Ford has released figures on the colours favoured by new car buyers across Europe, with Ireland's most popular colour being silver; they highlight each nation's taste and hint at the reasons behind them.
Popular colours can often be attributed to a nation's flag, with blue and red both popular colours in the Czech Republic, but Green is Ireland's third least likely colour option. This is mirrored in Holland; where the national colour (Orange) failed even to be figured.
France and Italy, with their café cultures, tend to favour cream-coloured cars. Geographical conclusions are hard to draw, however, with Norway (Northern Europe) and Portugal (Southern Europe) sharing the same six favourite colours.
Colour choice can be made purely for practical reasons, with black (a heat absorbing colour) being least popular in Turkey, and white (which reflects heat) being the most popular. Meanwhile, the climatically cooler Denmark's favourite colour is black and least favourite is white.
Julie Francis, who is on the colour and material design team for Ford of Europe, said: "There is something very personal to buyers about the colour of their cars, and when you look a little deeper you see that the culture, fashion and tastes in the markets across Europe have a major impact on the colours that customers choose."
Having a greater understanding of the colours we'll choose lets Ford predict sales and produce cars accordingly.
"For major markets, Germany, for example, we know that black and darker colours are always popular so we factor that in to our planning. Clearly we want our vehicles to be attractive to our customers and colour is a big part of that," says Vince Shaw, marketing and product strategy manager for Ford of Europe.