Cars By Todd Bianco, West Hollywood, California (Thursday, March 27, 2008) It snuck up on us suddenly. And it's true. White (including white pearl) is now the most popular color for autos, leapfrogging the long-time champ, silver/grey. 
Todd “Evan” Bianco has written about cars and Los Angeles on his website acarisnotarefrigerator.com from his West Hollywood base for many years. |
White has always been the color of choice for the category of trucks, vans and SUVs. This is primarily because millions of pickup trucks and work vans are purchased in appliance white to join the fleets of corporate America.
But for nearly a decade, luxury cars, sport/compacts and full/intermediate sizes have generally gone for the silver/grey/black tones and colors.
Every year, DuPont Automotive Color Popularity Survey tallies the results of US sales. DuPont bases its report on quantities of paint sold to the manufacturers, confidential production data and "other sources.”
In 2006, silver/grey accounted for 27% of all sales. In 2007, white, including the flashier "pearl white" accounted for 19% of total vehicles manufactured while silver/grey slipped to 18%. Black was still hot accounting for 16%.
2008 VW GTI. |
I knew this was happening when I attended the 2007 Frankfurt International Auto Show last September. Every German manufacturer showed its new models in white. Two major introductions, the new BMW M3 and the Audi S5 were showcased in white.
In its US advertising, VW features all its products in Candy White. VW even used a German dominatrix all dressed up in white leather to advertise the GTI.
I checked the manufacturers' sites to see how many variants of white I could find. And the results were quite interesting. The Germans, so in love with white for their show cars, had the fewest variants. BMW has only one white - Alpine White.
Ditto for Porsche (Carrera White) and Audi (Ibis White). Volkswagen had only two whites - Campanella and Candy White. Mercedes offered the most "options" with three whites - Arctic, Diamond and Alabaster. However, most models had only one white choice.
2008 Maserati Granturismo. |
Nissan, including Infiniti, had the most variants. Who knew? You've gotta love the names:
Phantom White | Fresh Powder | Glacier Pearl | Winter Frost | Avalanche | Blizzard | Pikes Peak White | Nordic White Pearl | Ivory Pearl | Moonlight White | Tuscan Pearl
Ford, including Lincoln-Mercury also had an interesting long list of whites:
White Suede Clearcoat Metallic | Oxford White (appliance white) | Performance White | Crème Brule | White Frost | Oxford White Clearcoat Metallic | White Chocolate Clearcoat Tri-Coat | Vibrant White Clearcoat Metallic
GM has eight divisions (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Saturn, Hummer, Saab and Cadillac) and you'd think lots of whites. Not necessarily.
Cadillac has exactly one white - and it's a flashy White Diamond Tri-Coat color that's shared with Buick, Pontiac and GMC.
2009 BMW M3Coupe front. |
But Pontiac seems to have a wealth of whites: White Hot, Ivory White, Pure, Bright White and Ultra White. They almost sound like a collection of tooth pastes or detergents. Chevy is the least imaginative with Summit White (your standard refrigerator white), Arctic White and plain old "White.”
Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep are seriously lacking in white imagination. Stone White (appliance white) is available in each division. Chrysler gets Cool Vanilla for most of its products.
Dodge has a Bright White and Artic White - a Mercedes-Benz color available on its Sprinter Vans. (Sprinters are rebadged Mercedes work and commercial vans.) Jeep gets only Stone White. Boring!
Toyota and Lexus have huge product portfolios; but only a few whites: Super White, Natural White, Blizzard Pearl, Starfire Pearl and Cyrstal White Mica.
Mitsubishi Motor Cars has a fairly small portfolio of products, but there seems to be a white for every model: Wicked White Metallic, Dover White Pearl, Northstar White, Diamond White Pearl, and Arctic White.
2008 Porsche 911 GT3 |
Even tiny importer Suzuki has four - yes four whites: White Water Pearl, White Water Metallic, Absolute (refrigerator) White, and Perl White Tri-Coat Metallic.
So what about the Korean Twins Hyundai and Kia? If you think they share the same appliance whites, well you'd be wrong! Kia has Clear White and Pearl White while big sister Hyundai has Nordic White, Captiva White, Powder White Pearl, Arctic White, Stone White and Cosmic White! What is a Captiva?
Mass market Honda and its upscale Acura division don't break any new ground. Honda offers Taffeta White on most models except the Ridgeline pickup which gets the option of plain old White. Acura offers 3 variations on the same pearlized white: Aspen White Pearl, Premium Pearl White and White Diamond Pearl.
The English premium brands offer some interesting variations on the white theme. Rolls Royce has three stock whites: Arctic, English and Comish White. Bentley has four stock whites: Glacier White, Magnolia, Arctica and Porcelain. Jaguar offers only its own version of Porcelain, MINI has only Pepper White.
2008 Audi S5 rear. |
Land Rover offers two aristocratic-sounding variations: Whistler and Chawton White. High style James Bond favorite, Aston Martin, offers Stratus White.
I have no idea what Comish (British aristocracy?) or Chawton (Jane Austen's hometown?) refer to. Do you?
The two Swedes, Volvo and Saab, use very icy names to describe their whites. Volvo has: Ice White, White Pearl and Cosmic White Metallic while Saab has Polar White, Arctic White and Winter White. It all sounds very cold.
You will continue to see more silver/grey cars driving around as these colors have dominated consumer choices for at least 7 years and the average car stays on the road for 13 years.
But as time marches on, you will see more white everywhere - and probably some pretty stupid names too.
For many years, Todd “Evan” Bianco has written about cars and Los Angeles on his website acarisnotarefrigerator.com from his West Hollywood base. Mr. Bianco’s focuses on the car biz and cars as they exist with us here in WeHo and Los Angeles, not in Detroit. He covers subjects as diverse as hybrid hype, the influence of the Asians in So Cal, trends, etc.
Mr. Bianco had a weekly radio show on Sirius Out-Q for a year, and is scheduled to return to the air with The John McMullen Show on KNEWS AM 870 * 1140 * 1250 knewsradio.com on March 3, 2008.
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