Can beige be beautiful? Not if you’re buying a new car it isn’t In fact, beige should be avoided at all costs.
Not only will beige cars shed value at an alarming rate, it will also take forever to find a buyer for your beige beauty. Beige: fine for hearing aids, old motorhomes and slacks. Not great for cars.
That’s according to a new study that looks into the depreciation over three years and the length of time it takes to sell a car. Beige believers look away now.
Not only will beige cars lose the most value after three years, they will also spend an average 46.6 days on the market. Of the ten colours in the study, yellow cars retain the most value after 36 months, but it’ll take 41.5 days to find a new home.
Orange and green cars are also pretty good at retaining value, which suggests the nation has a thing for citrus coloured cars.
It’s rather depressing to discover that grey cars spend the least amount of time languishing in the classifieds (34.2 days), which suggests we like our cars to mirror the colour of the sky above our heads. Surely beige is more beautiful than drizzle?
The study conducted by Crusader Vans found that silver, black and grey cars lose more value than blue, red, white, green, orange and yellow cars. There’s supply and demand at work here, with many new cars sold in sombre hues.
On balance, white is the safest bet, as it takes an average 35 days to sell cars in a shade that wouldn’t look out of place on your skirting boards, while the colour is the fourth best as retaining value. This should be music to the ears of Britain’s white van drivers.
Average days on the market by colour
| Colour | Days on the market |
| 1. Grey | 34.2 |
| 2. White | 35 |
| 3. Black | 36 |
| 4. Green | 36.2 |
| 5. Blue | 36.8 |
| 6. Orange | 38.1 |
| 7. Silver | 38.8 |
| 8. Red | 40.9 |
| 9. Yellow | 41.5 |
| 10. Beige | 46.6 |