The (Ugly) Color Purple
STEVE FINLAY Ward's Dealer Business, Apr 1, 2003 12:00 PM

Purple has reigned as a color of kings throughout history. Roman emperors were said to “take the purple” when they donned regal robes of that color after killing off their rivals.

Painting a car purple has deadly consequences, too. At least for the resale value.

An offbeat car color reduces used-vehicle value by as much as $600. So says Bud Place, DaimlerChrysler AG's senior manager of used vehicle sales and remarketing.

He and other participants throughout the 2003 Conference of Automotive Remarketing in Las Vegas cite purple as perhaps the most egregious of car colors. Pumpkin orange and lime green aren't far behind.

“A lot of people don't understand the dynamics of something as important as a car color,” says Tom Cunningham, retired director of remarketing services for Ford Motor Co. “Ugly is ugly,” he says, citing purple as a royal example.

He urges auto makers to stop with the crazy colors that appeal to few people, types who are in a purple haze or who find shocking pink easy on the eyes.

“Some manufacturers believe bright ski apparel colors look good on automobiles,” says Cunningham.

Why do auto makers put questionable colors on cars in the first place?

“Usually it's trendy,” says Place. “A color may be popular for a couple of years or in a certain part of the country.”

Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research Inc., says he was bemused when his son bought a pink Ford Escort.

“He calls it rose. I call it ugly,” says Spinella. The young man is atypical for his age. Says his dad, “He's 20 now and wants a Ford Taurus station wagon!”

Car color is more important to men than to women, according to Spinella's research.

“Guys don't seem to care if the car they bought only goes 100 miles before breaking down as long as the color is right,” he says. “Women are just the opposite. They're more interested in a reliable car.”

Remarketing experts groan when faced with selling used vehicles of colors that look like they came from an Easter egg dye kit.

“What may look great in the showroom as a new car can look terrible on the lot as a used car,” says Tony Moorby, former vice president of ADESA Auctions.

“Purple Hyundais are the hardest-selling cars in the business,” says Doug Richards, general manger of the Auto Auction of Montgomery.

Towards the other end of the spectrum, inoffensive silver hit a new peak as the most popular car color in North America, according to Dupont Automotive, a paint supplier that tracks such consumer preferences.

Silver in 2002 ranked 23% overall, followed by white (15%) and black (12%).

Silver is in the gray family. Gray is bland, but it, and variations thereof, work on vehicles, conveying a sense of richness, especially on luxury SUVs and trucks, says Robert Daily, DuPont's color marketing manager.

In the future, DuPont is betting that blue will become more popular because it's seen as conveying “calm, stable optimism.”

Yet who really decides the most popular colors? It's largely dealers, according to Trevor Creed, design vice president for the Chrysler Group. He says dealers order vehicle colors they think will sell. If customers want something else, dealers will try to talk them out of it.

That happened to me a few years ago. To my wife's chagrin, I almost bought a bright yellow car. The dealership salesman dissuaded me, saying that color could pose resale problems.

I think I forgot to thank him for that, although I ended up buying a black car. That's also a “difficult” resale color, according to DuPont. It could have been worse. It could have been purple.