Most Popular Car Color

Please, do us all a favor, and buy a blue car. Or red. Perhaps black, or green, or even pink if you must....just not another silver car.

Autoblog reports, "Silver just won't give up its nine-year choke hold as the most popular color choice for cars and trucks, both in the United States and abroad. In fact, the silver and gray category actually picked up an additional five percent on the rest of the field with a market share of roughly 25 percent in 2009." That's right. A quarter of the new cars sold in the Unite States last year were silver.

The AP notes, "White was second at 18 percent, while black was third."

The numbers come from PPG industries, the leading manufacturer of automotive paints, which also tracks the annual buying patterns of car shoppers.

In a press release, PPG points out that the monotony is even worse overseas. In Europe, silver and charcoal colored cars made up 35 percent of the market. In Asia, 34 percent.

Why do Americans all want the same color car? Jane Harrington, PPG Manager of Color Styling, tells theDetroit News "silver looks great on any car, shows off all of the lines and helps people blend into the crowd." Still, she predicts, "The silver reign will not last forever," nothing that "fifteen years ago, only 8 percent of the vehicles were silver and the No. 1 color was green at over 20 percent."

Changing patterns in the types of cars people buy may help change the monochrome color palette. Harrington tells the Detroit Free Press, "As more subcompact, or B-class, cars are introduced, we will see brighter, bolder colors, partly because a large percentage of those buyers are under 30 and partially because the body designs of smaller cars can lend themselves to brighter greens, yellows and blues."

So bring on those lime green Ford Fiestas and burnt orange Nissan Leafs (Leaves?), please.

If you're in the market for a new car, check out the U.S. News rankings of this year's best cars as well as this month's best car deals.