Which Color Cars Have the Best (and Worst) Resale Value?

Think back to the last time you purchased a car.

When it came to picking out a paint color, how much thought did you give it?

Were you just thinking about which color you liked best or were you thinking about how that color might impact the value of that vehicle when you decided to eventually get rid of it?

Get our free mobile app

If you're like most people, you probably didn't worry too much about the long-term implications of that choice.

And that may have cost you a lot of money.

Recently, Mental Floss published the results of a study done by iSeeCars, which looked at 650,000 vehicles that came out in 2019 and were resold between August 2021 and May 2022. They then compared the original manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRPs)—adjusted for inflation—with the average price tags on the used vehicles.

So which color turned out to be the best investment?

Would you believe yellow?

According to the study, yellow vehicles only depreciated by an average of 4.5 percent over that three-year period, going for about $3,100 less than their manufacturers' suggested retail price.

That's roughly half of the average depreciation for all vehicle colors ($6,096).

The next two best vehicle colors for maximum resale value are orange ($3,825 under original value) and purple ($5,461 under value).

So which vehicle colors take the biggest hit at resale time?

Brown cars are the biggest underperformers, checking in at more than $7,500 under original value.

The next two on the bad list are black cars ($6,993 under value) and gold cars ($6,719 under value).

So which is the most popular car color in South Dakota?

White rules the roost in the Mount Rushmore State (23.2%) with red cars running a close second.

The least popular vehicle color in South Dakota is purple (0.1%).