And that grey shade popularity has transferred over to cars. Ford claims grey knocked white out of its number spot last year, and now the automaker is offering eight different shades of grey in Europe. In fact, it's offered more than 50 shades of grey (not the movie) around the world since the early 1990s. But really? Why grey? According to color psychology expert (suddenly this is a profession) Karen Haller, grey is "not only a desire to stand out from the crowd that's driving the trend – recent political upheaval across the globe is also turning us onto grey. When there is a level of insecurity and uncertainty – as we have seen following the US elections and Brexit.