History two tone paint hierarchy

probably a real nookie-magnet, too!

 

quite tasteful. i'm usually not a white walls guy, but here they add some schnazz to the overall look.

my cub scout den mother had a '56 wagon in blue & wood paneling livery. i should save that for the "woody" thread.

Q: there IS a woody thread, right?

 

Imagine this in the voice of Mae West; "Gary Cooper had the biggest dick in Hollywood, too bad he didn't know how to use it." True story...

 

I let the car or truck tell me what colors it wants to be. Worked so far

 

I'm one of those "everything has a purpose, or its not there" kind of guys.
Any two tone ride I have is going to have a light color on the roof. The reason? We don't usually do AC in cars. Cars with a light colored roof are cooler inside through the summer then the same car with a dark roof.
My coupe originally was a black car. The first few months proved it was a hot ride on the inside. When it got painted, the roof became white. Just the white painted roof lowered the inside temp 10 degrees.

 

Dark colors on top are traditionsk



also the other way around

 

Mmmmmmm

 

2 tone red?

 

But Anthony, so were cars with light colored tops. So either way was traditional.







Bet you wouldn't drive one of these tho................

 

Well tu-tones are easy... I have a '56 Meteor that will be a Tri-Tone!

 

And a whole bunch of '50's cars ...

 

1957 Meteor Rideau. This is a nice tri-colour combo.

 

Yea id drive em
Need lowered a bunch though

there are no paint rules.
Only personal preference

 

A lot has been written about the way automotive paint has tracked the mood of the background culture over the years. It strangely doesn't quite coincide with the economics of any given era. For instance the exuberance of c. 1924-1932 carried on well after the Crash of 1929. Generally, the more extravagant moods produced more varied, more elaborate colour combinations containing more saturated colours. More sombre moods, like the WWII years, gave simpler combinations and less saturated colours.

It depends very much what idiom, if any, you're trying to emulate. Ways of achieving those historic expressions became mannerisms, which are now redolent of their historic content. Me, I'm a fan of early, geometric Art Deco, which produced some weird stuff, colour-wise. Some of it takes some getting used to; it's aesthetically challenging, but that's that bold movement all over. Here's a formula I've devised to emulate that off-the-wall high-end early Deco colour sensibility:

Pick any two adjacent primary and secondary colours on the colour wheel. Now identify the hue complementary to the tertiary between those two. For example, if you've picked yellow and orange, the tertiary between them is a kind of yellow-orange, or amber. Its complementary colour would be a purple-blue, something between indigo and periwinkle. (Or, to give it a twist, pick two adjacent tertiary colours and the complementary colour of the primary or secondary colour between them.) So you've got three colours, yellow, orange, and indigo. The first two are like a two-tone, and the third is an accent colour. Again, you can flip it around and have either the yellow or the orange as the accent. Now, to get that early-Deconess, you start playing with lightness and saturation, in different directions. For instance, lighten the yellow to pale custard; deepen and desaturate the orange to a sort of burnt persimmon, and push the saturation to create a bright electric indigo. The results would be unmistakable but may be alarming.

A trick from that era was to paint the frame and the undersides of the fenders a light or bright colour. I suppose that was both a bit of designer daring and an automotive white collar, implying that you can afford to have the undersides of your car's fenders cleaned regularly.

The '50s turned up its own brand of unexpectedness, especially if you bring in tinted silvers derived from the look of aircraft finishes. Three-tones were a definite thing: chrome trim dividing the body into two colours, and the roof in a third colour. A simple formula for that would be one dark, sober colour; one silvery metallic; and one bright colour.

Very much within the '50s aesthetic is the series of Daimlers which Sir Bernard Docker, owner of the company at the time, commissioned Hooper to body. One thing Hooper did, which I feel wasn't adequately explored by others, was to use patterns, like tiny stars on a grid, in place of one of the colours in the scheme. The possibilities are endless, and if you're embracing full-blown Googie, it'd fit right in. Think wallpaper: easy to do in the age of car wrapping.

Then there were regional peculiarities. There was a thing in Germany in the '20s and '30s of fenders and everything above the body reveal in black, as on the '33/'34 in post 20, with the hood sides and body sides in bright yellow. Sometimes the wheels and other details would also be yellow, and sometimes it wasn't yellow but another light or bright colour. But for some reason yellow defines that look.

And there is a lot more besides. My examples are just by way of, there have been approaches which seemed to defy any obvious way to do it. My advice would be, define what you're going for.

 

From an OT GMC p/u I bought new after my divorce. Loved the 2 tone paint.

 

Man, lots to finish here before dessert.

There's some color combos I never understood on the stuff I service. Picture a deep blue but the car has a red interior. Really? Perhaps along the theorizing you did above, but it tends to be a massive clash in my eyes. What shocks me more is how many think that's the most elegant color choice to make. Yeah, for an air sickness bag maybe. 2 primary colors. Here's a Deco delight I hope to pull off some day on a 30-32 Packard. Has to be a roadster, but a sport phaeton can wear it too.

Pale pastel yellow body, the belt lines and fenders a bit deeper. Not too subtle but not in-your-face bold. Maybe daffodil yellow. The chassis? Bold af, brilliant chrome yellow for under the fenders and frame. The drums would be seen thru chrome wire wheels, tires could even be blackwalls vs double whites. Interior, rawhide tan/brown. Something akin to an aged baseball glove and mottled. The pinstripe, a dirty burnt orange to compliment the leather. Tan canvas top with the same leather binding and wireon. As dainty and almost ladylike as it sounds it would be a 1st round knockout once debuted at your favorite concours event. Bold, a statement, soft but LOUD, and absolutely unforgettable. I can see it in my mind as if I was looking at the real thing. I think a 30 Packard 740 roadster is the perfect canvas. Comments and criticism welcomed.

 

Just to shake things up a bit. 1930 Ruxton Model A sedan.

 

I found this configurator while daydreaming about my 55 basket case one day. It's kinda cool being able to see what was possible with the Buicks in 55.
https://www.hometownbuick.com/content/configurator/1955/72/index/

 

You can spend a lot of time searching thru all the '50s Buick info on that site.

https://www.hometownbuick.com/

That's a great tool for sorting out two and three tone paint jobs for a lot of different '50s cars, not just '56 Buicks. Though I'd guess that Buick wouldn't paint your new car in some of the more unusual color combinations you can create online. It's not surprising that a lot of body shop painters were heavy drinkers back then.

 

very fun!

 

Best looking car of this bunch, IMO, is the Stude Hawk.

 

Yeah, I hate that. Looks stupid...

 

Ruxton Model A sedan?

I love the car, the paint job,not so much! HRP

 

I tend to paint cars how I like them, if other's do too, great, if not, no big deal seeing I paid for it.

 

^^^^^^ that’s the only rule for colors and style ^^^^^

 

I'll see your blue one and call with a grey one...
Did this one back in '14. This paint theme was concocted by a stage architect, Josef Urban, with the intent of accentuating the long low profile compared to the industry standards of the time. Not a great car, next to an L-29 Cord these things look like a shop class project. Said what I said, I've seen every aspect from bare chassis to what you see here. No thanks. Although it does look pretty kool in an odd sort of way.

 

Obviously the weird colors & style is a stock feature of this Model Ruxton. HRP

 

some done by painter that has a hard time seeing colors