Vehicles are going "greener"--literally as well as figuratively. According to PPG Industries, a leading supplier of automotive paints, a trend toward green, brown and other earth colors will reflect buyers' growing environmental consciousness in cars as well as other consumer products. PPG's color forecasters also expect light and medium blues to surge in popularity in the next few years.

Although green now accounts for only 7 percent of new cars sold, "the natural color family is going to be an area of growth for the automotive market," says Jane Harrington, manager of color styling for PPG's automotive coating division. This will include not only greens and browns, but also shades such as khaki, copper and bronze.

For the 2006 model year, silver remained the favorite car color by far, with 24 percent of the market. But its popularity has already slipped slightly from a high in 2005. White placed a distant second (16 percent), followed by black and red (13 percent each) and blue (12 percent).

Silver will never go completely out of style, says Harrington, because "it defines character lines and features on the exterior of a vehicle better than darker colors." You can look for earth tones to creep into this popular color, however, with more subtle hints of brown, blue, green or gold.