Bright car colours top list

While customers in parts of the United States, and most of Europe, prefer classic whites, blacks, silvers and greys, Aussie Ford buyers tend toward blues and strong citrus colours, plus metallics for premium cars.

Choices here are shaped by climate and culture, says Ford Australia's colour and material design manager Emily Lai.

"Our climate is bright and rich, making for an intensely coloured landscape," Lai said. "Australians also have a strong outdoors lifestyle and their high participation in sports from a young age means many people have a preference for more sporty, active colours."

A strong economy helps create a focus on the latest in fashions, which flows through to vehicle colours.

With the XR series representing some 40 per cent of Falcon sales, there's a strong interest in bright shades such as Nitro blue and Sunburst.

But there are some regional variations with Sydneysiders and Melbournites looking to sporty colours, and dark metallics, for Falcon while heading into Queensland customers opt for lighter colours, Lai said.

Australian government and fleet buyers are sticking to the safety of traditional whites, silvers and blues.

Elsewhere in the world French and Italian buyers favour cream cars, the Irish silver, Danish black and Belgians grey. In the Czech Republic it's blue.

In New York and Los Angeles grey and silver are the most popular choices while it's white in San Francisco and black in Boston.

Red has faded as the most popular of European colours but white is the new black in that part of the world with dark greys, blues and blacks popular as they are in European men and women's clothing.

Ford group's chief designer for colour and materials Susan Swek says it's important to get the right colour into the market at the right time.

"Too early and it won't have registered on customers' radar. Too late and the popularity of a particular colour may have already reached its peak."