Unsure of what you're asking, Groucho. Factory color was orange (although I kinda recall that red was first used in '55). If you don't want to go with the factory color, then paint it to compliment your car's paint.
For the V8s, '56 only was red. 55 and 57 were orange. 6 cylinders were blue. Truck 6 cylinders had a grayish blue.
grind all the rough spots and casting flashing off and paint it jet black - do it this afternoon before dinner. dj
One of the experts will have to step up here but iirc, in 56 or 57 (maybe both) the 265's were painted yellow.
Orange is (was) first, I believe. But........the end of '56 and early '57 they were chartreuse (red). I think there were a few factory yellow small blocks too. My buddy showed his '56 years ago. He got second in his cl***. After the show one of the judges told him he had the nicest car in his cl*** and would have won first place but his engine was the wrong color. The judges didn't know the car was perfectly restored down to the rare engine color. Oh well..... what can you do...the trophies were handed out!
OK, I poked around the tri 5 sites a little and here's what I came up with (although some of those guys don't even agree 100% ) : 1955 265's were orange. 1956 v8's were red. In 57 some early 265's were chartreuse (yellow) and then switched to orange as production continued. All 57 283's were orange. It's a whole nuther' can of worms with the 6 cyl. engines where the restorers can't agree whether they were green, blue or grey. I say forget all that nonsense. Just throw a big block in it and call it a day. LOL
Groucho, I asked this in the "Chevy Talk" boards years ago when I was checking into our 265 in a 57 Convertible we had. 55s were chevy red, 56 were chevy red and 265s in 57 were chartruse with silver painted script or yellow with silver script. They believe that the yellow so many people see are faded chartruse. 283s were chevy red. We painted ours yellow. Hope that helps. I know we got alot of **** about it for years. "Paint it Red and you'd trophy" kinda ****. Whatcha needing the info for?
I am using a 57 Chevy 283 block for the Model A coupe and it had what appears to be original factory chevy orange paint on it ... it was a standard bore with no ridge, standard crank original shortblock ... still had the ignition wire routing guides bolted on it ... the guy I got it from said it came out of a pickup truck ...
we were talkin small blocks at my friend's shop today, and my friend mentioned the 265 that came before the 283 in the tri-5's....and I added by saying they were NOT all orange in those years. He said I was wrong. I didn't remember WHERE I'd learned this over the years, but just that I had
You were right. Here's a pretty definitive list of Chevy engines and colors over the years, including trucks. Covers all engines, 6 or 8 http://www.cs.siena.edu/~lederman/truck/Do***ents/danroyEngineColors/danroyVCCAcolor.html And there were both yellow and chartreuse engines, two different colors
I painted a 292 (283 bored out) a nice Pontiac blue....looked pretty good once all the festooning of chrome accessories was complete. With a light blue engine compartment and a dark blue paint job - it was perfecto.....we don't restore hot rods, why should we be relegated to painting engines factory colors? Dare to be different is the hot rod credo. Do what YOU like is the HAMB credo. dj
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