Having been the owner of a Red Corvette myself, I began to wonder just how popular Red really was.  At first, I thought I could simply chart the total number of Red Corvettes produced each model year.  However, this wouldn't give a true gauge as to their popularity, since the total number of Corvettes produced varies greatly from year to year. So, I took all available data for Corvettes produced from 1954-2012 and charted the percentage of Corvettes that were produced each model year that were painted Red.  The results surprised me.

Red was mildly popular in 1954, 1955 & 1956, but that was in large part because there weren't many color choices. After 1956 there was a drop off, a little spike back up in the early 60s, but then quite a bit of unpopularity until 1985.  Once 1985 hit, for all but three years that followed, at least 25% off all Corvettes built were Red (or some variation thereof.  If it has "Red" in it's name, I included it.)

1993 and 2003 models years saw the highest percentage of Corvettes painted Red at 47%. So, in those years almost half of all Corvettes produced were a shade of Red!  Both of those years had Anniversary models which sports a version of Red, helping to make those percentages so high.  Since 2003, the percentage has stayed mostly the same hovering around 25-30%.

I'll be posting more charts documenting how the other color categories stack up.

So, do these numbers surprise you? What's your favorite Corvette color?

(click image for larger version)