– By Marc Sibbald –
Research recently conducted by insurer Youi shows that white is the most popular vehicle colour in Australia. And because 30% of people choose white for their new or used vehicle, its the colour that will deliver the best resale for used fleet and novated vehicles.
Youi used its own database to find the most the most popular car colours and they found that each state has its preferred colour, and it also varies by age and genders. They also looked at which which colours are more likely to be involved in a collision, and which colour is the safest (or the colour that has been involved in the least amount of crashes).
Youi CEO Frank Costigan says the company’s accident frequency research showed green was the safest car colour, recording the lowest number of accident claims across the nation.
“Our claims research showed dark coloured cars were the most likely to be involved in a crash with grey topping the list followed by black and charcoal” says Mr. Costigan.
The top colours nationally are:
- White (30%)
- Silver (19%)
- Blue (11%)
- Black (10%)
- Grey (8%)
- Red (7%)
When selecting vehicles for your fleet the residual value (RV) has a major influence on the whole of life cost calculation. At the AfMA conference earlier this year Glen Tomlinson, Head of Operations at Toyota Fleet Management, opened the books to their process when setting RVs and outlined the top nine factors that influenced used car values. He didn’t list colour but suggested that popular new vehicles are popular used vehicles.
There’s no doubt that white being the cheapest option from manufacturers and the preferred colour for fleets has influenced the cars in the Youi database. But it’s also easier to keep clean and makes less of a personal statement than a flash red or bright orange.
Boring white may not be the preference of novated lease buyers making a personal brand statement with the choice of manufacturer, vehicle type and colour. But they should remember the market for a used pink Hyundai Santa Fe isn’t very big.
“There are a number of potential factors driving white as the preferred car colour,” Mr Costigan says, “White is often perceived as one of the safest on the road when it comes to visibility, and is one of the main colours always offered by vehicle manufacturers simply because it is a colour buyers want. White is a colour also often associated with having a better resale value.”
An interesting finding was that older people don’t like black cars. Black manual sports cars have always had good resale but the market according to the Youi data is female and male drivers born between 1980-1990.
* Research note: Sample group Youi insured vehicles and claim accident frequency data 1/7/16 – 30/9/17.
