Accurate colour has always been the key to success for bodyshops and the latest colour trends information released by global OEM vehicle coating supplier BASF highlights how the vehicle park colour range continues to expand meaning the paint sprayer is not getting any easier.

The BASF Color Report 2020 for Automotive OEM Coatings shows the automotive colour palette shifting in unconventional ways, with a trend towards a wider range of chromatic colours rolling off the world’s assembly lines.

Diverse shades like blue and yellow are making gains in some regions, while red and violet are slowly cutting the lead held by the achromatic colours in other parts of the world. Despite the shift in colours, the achromatic colours, white, black, silver, and grey, followed a familiar pattern, coating the majority of the vehicles produced. As it has been for several years, white is still the most popular car colour around the world.

The data cited throughout this report shows lower total vehicle production than past years as the global pandemic has deeply affected the mobility economy and the world. In Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) about 11% of new vehicles were coated in blue, making it the most popular chromatic colour. Violet is a newcomer to the market, increasing diversity even more. Other chromatic colours are also gaining popularity, especially on smaller SUVs as their market segment grows. Part of the variety comes from the diversity of shades. OEM automakers used more than 160 distinct shades of blue in 2020 on vehicles in Europe. Grey was second with 140 shades. Both colour spaces were more diverse than white, which only had 70 distinct shades.

“Colour variety changes with size. For example, where violet has a unique home in mid-size SUVs, it does not appear in great numbers in smaller or larger SUVs,” said Mark Gutjahr, head of Automotive Color Design, EMEA. “The opposite is true with yellow, which shows up in both the very small and the very large, but not the middle.”

In North American both blue and green are gaining in popularity, with beige and brown on the decline, meanwhile in the Asia Pacific region (the home to the largest volume of automotive production in the world), white is still the most popular colour in the region, coating about 48% of the vehicles produced. Black and grey continue to improve, while more diverse colours are also on the increase. Meanwhile in South America the bulk of car buyers remain conservative with white on 39% of new vehicles and sliver and grey also very popular.
 
The BASF Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings is a data analysis from BASF's Coatings division based on global automotive production and paint application to light vehicles in 2020.