Art & Inspiration Why'd You Pick That Color?

Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post:

Why'd You Pick That Color?

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Picking a color is the hardest part of my builds. I think I will use Orange for my 55 Chevy gasser. I really like the Blue on the hood of this thread

 

Probably my indecision. I agonized over the color for my roadster and finally finally defaulted to red oxide primer. The excuse being "I'll pick a color later after I've driven it for awhile........". Right.

 

Hence,the name hotrodprimer ~red oxide,black primer,even gray!

I always like black,if I paint, on hot rods,my problem is always what color to paint wheels,steelies or wires.

I've painted them red,orange,dark green and sage green ( VW color). HRP

 

The only bad part about red oxide is that it appears to be brown

 

Color choice (even on late model stuff) can make or break the visual impact a car presents. In the past, I seemed to always favor Blue cars but, in recent yrs., I seem to gravitate toward Greens far more often. That said, I don't currently own either one! On traditional cars I really favor period-correct colors, the Seafoam Greens, the Washington Blues, Black of course and really any color that seems appropriate for the time period the car was built to represent. Hot rods need to be single stage colors for the most part, no metallics or flakes but, Kustoms beg for slick paint and perhaps a heavy flaked roof. Candies work on most Kustoms but not on hot-rods. JMHO

 

I really love the color scheme seen here. It works perfectly.

 

Seems to be my problem too. I am edging out my roadster in dark blue, but will run the outside in dark gray primer for a while since I can't commit.

 

If I had a real '50 Olds Club Coupe it would look like this. For now I just have to be happy with the 1/25 scale one I built. These colors work for me on this car.

 

Yes sir, IMHO,all the primers look so good when fresh.a couple of months later after the primer is subjected to the elements a few washes, a oil stain or two ,bird poop and a lot of suicidal bugs your great primer job looks like crap!

I have used ALL the primers over the years looking for something that look good for more than a few weeks,lacquer primers,enamel primers and epoxy primers~ all of them were disappointing.

I finally found the Kirker hot rod black and love the semi-gloss black look that is unaffected by the weather,bugs or bird poop! HRP

 

"Period correct car totally turn me off when it's painted in a particular color that I just don’t like?"
Pretty sure most of us have that same reaction! For me its,if its perimer{any flat by any name}an I can tell the owner thinks its a finished paint. I don't mind if its flat,that's OK as long as its temperairy. Yes I do know how hard it is to get shiny color right. Frankly a few times the shiny color got picked by fate,it was what I could find or traded for. So got repainted later,but shiny kept it nice tell then. I do like black on most anything.

 

Black isn't really a color.
It's the absence of color

 

I can't take any credit for the colors on Brenda's "Ranch Wagon"

If I was given a free hand I might have went with solid black or yellow & white but she knew what she wanted and I mixed a lot of paint before she nailed the color. HRP

 

That's an easy decision. I just let my wife pick it. As long as it's a period correct color. I give her the original color pallet and ask her to choose.
Happy wife happy life.

 

Whats wrong with Brown????? In fact her nickname is Brownie!

 

My color was chosen for me. Washington/Lyons Blue+ Black brush paint job + 75 years of weathering basically says that I'm poor.

 

I've gotta disagree with you about red. Best decision. Ivo loved it because he wanted his cars to stand out. While my roadster was in a studio for a calendar photoshoot I tried to help a friend out and showed the photographer a snapshot of my friends bitchin black flathead powered 29 Ford roadster. The photographer said to me " that car doesn't say anything to me, uninteresting". Don't get me wrong I love other colors. Notice the roadster in the background. Beautiful but it just blends in.
Gary

 

I've been agonising what colour to do the 32 3W for months........all I knew was it wasn't going to be black
I've owned two black cars in years gone by and under no circumstances will I have another one, can't be bothered with the OCD levels of cleaning required, and I don't want to use a 'modern' factory colour.
So, been trawling '55-'63 factory paint colours to pick something suitable.

 

I have chosen Laurel Green, as on the Safari pictured in the article, to eventually be the color of my Fordy Tudor. I don't think it was a very popular color when new. An older friend said they use to call it P green. I will have to ask him was it pea green or pee green?

 

This was my choice of primer.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

A couple of reasons...the paint was free from a friend, and I always loved the factory coral and shadow gray combination. I just wanted to toughen that combo up a little bit...

