We are all painfully aware of how drastically life in the United States has changed over the past few decades, and not very much in a positive way. Not to get political, but Wendy’s has ditched its iconic solarium, Pizza Hut’s iconic red wooden ceilings have become a thing of the past, coffee shops that were once filled with comfortable sofas and lounge chairs are now filled with metal stools and wooden benches, and the cars on American roads are almost all gray.
We used to be a fair country, man. A country that once sold almost as many red cars as white cars, and almost as many green cars as black cars. The most popular non-greyscale color now is blue, making up only 9.1% of all new cars. To make matters worse, we now know that the number of new cars painted a boring shade of grayscale has nearly doubled since 1996, to 47.3%. According to data from iseecars.com.
We’ve covered the country’s gradual descent into dreary greyscale on several occasions before, but that doesn’t make things any less depressing. Last year we also wrote about how bright colors actually increase a car’s resale value, and yet America’s gray pride is still running strong, and that bothers me.
Why is everything becoming so boring?
I was born in late 1995, so although I don’t have particularly vivid memories of the 90s, I’ll never forget how colorful everything was. From the zany bright color schemes of Nickelodeon to the neon carpets at Chuck E. Cheese to the neon signs adorning the walls of Target, nothing seemed complete without a splash of color.
Looking at popular colors in 1996, white was still the most popular color at 22.1% of the market, but red was the second most popular color at 20.1%. Now, red cars account for just 7% of the market. Black cars were the third most popular color, accounting for 14.2% of new cars sold in 1996, but in 2025, black was the second most popular color, with 23.4% of new cars sold in this low-key color. Gray has seen the most significant increase in popularity, with only 3.6% of new cars sold in 1996 being gray, but 22.9% of new cars sold in 2025 being gray – an increase of 528.4%.
The rest of the top 13 most popular car colors are equally vague, with blue, red, green, brown, beige, yellow, gold and purple cars declining in popularity between 1996 and 2025. The only real color that gained popularity was orange, which increased from 0.2% of the market in 1996 to 0.3% of all new cars sold in 2025. I’m all about inclusivity, but all this gray pride is really making me question what kind of country America is becoming.
