KEY POINTS:
While colour may not be at the top of everybody's list when it comes to choosing a car, it is important to some and may reveal your personality.
According to the website shebuys.com.au, an online automotive magazine for females, Australian women are influencing up to 80 per cent of all new car purchases and this means colour and style are becoming as important as safety, fuel economy and performance.
"Many women are now exercising their creative style and choosing brightly coloured shades to stand out from the crowd. There is also a trend towards colours such as black and silver, which are seen to be reflective of style, ambition and glamour," the site said.
Auckland University senior lecturer in psychology Niki Harre said some people thought carefully about the message they were trying to portray when buying something such as a car.
"When you choose something that's very visible to the rest of the world like [a car], you do think very carefully about the kind of message you are trying to portray. So you are going to think about the colour of the car in terms of who you want the world to see you as being. If you choose a pink car, you know that's going to be making a statement ... it's a pretty daring kind of a colour."
She said the way a car looked had traditionally been very important to men.
"That takes into account the entire thing, colour, style, all the trimmings. A lot of men invest a lot of time and thought into exactly what their car should look like, including colour. If women are starting to look at cars in that way, it's not like some strange kind of women thing to be concerned about what your car looks like."
Tristram European used car sales manager Richard Tucker said he'd noticed women were more particular than men when it came to the colour of their car.
"But colour isn't the most important thing ... I think it's the way the car drives, safety is a big issue at the moment, and fuel economy."
He said metallic silver was popular with women and lighter colours in general because they were deemed to be safer. Men tended to go for black and shades of blue. "Some of them like silver, especially if they live out in the country because it gets less dirty."
In one memorable incident, a woman got her silver VW Beetle repainted pink.
"We also had a guy who bought his wife a blue car for Christmas and she didn't like the colour so she sent it back. He had to come and swap it for a black one."
Winger Subaru sales consultant James Jones said car colour was important to men and women. "But you do get some women that joke about the colour being the most important thing ... "
WHAT YOUR CAR COLOUR SAYS ABOUT YOU
* RED - Outgoing, fiery and energetic
* ORANGE - Self-confident and dramatic
* PINK - Flirty and fun
* GREEN - Easy-going and laid back
* BLUE - Reliable and calm
* GREY/SILVER - Hardworking and ambitious
* BLACK - Dignified, stylish and mysterious
* YELLOW - Sporty and spontaneous
* WHITE - Dependable and conservative
(Source: www.shebuys.com.au)
