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The original was posted on /r/cars by /u/caterham09 on 2025-06-13 21:10:51+00:00.
A game I often play on my commute home every day is to try and find color options of cars that I'm particularly fond of. It's a fun time passer, but it's also something that I have found to be somewhat challenging recently. I'm certainly not the first person to notice, but the vast majority of automobiles seem to be homogenizing into the same grayscale paint choices that aim to be as inoffensive as possible.
This got me thinking about what paint colors and options are even available for the everyday car, and sent me down a rabbit hole that lasted several months. As a bit of a nerd for numbers and statistics, I went through and decided to get some hard data on this to look at, and I want to share that with you all today so we can talk about what I found.
Intro and Background
So the title is not an exaggeration, I actually went through every single car and trim level available in 2025. What I tracked was the amount of color options available, how many of them were included in the base price, and how much the upgraded colors cost on average. This took months to complete and I don't even want to know how many lunch breaks I wasted on this, but it's finally finished.
Before we dive into the data I just wanted to lay out some of the rules I used when tracking this data. The first rule was that I would track each vehicle and each trim that had a unique set of color combinations. What this meant was if I found a car where 3 trims all had the same color options and pricing, but the 4th trim had separate options/pricing, I would track that as two separate line items on the spreadsheet (making sure to note which trims were in each item). This meant there were some cars that had a ton of different configurations, and the chart has over 730 rows in it. An example of how this works can be seen below.
| Manufacturer | Vehicle | Trim | Total Paint Options | Free Colors | AVG cost of color upgrade | Percent of Free Colors | Notes |
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| Kia | Soul | LX | 6 | 4 | $345 | 66.67% | |
| Kia | Soul | S | 8 | 4 | $345 | 50.00% | |
| Kia | Soul | GT Line | 5 | 3 | $345 | 60.00% | |
| Kia | Soul | EX | 7 | 4 | $563 | 57.14% | Black roof option available |
So in this case, the Kia Soul had 4 separate trims with unique paint configurations.
The next rule I had was easier to explain. I didn't include trim packages in the chart that would be considered a "special" color only. The easiest example of this is the Hakone edition GR86. It's basically a special appearance package that is available in 1 color, and I didn't want it to skew the data. This was done at my own discretion so it's possible there are a few trims on here that might sort of qualify for that, but I did my best to exclude them overall.
The final rule was something I had to do for the sake of making the data complete, but I didn't look at any ultra luxury vehicles here. We all know things like Ferrari's and Rolls Royce's come in dozens upon dozens of colors, but because I cant get pricing data I ignored those brands entirely.
Lastly one final little note before we start, but I really struggled to figure out a good way to include Porsche here. There's pricing data for everything available, but their paint to sample option was really hard to fit in the chart. There's over 190 paint to sample options available, and all at a tremendous cost. It would heavily skew the data on all of the Porsche models if I were to include it, and since getting PTS allocation is nigh impossible, I decided to just leave Porsche with an asterisk. I didn't count PTS in the final numbers, but I did denote that it was available.
Manufacturer Data
That was a lot of intro so let's just dive right into it. The chart below is a list of each manufacturer and the average across their entire line. It's listed alphabetically. Also take note that the column showing the average costs, of an upgrade does not include any zero values.
| Manufacturer | AVG Color Options | AVG Free colors | AVG Color upgrade cost |
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| Acura | 5.56 | 1.50 | $600.00 |
| Alfa Romeo | 4.73 | 0.55 | $1,203.55 |
| Audi | 7.97 | 1.54 | $596.92 |
| BMW | 11.31 | 3.58 | $1,810.36 |
| Buick | 6.09 | 2.82 | $561.64 |
| Cadillac | 6.52 | 1.24 | $886.86 |
| Chevrolet | 6.58 | 4.44 | $661.70 |
| Chrysler | 4.00 | 2.00 | $495.00 |
| Dodge | 6.67 | 2.00 | $508.33 |
| Ford | 7.68 | 4.88 | $600.26 |
| Genesis | 8.00 | 1.25 | $703.25 |
| GMC | 6.04 | 0.96 | $587.04 |
| Honda | 6.00 | 2.86 | $455.00 |
| Hyundai | 6.24 | 4.12 | $535.12 |
| Infiniti | 5.71 | 2.57 | $698.38 |
| Jeep | 6.33 | 0.93 | $651.07 |
| Kia | 5.85 | 3.17 | $482.81 |
| Land Rover | 9.18 | 2.18 | $2,035.85 |
| Lexus | 6.56 | 3.15 | $589.81 |
| Lincoln | 6.57 | 1.29 | $886.86 |
| Lucid | 4.33 | 1.33 | $900.00 |
| Maserati | 22.17 | 2.00 | $10,306.17 |
| Mazda | 7.57 | 2.86 | $523.00 |
| Mercedes-Benz | 13.77 | 5.69 | $3,309.92 |
| Mini | 8.00 | 5.31 | $431.25 |
| Mitsubishi | 5.50 | 3.08 | $578.27 |
| Nissan | 6.13 | 3.70 | $511.72 |
| Porsche | 12.30 | 4.00 | $2,319.50 |
| Ram | 6.77 | 1.85 | $286.92 |
| Rivian | 8.00 | 1.00 | $2,281.00 |
| Subaru | 6.37 | 5.56 | $448.54 |
| Tesla | 5.17 | 1.33 | $1,726.60 |
| Toyota | 5.65 | 4.02 | $483.98 |
| Volkswagen | 5.68 | 4.05 | $536.82 |
| Volvo | 7.24 | 7.24 | $0.00 |
There's quite a few standouts here to talk about, but first let's just look at the top 10 manufacturers in terms of colors offered.
