Fiat stops producing grey cars as it wants customers to be more colourful
Italian firm says it wants to be known as the ‘brand of colours’
Fiat has taken the unusual step of stopping production of grey-coloured cars as it wants to make customers choose more colourful shades.
Grey has been the UK’s most popular new car colour for five consecutive years and accounted for 25.7 per cent of all new cars sold last year, followed by black (20.1 per cent) and white (16.7 per cent).
But Fiat is keen to change that as it wants to be more ‘distinctive’. It says Italy is known as ‘the land of colours’, and it wants Fiat to be recognised as the ‘brand of colours’ as a result.
Olivier Francois, chief executive officer at Fiat, said: “We’ve broken the rules: and decided to stop the production of Fiat grey cars. This is challenging and disruptive and it is aimed to further reinforce Fiat’s leadership as the brand of joy, colours, and optimism. Italy is the country of colours and, starting from today, our cars too.”
To mark the announcement, Fiat’s CEO took the seat in an example of the firm’s new 600e crossover, painted grey, before it was craned into a vat of orange paint. In the video, Francois can be seen putting the window of the car up before it’s lowered fully into a huge pot of paint, only to be lifted out once again covered completely in orange.
Though Fiat isn’t going all the way by phasing out white and black paint colours, it does offer a particularly colourful palette, including Sicilian Orange, Italia Blue and Passion Red.
Fiat isn’t the only car firm that is trying to persuade customers to choose more interesting colours. Kia and Peugeot, for example, each offer bright shades – including red, yellow and greens – as the free, no-cost colours, therefore making customers spend extra if they want to have their cars painted in a less interesting shade.
