Grey was the most popular car colour of 2019. *sigh*

You boring lot. For the second year in a row, grey is Britain’s most popular car colour, with very nearly a quarter of all new cars sold in 2019 painted the colour of misery, storm clouds, old age and bewilderingly popular erotic fiction.

Black and white were second and third most popular, meaning 60 per cent of cars registered last year were monochrome. Blue – fourth most popular colour last year – was the last primary colour to appear in the top three. And that was way back in 2010; the decade that gave us Brexit, a Trump Presidency and the big-screen adaptation of Cats.

The Great British public is not entirely to blame here, of course. Car manufacturers don’t often give you much choice in the matter. The BMW 7 Series, for example, is available in 12 different colours – nine of which are varying shades of white, grey or black. Admittedly the 7 Series is a big executive saloon, but the problem exists everywhere.

There is some good news, though. Yellow has replaced beige in tenth place, sales of turquoise cars are up 29.3 percent, silver is the least popular it’s been in the last 20 years, and red, orange and green can still be found in the top ten.

We at Top Gear are big advocates of buying cars in an actual colour. Just think of how much brighter your mornings would be if your car were a different colour from the sky above and road below, your neighbour’s car, his neighbour’s car and all the cars you drive past on the way to work.

The world needs colours, bright ones. So unless you’re buying a car that happens to suit Metallic Birmingham, do us all a favour and stop being so unrelentingly tedious.