Red is widely considered the car color that fades the fastest, as its pigment is highly susceptible to breaking down under UV light. Other colors prone to rapid fading include bright, vibrant shades like orange and yellow, as well as dark colors like black that absorb more heat.
Custom Neon and True Candy colors tend to fade the fastest. This is because the dyes required to achieve that specific visual effect will degrade sooner than regular car dyes.
Variations in Paint Durability
While both paints and technology to protect car paint from sun damage have come a long way over the years, it can never be completely prevented. As a general rule, red paint fades fastest, while white holds for the longest.
The vehicle colors that have the highest depreciation are brown and gold due to their rarity. “If a color doesn't resonate with enough used car shoppers it will hurt resale value, even if it's uncommon,” Brauer said.
However, it can also fade a lot quicker! Red paint specifically fades faster than other colors due to the interaction between its color pigment and UV rays.
More neutral colours like tan, beige, brown, and various shades of white fade the least over time. Compared to brighter pigments like red, blue, and yellow, these and other milder earth tones tend to degrade far more gradually in UV radiation and harsh weather.
For the best resale value, neutral colors like white, black, gray, and silver are consistently top performers due to broad appeal, while studies show yellow, orange, and green can sometimes retain the most value, especially in specific vehicle types like sports cars or trucks, as they are less common but still desired by certain buyers. Bright or unusual colors generally hurt resale value, but unique colors on niche vehicles (like orange on a truck) can defy this trend due to supply and demand.
White cars statistically get pulled over the most because they are the most common vehicle color on the road, followed by red, gray, and silver, but red cars might be ticketed at a higher rate relative to their numbers. While white cars account for the highest total stops due to sheer volume, red cars, often associated with sports cars, are ticketed more often than their percentage of cars on the road would suggest, indicating a disproportionate stop rate.
Top 5 Colors That Make a Car Look Expensive
Light-colored cars such as gray, silver, tan, or beige are considered the easiest to keep clean.
Most Popular Car Colors – iSeeCars.com Study
The team at iSeeCars.com conducted an analysis of over 20 million cars from model years 2004-2023 sold from January 2023 to April 2024 to determine the color distribution. After careful research, the answer is actually black and white.
According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), black, silver, white, green and gold are the colors most associated with vehicle thefts. Colors that more easily blend in with a crowd–white, gray, silver and black–tend to be reported stolen the most.
When it comes to stolen cars, color does seem to matter. According to studies, the most commonly jacked color car is silver!
Multiple studies have concluded that black is the most dangerous color car you can drive. Black vehicles are involved in significantly more crashes than other color cars. Most researchers believe that this is likely due to the fact that black cars can be really tough to see.
Cars that attract police attention most often are typically sporty, modified, or have a reputation for speed, like the Subaru WRX, Dodge Charger/Challenger, Nissan 350Z/370Z, and Volkswagen GTI, often due to drivers being pulled for speeding or aggressive driving, though driver behavior and common colors like white also play significant roles.
Toyota, Honda, Subaru, and luxury brand Lexus consistently hold their value best due to strong reputations for reliability, durability, and high demand in the used market, with specific models like the Toyota Tacoma, Honda Civic, Jeep Wrangler, and Porsche 911 often topping resale value charts. These brands benefit from buyer trust, leading to lower depreciation and better long-term value retention.