 

Black.. I like Black... Did I say I like Black??? If not, I'll say it again, I LIKE BLACK....

 

My choice was based on trying to build a semi clone of a car my neighbor owned back in 1958-9. I was 8 years old at the time and car crazy. To own a car like this had always been a dream of mine. Having said that I almost changed it to a mellow shade of yellow from the same time period.

Terry Henke's 40 circa 1959
Thinking I had built this very traditional flathead powered car I was a little a little chagrined when I pulled it into it's first event for flathead powered cars and noticed that it was one of only two brightly painted cars out of a about one hundred in attendance. The rest were either stock pre 50's colors or primered. I like it though and that is what really matters.

 

I've said it before, the single most important "impact" your car will make is the color. It's the 1st thing the casual or critical observer will see and pass judgment upon. The hows and whys, it's as varied and infinite as the color spectrum. I choose my colors 1st on my favorites and how they'll compliment the styling and lines. I really like true candy (kandy?) greens, I like the base to be as fine as possible to make the effects light up in select lighting conditions. I'm not much for reds, if anything I own is red it's because I bought it that way or that's it's OEM color (and it's probably a resale gig). I absolutely despise maroon shades. Metallic, solid, red shades, brown shades, blue shades, all of them bore me almost to tears. Not much for yellow or bright shades. As a utility color like on daily drivers or such I'll take white. Always like a new car when it gets washed and detailed. Add a couple trim/chrome parts in white and you get a special or custom look. That applies to new as well as old with some restraint and imagination. I always wanted something in root beer brown candy with a burnt orange accent on the chassis or inner panels. Add some proper shade saddle leather or vinyl, winner. Oh yeah, gold and orange pinstripes too. Why? That was the original question, and since the majority of my career has been in finishing I get to see and do more than the average enthusiast. Is that lucky? Not really, it's just a real mix of work, both physical and social. Ever try to help someone pick a color?

 

To match my hair !

 

True-- Thats why I mentioned 'shades' of black, referring to medium and dark grays all the way up to pure black...

 

Even though I've had cars that were painted red,multiple blues, copper and a few two tones
I'm drawn to cars from the 30's - 40's in period correct subtle colors but I sure like the two tones of the 50's.
The mis-use of white paint on 30's-early 50's cars is a major turn off for me as I can probably name only 10 cars I like painted all white and none have fat fenders.

 

When I saw my roadster on the internet for sale I didn't like its color but it looked like a good built rod and had all the things I was looking for. Well after mouths of looking at it I decided to go look and drive it with the idea if I could get the price low enough I would get it painted black, when I got to the lot the color looked a whole lot better than it looked on the internet. got a great price for it and really like the green and have received a lot of compliments about the color.

 

We all see color differently.
Red excites the eye, which is why it's referred to, as resale red in car circles.
I once saw something about why people are drawn to certain colors, and how that dictated what type of person they are, psychologically.
I can't remember most of it, but I do remember that it said black meant something bad, haha.

Having been into Hot Rods since age ten or eleven, and the first I ever rode in, being black with flames, it was natural to me, to do mine black with flames.

I love most colors on a modified vehicle, but I find it hard to like silver or white, as most of the time, they just don't excite me, or say, look at me, I've been tarted up.
There are exceptions though, like the Craig's list Impala thread I've just read, or Ghosts Buick Roadster.

The beauty of paint, is if at any time you decide you don't like it, changing it, is an easy way to get a new car.

 

My other color is 2002 Bug "Isotope Green". Hard decision. I loved the color every time I saw a bug that color. It looked great on the "fat fendered" Bug. It was a special limited color on the bug and Audi. I painted a small metal plate and sat it on my deck in the sun where I could look at it from my family room. I debated and debated. Going back and forth. Yes,no. Until my artist wife uttered this old saying to me "no guts no glory". She was right again. I love it and everybody I talk to loves it. Especially women. Again I asked my wife what contrasting color would look good with it. She consulted her color wheel and said "you won't believe this" Purple or Orange.
By the way if you are looking for some kool '50s colors look at the post turn of century bug colors. They are all retro colors. Most aren't as controversial as my color. By the way Audi calls the color "Lemon Lime" which probably describes it better than "Isotope Green" or maybe not.

Gary