Study reveals that yellow and orange cars hold their value better
Maybe you’ve joked a bit about yellow or orange cars and you’ve considered that nothing says class like keeping your car paintjob simple: white, grey or black. Tastes notwithstanding though, according to a new report however, it appears that orange and yellow cars will lose less of their value as time goes on.
This study was conducted by a car-focused website and its findings suggest that over five years, brighter hues such as yellow and orange will depreciate less than the more popular colors.
According to the US-based website, they have analyzed twenty million used cars from 1981 to 2010, coming up with an average cost of depreciation by calculating the original price, the used car price and then aggregating the color to determine the value drops for each color.
Their findings show that yellow cars held up best, with an average depreciation rate of 26.2 percent over a five-year period. Next best color choice was orange, with 27.2 percent, followed by green at 31.3 percent, teal with 31.4 percent, red with 31.7 percent and beige/brown/gold with 33.3 percent.
The findings clearly show that the more popular colors fare the worst, with blue ones representing the industry average in holding 33.6 percent of their value, white ones with 33,7 percent, silver with 34 percent and grey is close to the bottom of the ladder with 34.2 percent. As you might have realized by now, the worst performing color – with an average depreciation over a 60-month period of 34.4 percent – is black.
It is interesting that popular car colors like black or silver do sell faster but this analysis indicates it may not get as high a value as a yellow car. Scarcity may also account for the difference.
Colors aren’t the only factor which influences car value, the type of car can also alter the value it can retain.
