The release of PPG’s annual Automotive Colour Popularity Report highlights the most popular colours, as well as the emerging demand for personalisation.
As one of the world’s largest coatings manufacturers, PPG holds a unique position as a global colour leader. This is especially true in the automotive sector where the company’s 2021 automotive colour popularity report puts the spotlight on increased demand for two-tone finishes, personalised colours and other emerging trends among car buyers. From a global colour perspective, white (35%) and black (18%) continue to be the overwhelming choice for car buyers, while blue (8%), red (7%), silver (11%) and natural (4%) each dropped by 1%. Elsewhere, the PPG report charts the rising popularity of grey (up 2% in each of the past two years), green and violet, with vibrant new colours most likely to debut on sporty models, rather than SUVs and utes.
A growing demand for two-tone finishes reflects the desire for personalisation amongst consumers, says Misty Yeomans, PPG Colour Styling Manager, Automotive OEM, Americas.“Along with special-order colours, tinted clearcoats, tri-coats and matte finishes, two-tone finishes better reflect vehicle owners’ individual preferences and personalities.”
Although two-tone finishes were common in the 1950s and 1960s, conventional colour development and application processes made them increasingly costly and impractical in mass production. However, PPG is now helping global vehicle OEMs overcome this challenge through a breakthrough precision application technology that produces crisp paint edges without the use of masking and other time-intensive steps.
Colour personalisation is also being enabled thanks to PPG advancements in digital colour styling which dramatically reduces the time to market for new colours.The PPG global colour styling team also sees an increased emphasis on taking a holistic approach to vehicle styling, says Misty Yeomans.“We consider all surfaces and features of the vehicle as part of our colour styling process. As one example, weare seeing increased use of specialised wheel coatings and colours to complement the styling cues of the vehicle body.”