Why has the car industry – as a whole – decided that automobiles are for the colorblind?

This is a picture of a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda with that year’s color options. TWENTY-FIVE colors that not only gave the customer a choice in how they would look, but colors that, for the most part, weren’t just boring grayscale.

Lime Green, Sunfire Yellow, In Violet Metallic, and more would grace the road and make the dull drums of everyday commuting something spangly. Not just for the customer’s car; they could drive the roads and watch other beautiful colors pass by.

Fast-forward to 1996, and you can see the percentages of color would still be in the 50/50 ratio. That meant that for every 1996 Impala SS in Darth Vader black, you’d see a green 1996 Plymouth Laser. No, not every car was something special, but it wasn’t the black-and-white wash of horrid that drives the roads today.

Now in 2025, color is down to a mere 19% of vehicles out there, and further than that, the range of colors has dwindled as well. I get that the industry is happy to have paint costs be negligible; however, for a bit of coin, many would opt for a banana-yellow car rather than an eggshell one.

This pic shows my car among a row of all-white vehicles. It looks like a parking lot for a group of fleet vehicles rather than cars people have chosen for their own taste. My white Kia in this pic is no different from any other bland car, but I only had three choices when we perused the lot: black, white, and grey. Would I have paid $500 for a red or blue one?

ABSOLUTELY.