ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, December 28, 1995            TAG: 9512280039
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press DETROIT

FORGET GREEN; CAR BUYERS WANT WHITER SHADE OF PALE

FERN, WILLOW, SPRUCE AND SEA FOAM still occupy a place on the automotive palette. But the color of money on North American car lots is a far less poetic-sounding white.

Forget fuchsia. Puce is practically passe. When it comes to new cars and trucks, the top choice is still plain, old white.

While dark green made a strong challenge for supremacy last year, white regained its hold as the color of choice on most cars and trucks in 1995, according to an annual survey by paint supplier DuPont Automotive.

``I think it's just a nonoffensive kind of color,'' said Bob Daily, DuPont Automotive's color marketing manager. ``It's kind of bright and clean, and it looks good on all sizes of cars.''

More luxury, full-size and intermediate cars, trucks and vans manufactured in the United States and Canada were painted white this year than any other shade, the survey found.

Dark green ranked No.1 among sport and compact cars, and was second in all other categories.

Greens, however, are hardly out of the picture, with the latest trend now leaning toward lighter shades with such names as ``fern,'' ``willow,'' ``spruce'' and ``sea foam,'' Daily said.

Sea foam? ``It's a light green, a pale green - like the foam you see on a whitecap in the ocean,'' he said.

Greens re-emerged as popular colors in 1990 and have gained in use ever since. ``Green is not going to fall off the cliff,'' he said. ``It's going to be around at least until the end of the decade.''

Light greens, which didn't even make DuPont Automotive's annual list of top 12 colors last year, covered between 3 percent and 4.7 percent of the cars and trucks made this year, the survey shows. That's still well down on the list, but a significant showing for a new entry.

But white was the choice on 23.8 percent of trucks and vans and 18.9 percent of full-size and intermediate cars. The other colors in the top four spots in all categories were black, light brown and medium red.

The popularity of white is also caused in part by being a color of choice for commercial fleets and rental-car agencies, Daily noted.

Other survey findings include:

Teal and aqua's popularity faded in all categories.

Black gained for the second consecutive year.

Silver went up in all categories.

Light brown gained in all but the sport-compact category.

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