It turns out that black really is the new black. Analysis of the Carzone.ie website search data revealed that a surprisingly large proportion of car buyers specified colour in their search.
Somewhat disappointingly, the results show that we’re a nation of conservative people, with black the overwhelming favourite.
Taking the website data by the county of the searcher, only six of the Republic’s 25 counties put a colour other than black at the top of their list.
Kilkenny buyers apparently prefer white, as do those in Wicklow. Anecdotally, there are more red cars in Munster than Leinster, but it’s Donegal people that appear to rate red cars the highest. Indeed, Cork buyers prefer a neutral palette of black, white and silver above any bright hues. And only marginally more people searched for red cars above blue cars in Cork.
Neither did the Dubs appear to prefer their county’s colours for their cars, as black, silver and white came in ahead of blue, which itself was only just ahead of red.
Looked at in terms of provinces, only Ulster puts red at the very top of its agenda.
The most searched for car on Carzone.ie is now the Volkswagen Golf, taking over from the BMW 3 Series and just ahead of the BMW 5 Series.
This is slightly at odds with the availability of these cars, as it’s the Ford Focus that is in most supply.
Because its two models are at the top of the list, BMW is, unsurprisingly, the most searched for marque, ahead of Volkswagen and Audi. This is unchanged from the year before, though Nissan has overtaken Opel as the seventh most searched for car make.
However, while the Golf is the overall favourite, the county-by-county data reveals that the Focus is the most popular car in 12 of the 25 counties.
Anomalies that don’t put either the Golf or the Focus in first place are Longford, which favours the Audi A4, and Monaghan, residents of which apparently have a thing for the Opel Insignia.
Interestingly, without the weight of the number of Dublin searches, the BMW 3 Series wouldn’t appear so high up the results, as it places no better than fourth elsewhere in the country and regularly isn’t even in the top ten.
Top Tip: “Demand for prestige cars in some of the smaller counties is lower than the most populated, which means there may be bargains to be had if you’re willing to travel