If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, Mars would have 12% more red and orange cars than Venus
“It’s one thing to say you like a car color, and another to actually move forward in the used car shopping process to contact the seller about that color car,” Phong Ly co-founder and CEO of iSeeCars said. “ iSeeCars conducted a study of 30 million used cars listed on iSeeCars.com over the past 12 months and of hundreds of thousands of consumers who had inquired about a car on iSeeCars.com.”
Overall, men have a stronger preference for red cars than women by 12.3%, for orange cars by 11.8% and for black cars by 9.6%. Women have a stronger preference for silver cars than men by 9.2%, brown cars by 9.1% and gold cars by 7.3%.
Car Colors Men have a Stronger Preference for than Women:
| Color |
Bias |
% of all listings with the color |
average price of listings with the color |
| red |
12.3% |
8.8% |
$17,944 |
| orange |
11.8% |
0.4% |
$18,863 |
| black |
9.6% |
17.1% |
$21,719 |
| white |
7.0% |
15.3% |
$20,026 |
| green |
6.8% |
2.4% |
$13,194 |
| gray |
3.0% |
9.3% |
$19,390 |
Car Colors Women have a Stronger Preference for than Men:
| Color |
Bias |
% of all listings with the color |
average price of listings with the color |
| silver |
9.2% |
16.0% |
$18,048 |
| brown |
9.1% |
0.7% |
$20,019 |
| gold |
7.3% |
2.0% |
$14,953 |
| beige |
4.7% |
0.9% |
$14,472 |
| blue |
3.6% |
9.3% |
$16,982 |
| yellow |
3.2% |
0.4% |
$18,284 |
Among the top color choices by men, red and black are the most popular colors for used sports cars and white (fourth most-preferred by men than women) is the most popular hue for pickup trucks. Orange, a less-popular color option - only representing 0.4% of 30 million used car listings, does adorn sports cars and coupes more so than any other body styles.
For the car color choices of women, used minivans, sedans, and wagons are the most popular car types for silver. Brown and gold/beige are not common car colors – only making up about 4% of the 30 million used car listings, but those colors are painted on more minivans and SUVs than any other types of cars.
Black cars ($21,719), white cars ($20,026) and brown cars ($20,019) had the highest average used car prices among colors listed in the results of this study. Green cars ($13,194), beige cars ($14,472), and gold cars ($14,953) had the lowest average used car listing prices. The average price of the cars for the colors women preferred is about 8% less than those favored by men.
“These study results could suggest that women are more practical in their choices. For the most part, they may just want to buy a reasonably priced car that safely drives them around,” Ly said. “On the other hand, for men, perhaps they may be a bit more idealistic about cars, preferring something that has speed and is fun to drive.”
Other survey insights:
- Surprisingly, blue is slightly more preferred by women than men. Coincidentally the minivan is the most popular car type in blue.
- The women-favored color cars also tend to stay on the market a bit longer. This may be because some of the colors like gold/beige/brown/yellow are less common.
- Rounding off the list, men have a stronger preference for white cars (vs. women) by 7%, a stronger preference for green cars by 6.8% and a stronger preference for grey cars by 3%.
- Women have a stronger preference for beige cars (vs. men) by 4.7%, a stronger preference for blue cars by 3.6% and a stronger preference for yellow cars by 3.2%.
Methodology:
iSeeCars analyzed more than 30 million used cars listed for sale on iSeeCars.com over the last year and studied hundreds of thousands of inquiries of consumers who contacted the seller about a specific car listing. The color preferences are based on calculating and comparing the percentage of inquiries from both genders for each color group.
About iSeeCars.com:
