Audi colors: drab to draber
 

I wish Audi offered a better selection of standard colors. The one's offered are just so boring. Out of 10 colors available, eight of them are just different shades of black or white. The other two are red and blue, but they're a weird red and blue, if you ask me. I would love to see a really nice candy-apple metallic red, or a midnight blue. Even BMW offers more variety in their color palette.

I know you can order custom Audi colors, but that's just one more expense.

Now, don't get me started on the fugly wheels they're offering ...
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I think the big issue is what dealers order for inventory. Dealers order white/grey/black, by and large... and people are impatient and don't want to custom order for anything else.

There are LOTS of Audis around here, including lots of B9s, and I think I have maybe seen 2-3 scuba blues, one red, one of that order bronzey red colour whose name I forget, and the rest are white, black, and various shades of grey. I actually notice a red A4 (or a red MB C class) because of how crazily rare they are, whereas white/black ones are ubiquitous.

The other thing, I think, and here I will go on a bit of a rant - I think the demographics of the A4 buyer have dramatically aged since the glory days of B7s in ocean blue. For some reason (high housing costs, student debt, the general uncoolness of cars, the existence of that unethical organization known as Uber, who knows), higher-income younger folks in big cities do not seem to be buying nice, new vehicles anymore, at least not until they're at an age range when they're having kids, and even then, I think it's a challenge to even get them into a Q5... And so I think that the gazillions of A4s out there are being sold to a much older crowd than those who were buying B6s and B7s and Infiniti G35s 10-15 years ago... and that crowd, generally speaking, wants more subdued colours.

(It's worth nothing - this trend may be less in the U.S., and it used to be, at least in the B8 days, that the US market got more cool colour options than this country got...)

I actually had trouble finding a white or gray '19 A4 a month ago before the turn of the year. Granted, I wanted very specific options but all my immediately local dealers only had silver and black with the options I wanted, or didn't have it at all. Both of those colors I did not want because my previous car was silver and black is a detailing nightmare. The colors I wanted were still in transit and were not shipping to my local dealers. I am not a person that buys a car sight unseen, unless it is something of rarity and the A4 is not.

There was one dealership an hour away from me that did have (Ibis White) white and (Daytona Gray Pearl Effect) gray, which worked out because I ended up getting the gray one with the exact options I wanted.

Daytona Gray Pearl Effect is an absolutely fantastic color. Fortunately and unfortunately, when I brought in my vehicle for warranty repairs, I got compliments on the color from everyone in the service drive.

Having bought a matador red A4, and almost bought a scuba blue A4, I take offense to those colors being called "weird" :) Those are my 2 favorites of the range.
Gotland green was an option until 2019.
But I agree this trend of black/white/grey is annoying.

Oh, and Quantum Grey - W.T.F. For my life I dont get it. It looks like primer. Or like someone ran out of money at Maaco.
Apologies to anyone who has a quantum grey anything. :D

....or most people are unable to wait for a custom order or unwilling to pay for a car to be transferred from another dealer somewhere else....so so they buy the dealer has available, and the dealer only stocks whites, blacks, and grays.

I know that's what happened to me. I had to make a deal before month end to capitalize on special offers. I would have greatly preferred to have ordered a car in exact spect, but that wasn't an option. The preferred color I wanted cost $1000 more to transfer due to distance than the Daytona Grey only a few hours away. I just kinda got boxed in to "what was on nearby lots".

I sold cars for many years, and I don't believe for one minute all these people don't want "fun" colors. They didn't back then, and they don't now...but that's all that's on the lots. Audi (and other brands) are laughing all the way to the bank, as only producing cars with such a limited color palette does nothing but save them money. I'm not sure what's worse, the bland exteriors or 90% of all the interior being all-black!

I actually like the boring pallet when it comes to cars. For me, bold colors are nice for changeable things like scarfs, hats, table napkins – you name it. For something that I am keeping around and seeing and being seen in for a while (my house and car for example) I prefer something that looks nice, neutral and not likely to go out of fashion or start annoying me after a few months. Fickle? Yeah, maybe.
I used to be in real estate and the advice to homeowners re-doing their houses prior to sale was to avoid designs, colors, etc. that they might like, but that would not appeal to a broad range of potential buyers. “Conservative/safe is best.” I believe the same applies to cars. Most people looking for a 3-yr old Audi A4 will not be drawn to or not be willing to take the risk of buying something that is too far from the norm. This is much of the reason new cars buyers gravitate toward (and dealers push them toward) conservative/boring colors. That’s my take.
I am fine with everything about my Manhattan Gray except how easily it looks dirty. Going forward I will likely return to something safe and easily cleanable like silver, white, light gray.