UK car buyers are going back to black as white topped the colour charts for the fourth consecutive year.

The SMMT’s survey on the most popular new car colours revealed that black had seen a 6.5% increase in sales during the course of 2016, with white suffering a 2.1% decline (to 552,329).

It meant that the year saw the highest number of black cars registered in the UK since 2007 – 542,862.

Between them the two hues took more than 40% market share.

Black became the new car colour of choice in England while white maintained its lead in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the SMMT found.

More curious trends saw demand for pink cars rise by 82.7% to 3,527 units and a 44% rise in demand for bronze cars, with 8,902 registrations. Brown car sales fell 40.1%, dropping it one place to ninth, however.

Turquoise’s popularity grew fourfold last year, from just 792 registrations in 2015 to 2,718.

Silver saw the biggest volume decline, falling 22,209, with 273,220 buyers choosing it compared with 843,870 in its heyday back in 2004.

The SMMT also ranked the most popular cars of 2016 by colour: