Melbourne Red on the F30 is getting numerous takers. I am seeing a lot of brightly-hued cars from other makers, in particular Hyundai's Veloster.

BMW (and its buyers) is more conservative than Hyundai and "safe" combinations will always dominate. Color is at last making a comeback, though!

We've still come a long way since Henry's philosophy of, "you can have any color you want as long as its black."

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Bimmer App

Ignoring colors, I'm surprised you could tell a 3 from a 5 from a 7... Just kidding, kind of. I miss the Bangle days when every car had a very distinctive (and, yes, controversial) look. Every time I see an F30 from the rear I think it's an F10 until I can get close enough to read the badge.

In an X1 thread this fall we discussed colors a lot. At some point I happened to see a newspaper article on car colors based on info from some paint-related company and posted on that. Basically the data conforms to what the original poster here noted - white, black and silver/gray dominate in the US, for all cars. And as it happens, data from Europe and Asia don't reveal much difference. So it's not just US car purchases who are "boring"...

But isn't the same true for most "appliances"? Apple got a lot of attention several years ago with its colorful Macs, but soon enough it moved over to white and silver. I see some washing machines in red, but most are in the basic colors. I just think people want a safe color choice that they won't grow tired of. I remember WAY BACK when there was a vogue for home appliances in "avocado." When the vogue was over people were stuck with some pretty unattractive pieces...

When I was deciding on the X1 I almost went for the new Acura RDX - and I do believe if it had been offered in blue, I would have gotten it. It comes in three gray/silver options, a brown and a muddy red, besides white/black. I had other reasons for going for the X1 obviously, but it was nice to have a couple blues to choose from. I went for Midnight Blue...

At least in Europe, most of the time I think the concern is how to resell the car when it wears a "specific" color. It is not because I like a color that others will like it too.
It is already quite difficult to sell a car whose interest is not simply based on set of features (like we do for a fridge or a new washing machine), many prefer to avoid the hurdle of the color.

Just another reason to order. What's on the lot is the lowest common denominator.

Having said that, I don't find any of the F30 colors particularly appealing. I would go for silver or white.

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." -John F. Kennedy

i agree looks like I'll have to order mine the selection sucks

I don't care what color anyone else's car is, and since I keep my cars for many, many years I am not concerned about resale value. I pick the color I think looks best of the car. In the case of my former Audi, and my E93, I think that is silver. So when I ordered my E93, I picked TiAg. On my 240Z, I really like the bright yellow that is on it. On my MGB, the BRG is the only way to go. I don't call any color boring, and personally think bright colored BMW's don't look as nice as a silver or black one. I am also not a big fan of Space Gray, but if lots of people like it, good for them.

My Speedway blue Toyota Tacoma is easy to spot i na parking lot. The gray Civic is quite nondescript. I have a black E46 since its hard to order off the used car lot and it took me about 2 years to find a local 330 coupe with the M6.

The reason we chose Bronze amid a sea of black, white and shades of grays. We would've gone for the lovely red,but our previous two cars have been Lexus Matador Red. Now, I don't know if they were alluding to the bulls red blood, or the matador's blood. Where is Ernest Hemingway when we need him to educate us on the art of bullfighting!!!

I just ordered this:

Not too boring, eh?

tan interior....

I agree, why be boring. My family refers to my LeMans Blue / Coral Red E93 as the Captain America car. (yes, I'm aware of the inherent irony...)

The 325Ci I had was silver grey, so is this 330Ci.
I just like the color personally. Nice and subtle, looks like it has a tinge of blue when it gets darker, and hard to tell when dirty, like it is now....
Plus I haven't seen that many E46s around the area with this color. They're mostly black or silver, there was only one white and one red.

E92 M3s however....tons of them here. All rich kids driving them. 99% are white with red leather interior and I'd bet the ZHP that they're all DCT too.

it's not about being conformists, it's about every car company giving us crappy colour choices

this^^^^^

I wonder about the same thing too; BMW has some very boring colors for offering.

SOme will say EBII is not boring. But that's one colour on one model. If they offered EBII, British Racing Green, a darker red and then the normal standard colours, that's be a lot better. Audi is just as bad though. Most of their models offer black, 2 greys, red, dark blue, and white.