You or someone you know has a silver car, right? Silver has been the world’s favourite car colour for more than a decade now. Why? Well, presumably because it offers a nice trade-off; you get the flash and allure of a precious metal, without going full-on gold and looking like someone in a mid-life crisis. It’s neutral without being boring, and makes most cars look fairly sexy when they glint in the sun. So why move away from silver, everyone?

Well, from a safety point of view it’s one of the worst colours you could possibly choose. Silver-grey cars become invisible in the fog, they seem to disappear at dusk, and are hardly visible in heavy rain. But then again, safety hasn’t always been a chief concern when it comes to choosing paint. Technically, red is one of the safer colours, because of its ability to stick out in almost any weather conditions. (Ah, so that’s what the Ferrari drivers are onto.)

Funnily enough, the colour that has now overtaken silver as the world’s favourite car colour just happens to be the worlds safest car colour – white.

PPG Industries, the leading supplier of car paints in the world, says 25 per cent of the vehicles it supplied in 2013 were white, up 3 per cent from last year. Silver and black tied for second, with 18 per cent each. Apparently white is dominating in Europe, and it’s only in South America that silver is still top.

Jane Harrington, PPG’s manager of automotive colour styling, says it may have something to do with the rise of Apple products. Apple stores and products are draped in differing shades of pure white, she says, and this has caused motorists to perceive white to be a “high-tech” colour.

This is just one of those things that has worked out pretty well. Apple makes cool white products, we paint our cars white, we get involved in less accidents. Serendipitous evolution, perhaps?

[Source : Yahoo News]