AzMotorNews.com
Silver Still Top Color Choice For Cars
By Richard Sine for the Wilmington Del. News
Journal, 12-15-04.
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The Arizona Republic
Silver Still Top Choice For Cars,
But Other Colors Catching On
Silver topped DuPont Co.'s
annual list of the world's most popular car colors for the fourth year in a
row, the company said last week. But other colors are catching up.
By Richard Sine
For the (Wilmington, Del.) News
Journal, 12-15-04
When it comes to the hottest colors in
new cars, silver is, well, the new silver.
Silver topped DuPont Co.'s annual list of the world's most
popular car colors for the fourth year in a row, the company
said last week. But other colors are catching up. In North America, that
means red, blue and light metallic brown, which is the hottest new color for
luxury cars.
Yellow has moved into the top-10 ranking for the first time since 1992,
thanks to sports and compact car buyers.
lDuPont keeps a close eye on color trends
because its Coatings and Color Technologies division accounts for nearly a
quarter of sales. "Each new color is a new product for us," said
Terrence Cressy, a marketing manager for DuPont Automotive in Troy, Mich.
Cressy has his own theory on why silver has been hot. "People like silver
because it's a representation of technology, and today's vehicle is an
instrument of technology."
The next big thing is "crossover" colors, Cressy
predicted. That includes silver with red, brown, blue or green tints "that
make the color look totally new and add interest to the vehicle," Cressy
said. Other crossover colors mix blues and greens or reds and oranges.
More subtle color shifts are achieved by mixing pigments with mica or
aluminum. But DuPont is marketing a new paint, ChromaLusion, that shifts
colors dramatically - from green to gold, for example - depending on the
viewing angle.
New technologies in clear-coat top-coatings "protect the
pigments and colors underneath in a way that you can have a lot more freedom
in color styling," Cressy said.
DuPont and PPG Industries are the top two
auto paint makers with about an equal market share, followed by BASF,
a DuPont spokesman said.
Other highlights from the study:
- While both Europeans and North Americans like silver cars, Europeans are
much more likely to choose black cars. North Americans are twice as likely
to choose red.
- The Japanese are the world's most conservative car-color consumers.
Four-fifths of new Japanese vehicles are in neutral colors.
* For
more info link to:
** By
Richard Sine for the Wilmington Del. News Journal and reprinted
in The Arizona Republic Business Section 12-15-04.
*** Link
to the original article at;
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