TORONTO -

In choosing the color for their car, Canadian consumers tend to stick to so-called “traditional” hues, according to a study commissioned by Ford of Canada.

In fact, the overwhelmingly most popular vehicle color in the country is silver/gray, which was the chosen color for 22.3 percent of respondents in the study, which was conducted by Leger Marketing. Other traditional colors like black (14.1 percent), blue (13.6 percent) and red (11.6 percent) rounded out the top four.

Interestingly enough, white was fifth at 6.9 percent. Though it’s more popular in other areas of the world (based on data from DuPont), the hue “just doesn’t cut it on our messy roads,” officials noted.

“People form an emotional connection with color, and there is something very personal to buyers about the hue of their cars,” stated Susan Swek, chief designer of color and materials at Ford.

“Our internal research shows up to 40 percent of car buyers say they would walk out of a dealership if they couldn’t buy a car in the color they wanted,” she added.

Color choices also tended to vary by age group.

In what perhaps goes against popular notion, “unconventional” colors were more popular for older drivers. For instance, these hues represented a 20-percent share for the 65-and-up crowd, but just a 5-percent share for the 18-to-34 crowd.

Another interesting find was that buyers are more likely to choose red cars as they grow older, but they are less likely to choose black cars.

Black cars were more common in men (20.4 percent) than women (12.9 percent), and red was more prevalent among female drivers (13.8 percent) than males (8.9 percent).

As far as income level, black was fairly common among drivers pulling in $80,000 or more annually (19 percent), but not as much for the under $40,000 a year crowd (11 percent). Additionally, black vehicles were more attractive to single people (27 percent) than married people (13 percent).

Noting some interesting trends by region, gold cars were relatively strong in Atlantic Canada (8.4 percent). That area was also the top region for red cars (18.4 percent).

The strongest penetration of blue cars was found in Alberta (16 percent) and Quebec (15.4 percent) was in second.

Also, the penchant for picking an unconventional color (hue outside eight most popular) was strongest in Quebec (12.8 percent).

Meanwhile, the area where black cars were most common was Ontario (17.1 percent). Green found its stronghold in Manitoba and Saskatchewan (9.9 percent), as did white (14.2 percent).