Is it just me, or do large vehicles in Japan come in a much bigger, or at least different, variety of colors than they do in the US? I'm thinking mostly of things like buses and large/16-wheel trucks.
In the US, off the top of my head, our 16-wheel trucks mostly have white, red, or black cabs. Every once in awhile, you might get another color, but it seems to be the exception--maybe copper, brown, green? Our buses tend to be simple, too--black, silver, white, red, usually in some combination (provided they're not wrapped for advertising purposes)?
I saw a webcam video of a Japanese highway recently. I saw things like a bright red bus, a bubblegum pink bus, a sunshine yellow truck, an aquamarine truck, a light blue truck, a dark blue truck, a green truck. They weren't outliers, either--there were plenty of white trucks, but maybe 1/3 to 1/4 or so were a color like that, and that proportion probably held for the buses, as well.
I don't know the reason for the difference, but it's really refreshing.
Let's say the manufacturer order a tons of white or black paints so it would be much cheaper and because of fewer option, they can paint a car much faster. The result is more cars leave factory per day.
Color that paint on cars will deteriorate overtime the black color might just fade out but it's still a black and white color will stay white until it fall off from surface. This is probably why black and white are so popular because it last for a very long time.
Most colorful trucks or bus has been re-paint to suit their like or.. for commercial purpose in general.
Transportation vehicles or public uses have specific colors and pattern painting on them because it's easier identify that way.
If you look at 70-80's cars, the color option are so wild (some cars manufacture even have option to paint it like Jewel beetles) but nowadays, they don't do that anymore. I mean, most workhorse vehicles tend to look bland but i wouldn't mind.