Why aren’t all cars available in all colours?

[Prof Prolapse]

300bhp/ton said:

But it boils down to many perceptions that Britain is boring in it's choice and everyone wants, black, grey, silver or white. So that is what they offer by and large. And foolishly far too many of us choose such colours.

For me, as long as it's inoffensive, I really don't give a st about what colour my everyday car is. All the generic colours you've listed are fine by me.

I know some people on this forum soil themselves with excitement at the prospect of getting a generic 2 litre diesel German estate, and might feel it deserves an "Esotoril-sparkle lacquered- matt-with extra orange peel effect-paint", but I honestly don't care.

Re-sale silver all the way. As a grown man I really don't give a toss what colour my car is unless it's something actually special.

There's obviously cost advantages to offering less colours (think sales complexity and resulting cost as well importing the things if nothing else). I'd sooner have that saving.

[C.A.R.]

I recommend watching the Mighty Car Mods video when they helped on the production line of a new Focus RS. It's quite depressing that, up until a point, the RS is like-for-like just a boggo Ford Focus. It's then plucked from the production line and the go-faster bits and different bumpers are fitted.

Mass production like that requires minimal variations in colour / spec to work fluidly. I'd imagine mixing up lots of different paint colours, ensuring compatibility with different surfaces (see Citroen for how bad you can get a variation in colour based on metal panels vs plastic, on the same car) etc. is going to be incredibly costly and slow production down significantly!

I still wish people wouldn't buy so many grey cars. Nothing more depressing. See the VW group 'Urano Grey' which is a flat paint colour, it's truly awful, and seemingly (other than white) the only 'no cost' colour - so expect to see hundreds of them on the road under various lease deals!

[NAS]

Quantities (demand), cost of testing each colour, impact on production line speed etc. etc. All the key reasons have been mentioned already.

[Pica-Pica]

Jimmy Recard said:

Pica-Pica said:

Each colour undergoes substantial testing in varying and extreme conditions. some of this involves panels in desert sunshine for a considerable period, to check for UV degradation of colour. This can be done in a lab, of course, but is supplemented by real world usage.

My understanding is that both Volkswagen and Vauxhall forgot to do this with their red paint

My observation is that red seems to degrade badly in UV. Having said that, my 1973 Ford Escort 1100L in Sunset Red lasted well for its 12 years (I had to weld the floor at the footwells, and replace the clutch, however).

[Shaoxter]

Cloudy147 said:

Porsche will paint your car any colour you want.

This is RSJ's stocklist of used Porsches:

https://www.rsjsportscars.co.uk/porsche_for_sale/

Of the 35 cars in stock, 4 are blue. The rest are black, white or grey.

I don't know why Porsche bother either. So for all other manufacturers, I'd say they only need to offer a handful of colours for the majority of sales. Shame really.

Depressing isn't it, especially when Porsche have made so many nice colours.

[Pica-Pica]

Prof Prolapse said:

300bhp/ton said:

But it boils down to many perceptions that Britain is boring in it's choice and everyone wants, black, grey, silver or white. So that is what they offer by and large. And foolishly far too many of us choose such colours.

For me, as long as it's inoffensive, I really don't give a st about what colour my everyday car is. All the generic colours you've listed are fine by me.

I know some people on this forum soil themselves with excitement at the prospect of getting a generic 2 litre diesel German estate, and might feel it deserves an "Esotoril-sparkle lacquered- matt-with extra orange peel effect-paint", but I honestly don't care.

Re-sale silver all the way. As a grown man I really don't give a toss what colour my car is unless it's something actually special.

There's obviously cost advantages to offering less colours (think sales complexity and resulting cost as well importing the things if nothing else). I'd sooner have that saving.

..fewer colours.

[Mike335i]

Jimmy Recard said:

My understanding is that both Volkswagen and Vauxhall forgot to do this with their red paint

As did Alfa Romeo.

As an owner of two black cars, having vowed to not do it again after the last one, I wish there were more interesting colour choices. But as I don't buy / lease new, I just pick what is available on the market.

[Rawwr]

What I'd like is that all colours be available throughout the range. Ford have Orange Fury available for the Mustang and the new Focus ST but it'd nice to get it on a Fiesta ST.

[captain_cynic]

Arnd said:

Interested to know the issues. How hard can it be?

Looking at the manufactures websites and seeing only a few colours, just got me thinking.

I seem to remember TVR offering any colour. But I may have got that wrong.