| Manufacturer | AVG Color Options | AVG Free colors | AVG Color upgrade cost |
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| Maserati | 22.17 | 2.00 | $10,306.17 |
| Mercedes-Benz | 13.77 | 5.69 | $3,309.92 |
| Porsche | 12.30 | 4.00 | $2,319.50 |
| BMW | 11.31 | 3.58 | $1,810.36 |
| Land Rover | 9.18 | 2.18 | $2,035.85 |
| Genesis | 8.00 | 1.25 | $703.25 |
| Mini | 8.00 | 5.31 | $431.25 |
| Rivian | 8.00 | 1.00 | $2,281.00 |
| Audi | 7.97 | 1.54 | $596.92 |
| Ford | 7.68 | 4.88 | $600.26 |
There aren't many huge surprises here. As one would expect, this list is made up of almost exclusively luxury brands. Maserati was the big winner here, offering almost 2x as many colors on average as the #2 Mercedes-Benz. It is worth noting though that those colors come at a cost of over $10,000 each on average. This is more than 3x the second place brand in terms of pricing. Maserati actually had the most expensive single paint option I found in my research, where they had several colors on the GranTurismo and Gran Cabrio that ran over$18,000.
Another brand worth mentioning on this chart is Mini, who offer a good selection of colors, at either cheap or free pricing. In fact, on every Mini, if you go for the Iconic trim package, every single color option is free. They do a good job capitalizing on the cutesy nature of their cars and make sure that the fun colors are available for most buyers.
Next I want to look at the brands who did the best job of offering free colors. The first table shows the top 5 brands in terms of how many free colors they offer, and the 2nd shows the top 5 brands in terms of the percentage of colors offered that are free.
| Manufacturer | AVG Color Options | AVG Free colors | Percentage of Free Colors |
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| Volvo | 7.24 | 7.24 | 100.00% |
| Mercedes-Benz | 13.77 | 5.69 | 41.34% |
| Subaru | 6.37 | 5.56 | 87.21% |
| Mini | 8.00 | 5.31 | 66.35% |
| Ford | 7.68 | 4.88 | 63.54% |
| Manufacturer | AVG Color Options | AVG Free colors | Percentage of Free Colors |
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| Volvo | 7.24 | 7.24 | 100.00% |
| Subaru | 6.37 | 5.56 | 87.21% |
| Volkswagen | 5.68 | 4.05 | 71.30% |
| Toyota | 5.65 | 4.02 | 71.05% |
| Chevrolet | 6.58 | 4.44 | 67.49% |
The obvious standout here is Volvo. They were such a breath of fresh air when doing this research, as every single color option they offer is free. Volvo also comes in at 12th in terms of colors offered on average, so as far as I'm concerned, they were the biggest winners in this research.
I also want to look at some of the worst offenders here, so let's take a look at the 10 brands who offer the fewest number of paint options.
| Manufacturer | AVG Color Options | AVG Free colors | Percentage of Free Colors | AVG Color upgrade cost |
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| Chrysler | 4.00 | 2.00 | 50.00% | $495.00 |
| Lucid | 4.33 | 1.33 | 30.77% | $900.00 |
| Alfa Romeo | 4.73 | 0.55 | 11.54% | $1,203.55 |
| Tesla | 5.17 | 1.33 | 25.81% | $1,726.60 |
| Mitsubishi | 5.50 | 3.08 | 56.06% | $578.27 |
| Acura | 5.56 | 1.50 | 26.97% | $600.00 |
| Toyota | 5.65 | 4.02 | 71.05% | $483.98 |
| Volkswagen | 5.68 | 4.05 | 71.30% | $536.82 |
| Infiniti | 5.71 | 2.57 | 45.00% | $698.38 |
| Kia | 5.85 | 3.17 | 54.18% | $482.81 |
This is probably the most interesting chart to me, as it's a mix of very different brands that you wouldn't expect to be grouped together. Chrysler, who only makes 1 car is unsurprisingly at the top, but more interestingly is Alfa Romeo, Acura and Infiniti. Luxury brands made up almost all of the top 10 of the brands that did the best job of offering colors, but here we still have 3 luxury automakers that are doing a really poor job at giving choice to their customers. Not only that, but both Alfa and Acura are horrible at even including these colors in the base price of the vehicle. Alfa in particular was 2nd only to Maserati in terms of free color ratio.
One final thing to point out, if we go back and look at the first chart with all of the data ...
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