Projects Voice your opinion on a color.

don't you have a Ralph Lauren ad to look for ???? Lol

 

I dont know whats worse, painting a custom flat black, or seeing your Ducati in a Ralph Lauren ad...

 

Don't own a Duck. too pricy for me .. Xr's CR's and RR's are more my style
and my RD's , RZ'S and TD and TZ's

 

At the risk of getting yelled at, since you say the body work isn't pristine...

Rustoleum automotive blue. It's actually a bc/cc system. Even better would be a nice cream color. Spray it with a gun and not rattle cans. The finish is actually not that bad, pretty shiny if you go single stage.

If you just want color and you don't want to spend a lot, this is it. For the money, it's not that bad.

If you had said you spent 10K hours on a flawless body and want nothing but the best showroom finish, I would have a much different answer.

 

I 3rd that GOLD gloss of corse !

 

Consider a light silver, it would be more forgiving than a darker color, you can go with a budget base coat and better quality clear. Check out tcpglobal's paint line. You can always spend the money on another coat of primer and sandpaper. Are you painting this yourself, or hiring it out? You may talk to some painters on what budget paints they use.

 

A perfect car in primer (or anything flat) should only move a professional finisher. It's a clean sheet of paper where the imagination can run wild. That said, and in agreement with others here, if tradition is a motivating factor you can put me in the gold or green list. Make no mistake, this isn't a choice for anyone who's confident enough to pull a trigger. It's where the next level of talent shows. It's where even those wearing polarized sunglasses can't detect mottled metallic patterns (like so many new cars now). A modern color should only be considered if it has ultra fine poly and less use of modern opalescent mylar. The benefit to modern is repair should the unthinkable happen. A late model Chevy "Cruz" pulled into the parking lot the other day. It was a dark green poly that looked black in the areas where light didn't play. I got in and said to Mrs. Highlander, "Damn that's a bitchin green on that thing." Her reply was,"I don't like green bit I like that color." It works. It looks candy and should be easy to repair being an OEM offering. Imagine how frosty that curvy roofline would be and how dusky dark the side surfaces would appear. Being applied "1 on 1" would net a better finish and effect too. At the end of the day, YOU have to live with it, and odds are that where your concerns are in the quality of your work could be easily corrected at this stage of the game. The difference between a good job and a great job is usually 15min. Just sayin...

 

Traditional Custom colors were always dark, and very, very shiny with a gloss you were afraid to get close to, in case you stumbled and fell in. If you go flat black it looks unfinished, and is definitely not a Custom look, but betrays any historical knowledge of what building and owning a Custom is all about. Dark is better than light. Copper and gold came later and are not traditional, even if they look super. Maroon, burgundy, burple, dark navy blue, and tuxedo black are your only choices, unless you want a car that betrays impulsive a neo-hip jazzed up metal flake tendancy that comes from wanting to impress others with the color rather than the whole package. When you peel back the layers of flesh and saw into the bone of what Customs were really about and dig into the marrow, it's not snap, crackle and pop, or sizzle that lays out the beauty of the object. It's the cool of it. Not hip cool, or flip cool, or flash; but, the plan man. You what I mean. Being slightly removed from the world and in a place where just sitting still is like being in a space ship. I get that from the old ones I've seen in all their glory. Otherwise, you're just a sailor in a bar looking for some fun; because painting your car like something that should be parked in the lobby of a cat-house lets the world know you've only been to Catalina and back.

 

Both of these are incorrect statements. There were a number of customs built back in the day that were not these colours or necessarily what one would call dark. There were a number of bronze, lighter blue, lime gold etc coloured customs built by notable builders. Blanket statements are rarely correct.

 

50 years from now some one will post "in the early twenty first century, all the traditional cars were flat black with red wheels"

 

Pale blues were popular as well. 40 hours with guide coats and a long board doesn't cost anything but hard work....

 

Metallic/flaked Green Hornet green.

 

lots of pastels, earthtones and light metallics are good for less than perfect bodywork. theres even a resurge of newer cars coming in some of the similar pastels from the 50s both stock and custom colorish from the era. subaru has a greeny tan thats a nice color very similar to sand green from vw buses from the 50s. fiat has several "retro" looking options in their color pallet. a few other companies all have scatterd offerings. 40s,50s,60s euro market was/is also a great source. porsche, jag, mg, vw, benz, etc all offered rich organic reds, earthy greens, warm blues, etc and were source for inspiration for colors for many customs through the years.

 

Anyone can rebut my posts but they can't rebut my belief system. I believe a custom car should be mysterious and a little bit off-putting, like something that landed in a farmer's field and is making a strange sound. The pages in my book go back to the roots, when vision came first, followed by master level body work that included hammer welding and lead and hours of prep with blocking and umpteen coats of lacquer followed by wet sanding and more coats and a final shine from wax and buckets of elbow grease. Why waste that on a paint color that calls attention to itself, rather than the whole Magilla? Metallic may be cool to some, and light colors may remind you of smoke and mirrors but dark means a mastery of self-diclipine. If you want to go light use a candy color. Candy apple red being the quintessence of these. Panty waists all, who think this is an easy deal where you hit home runs by quaffing an Alice in Wonderland pill and get spiked with the glam of what others think is remarkable. Pastels are for bedrooms. Back in the day shite is just another way of using someone else's jockey thinking you can do it like they did. I don't exclude myself. It's just that with so few masters and so many apprentices, you'd think there would be a little black book of secrets for those who did due diligence; only there's not. We were given a brain and intelligence for a reason. Everyone figures it out, eventually, or not. Those who are still wading in the kiddy pool drink sugar water, and those in the deep end save their thirst for the sure and certain knowledge that if something sounds right, it is. There is more mystery in a night sky than one can reckon with; duplicate that and you add another level to your quest to be above the wandering herd. Dark colors on the first Customs were there for a reason beyond the fact there were few choices. And, even though innovation is what our hobby is about, the roots give us sustenance. Then again, it all depends on a personal bias: do you want a circus wagon type effect, or something more like a hearse? And, opinions vary. That how come ice cream comes in assorted flavors.

