New Irish motor site motorhub.ie reports on the recent release of the new study by Ford Motor Company entitled Ford Car Buying Trends 2014 where they have highlighted “national differences” when it comes to buying a vehicle from Ford. The study, which is based on analysis of more than 500,000 Ford vehicle purchases in Europe in 2013, says that white is more popular now than black as a car colour in Europe and that the fastest growing car colours are brown and orange. The most popular colours in Europe are white, black and grey – in that order. The only countries that didn’t have those colours as their top three were Poland, Romania, and, surprise, surprise, Ireland. The colour silver is still the most popular in colour here.

The study also says that people are less likely to buy a new car with a sunroof in some of Europe’s hottest regions, whereas in countries famous for snow, like Norway, people were more likely to buy a Ford with a sunroof. Another surprising element of the study shows that people in Norway were more likely to purchase a Ford with air conditioning in comparison with people in Belgium and the Netherlands. Turkey and Spain, for obvious reasons, are the most likely to buy a car with air-con (95% & 92% respectively).

“When it comes to car buyers tastes there are a few things that remain consistent over the years and many aspects that change and evolve,” said Roelant de Waard, vice president, Marketing, Sales & Service, Ford of Europe. “We study these changes – and some can be surprising – in order to better serve customers across Europe.” 58% of Ford buyers in Europe still buy petrol-driven vehicles. 97% of Fords sold in Russia last year were petrol. Another interesting figure among Ford purchasers is that 85% of European customers opt for manual transmission vehicles. In Ireland and the Netherland 96% of Fords sold were manual. The study has also revealed that Irish Ford buyers purchased the least number of cars with automated parking systems. Does this mean we’re good at parking?

Blog reproduced with permission of Motorhub.ie