The following data was originally presented in the European Automotive Design magazine, April 2004. It represents the compiled data from reports issued by BASF, DuPont and PPG who collectively claim to have 70% of the automotive coatings market. Its a fascinating piece of data suggesting that despite the significant differences in the type and design of vehicle that dominates each of the 3 main world automotive marketplaces, colour is a relatively global constant, with silver/grey being the most popular colour choice worldwide.

As a quick check the newsletter editor counted the number of silver/grey cars he passed on the way to work one morning, and almost with metronomic regularity every third car was silver. Considering this data is for new cars only this was pretty good spot evidence that there is a massive dominance of this colour within the UK car market at least. Have a go at checking it out yourselves, it passes the time on the usual mundane journey to work.