Anybody able to shed some light?

Simple answer, JIT manufacturing.

In order to build a car in 20 odd hours, as many components as can be are made in advance, this means a lot of the panels are pre-painted. Limiting the number of colours helps to reduce the amount of stock on hand they need to keep.

Some manufacturers let you pick any colour you want, but this may add time to a build. This is OK for someone like Porsche that have the capacity to build bespoke to customers specification, but someone like Ford will have already allocated stock that hasn't even started manufacture yet so adding custom coloured panels is going to throw a huge spanner in the well planed works. They figure that a customer can always change the colour themselves after delivery.

Its a bit like getting a tailored suit to buying off the rack. At a tailor, you get so many more options but you also pay for it.

[Alucidnation]

captain_cynic said:

In order to build a car in 20 odd hours, as many components as can be are made in advance, this means a lot of the panels are pre-painted.

I find that hard to believe.

It would be a massive ball ache what with different panels coming from different batches of paint.

[captain_cynic]

Alucidnation said:

captain_cynic said:

In order to build a car in 20 odd hours, as many components as can be are made in advance, this means a lot of the panels are pre-painted.

I find that hard to believe.

It would be a massive ball ache what with different panels coming from different batches of paint.

I never said they'd be in different batches, just pre-painted.

And I'm pretty sure they've gotten to the point where they can consistently produce the same colour in different batches.

https://blog.toyota.co.uk/factory-to-forecourt/pai...

Toyota bodies are painted before assembly.

[FIREBIRDC9]

Supply and Demand

People in the UK don't buy cars unless they are Greyish Silver or Silvery Grey

[TwistingMyMelon]

Prof Prolapse said:

300bhp/ton said:

But it boils down to many perceptions that Britain is boring in it's choice and everyone wants, black, grey, silver or white. So that is what they offer by and large. And foolishly far too many of us choose such colours.

For me, as long as it's inoffensive, I really don't give a st about what colour my everyday car is. All the generic colours you've listed are fine by me.

I know some people on this forum soil themselves with excitement at the prospect of getting a generic 2 litre diesel German estate, and might feel it deserves an "Esotoril-sparkle lacquered- matt-with extra orange peel effect-paint", but I honestly don't care.

Re-sale silver all the way. As a grown man I really don't give a toss what colour my car is unless it's something actually special.

There's obviously cost advantages to offering less colours (think sales complexity and resulting cost as well importing the things if nothing else). I'd sooner have that saving.


[/quote
]

I agree with this , I dont really care what colour it is

Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Monday 25th February 16:11

[Sensibleboy]

Wasn't even the white roofs on Minis creating a big slow down on the production line once?

[dvshannow]

Arnd said:

Interested to know the issues. How hard can it be?

Looking at the manufactures websites and seeing only a few colours, just got me thinking.

I seem to remember TVR offering any colour. But I may have got that wrong.

Anybody able to shed some light?

TVR the model of efficiency..

What you are asking is why don’t all manufacturers offer PTS like the higher end ones like Porsche ? It’s basically just cost so few people would pay to order a regular car in a custom colour
TVR prob got away with it as they had so few economicies of scale in the first place

[bobmedley]

Polo Harlequin.

Sweet Jesus, all colours available on one car.

Edited by bobmedley on Monday 25th February 16:17

[JeremyBearimy]

When I worked at a Land Rover dealer (many moons ago), there was an extra palate with pages and pages of colours available that was £5000 extra, or £10,000 for the chromaflare / special finish paints.
I always wondered why it cost quite so much given each car is individually sprayed and there is no prep like a used respray.

[Jakg]

bobmedley said:

Polo Harlequin.

Sweet Jesus, all colours available on one car.

Edited by bobmedley on Monday 25th February 16:17

Except in this case they made one car for each colour, and then swapped the panels around afterwards.

[Jayzee]

bobmedley said:

Polo Harlequin.

Sweet Jesus, all colours available on one car.

Edited by bobmedley on Monday 25th February 16:17

And they weren’t all the same panel colours on each car, either. Well, I guess if they’d made enough of them, there’d be a few identical cars.

[vikingaero]

I only like silver cars, ever since my Dad bought a BMW 732i in the 80's. Nearly all my cars have been silver and probably will be for the forseeable. If you guys want wacky then go for it and pay for it. I don't care how much it costs you or how much it costs in additional depreciation. Silver is smart and understated - not all of us want diamond encrusted Rolexs on our wrists.