 

If you haven't decided by now you never will be happy no matter what color you choose. If it were mine and I done all of that custom work I'd want it to stand out. Root Beer Brown, one of those wild Copper colors, deep Maroon, or gloss Black.
Or maybe Mary Kay Pink?

 

That color Casny painted his roadster would look so bitchin on a Kustom.Hell it's badass period.

 

I saw a fastback chevy custom in an old little pages magazine I found, about 30 years ago. Had to take their word for it cause of the black and white pics, but always liked the idea of yellow. Gloss, of course. the Magazine was from 1954 or 1955.

 

Man, that looks good enough to eat.

 

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Uh what he said...I. Think??

 

Man now you guys really have my head spinning ,I have been the internet for a couple hours looking at all the color suggestions .You guys have so great ideas........I really like the Pagan Gold ,my wife says it doesn't look sinister enough .....lol

 

don't forget you can add some other colors or tints to the paint to make it pop . thats why they put orange in wimboldon white .. on some of the way O/T yamaha motorcycle of th 80's they did things to the black paint to make it look better , like red and blue micrometal flake in the mix .. it causes the paint to change to a purplish hue in certain lights and real deep in others .

 

Hmmm, always dark, never gold or green. Got it. Except for those 2 Mercury examples from those brothers in Socal. Who were they again? It escapes me at the moment, but, I think it was uh, OH YEAH!! BARRIS BROS. !! Never gold, except that pickup in the post that the kid from Europe is doing. It was gold, but that was later, like 55. Sam's Merc was green, but I couldn't raise a rt hand to when it was built so probably in the, what, 50s too?

While I have no PhD in custom or kustom history I have studied paint since my teens. Now if I was 22 you could tell me, "Fuck off kid and go look em up.", but I'll be 57 soon and pulled the trigger on a complete at 14. This is like those who tell me silver wasn't available in 1932. Ok, you win, see ya... Lincoln built custom a roadster in 34 and had it painted in a red and grey pearl by using ground fish scale and oyster shell in the mix. Metallics were super fine and sometimes muted by the oxides in their mixes, sometimes they flashed so custom you'd think it was a mistake. Which in 1928 it was a mistake on a Cadillac that couldn't get refinished in time and that new "metallic red" color drove folks crazy at one of the auto shows.

WTF does any of that have to do with the topic? It means GO FOR IT. As long as you don't pick some obviously 80s metallic or pastel from the 90s you almost can't go wrong. Check out that "Cruz" example if you want sinister.

You really have to see this in person, as I did on really bright day. Fuckin awesome green for a kustom, dark and colorful, fine poly. "Rain Forest Green" is their name for it. Id shoot this over a black sealer and make it that much more "dusky". Good luck with your search, and unless you shoot it in water bourne I'll be glad to toss some pointers your way.

 

If the finish body work is what's holding you back from your choice color, it would be well worth it to have someone finish it out for you.(At least a quote wouldn't hurt) Hard to tell from pics but it looks like you have it close enough that it wouldn't take much to get perfect. BUT... that's just my opinion.

 

HIGHLANDER sounds like a man who knows his stuff. The car by the brothers was mostly by the brother, and was a customer car. I don't know if the customer had input into color selection, or not. Personally, I think it would have come off better in a darker, deeper color. I'm going to check the things you said because it reminds me that there are others who know more than I do, and when they say things it's good to know more about them. And, yes, base colors can alter the outcome of something that is transparent, or translucent. Paint is craft and art, the latter being very subjective and is not quantifiable. It is good to know others are serious about Customs and have deep knowledge of it. Customs are also an art form and not quantifiable, thus the multiplicity of opinions. Some think deep on this and express opinions that are meaningful, if you pay attention. Thank you sir, for a few rays of light.

 

As a friend of mine says, "There is only two colors of paint. black and ugly"

 

Fortynut, we're all good bro. I tend to have a sardonic tone to my schtick sometimes but I mean nothing by it. The old guys relentlessly busted by balls in my youth. Didn't matter about the subject. Concrete, carpenter work, car stuff, anything really. There's so much history behind us I'd think it impossible for anyone to know it all 100%. That's almost 1/2 the fun if we keep it real. Peace bruz...

 

Fortynut and Highlander makes me think I'm reading Kerouac or Ferlinghetti---

 

Yeah, I second that rainforest green! Would look nice! Maybe a little less metallic. Definitely deep green.

 

GREAT green, I've seen that color on the street and had the same thought, what a GREAT colour. And Cord had a similar silver around the same same time. I remember seeing a stunning silver and maroon L-29 a few years back, man what a beautiful car.

 

I always liked this color, but that Pagan gold IS bad ass.