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Greetings we are looking at buying a second hand car for the family.I would prefer one in black ,gunmetal grey or dark blue.However, we note that the cheaper models of cars we are looking at such as the Lancer, Corolla, Camry and Mazda 3 are either white or red. Have the darker colours always been more expensive? Seems crazy to pay $1000 more for the same car in a different colour.

Strange but true! People buy cars for their style/fashion virtues as well as a raft of other factors. Today, the biggest selling colours for new cars are the metallic grey, silver and black colours. White has also become popular again after being out of favour for many years, as NZ was full of early model plain looking white Japanese imports.
A car dealer I was talking to recently told me he cannot sell red or green cars at present.
The colours you would prefer are currently also the preference of others, so there is more competition, hence supply and demand dictates that people are willing to to pay more to get their preference.