Here's a link to another cool on-line color selection tool: http://www.colorpicker.com/ To use it, pick your favorite color on the vertical spectrum on the right side. Then move the cursor around in the box to fine-tune your choice. Upper left adds white to make pastels (like mid '50's factory colors), while lower right adds black to make jewel-tones.
Yes Dave....the tr6 french blue was one outstanding color on those cars...I had 2 big black healey's(one was the big 3 carb one) , a gold mgb, and a choclate brown TR6. My friend has just about convinced me to paint the car a bright color....I still think that the car can handle a classic subdued color like the metallic green on the new outbacks. I still love the blues....the avatar I have was a very nice car...sold it about a month ago...everyone loved that blue....my corvette is dark blue....so blue is out for the 49 fleetline I guess.
It seems that every time I write one of these things, I have a flurry of afterthoughts, and this time is no exception. CHANGING TASTES It seems that car colors go in and out of popularity all the time. I'm particularly conscious of these: YELLOW -- During the time that I was first paying attention to car stuff, the Bean Bandits and the Mooneyes drag racing cars were always painted bright yellow. In later days, the GBP dragster and Jim Hall's Chaparral/Pennzoil Indy cars were yellow too. I had several friends who painted their hot rods yellow, and it seemed a popular color for new convertibles from Detroit. What happened? I still think yellow cars look terrific, and Dean Lowe put his money where his mouth was, but the color has almost vanished from the enthusiast scene. GREEN -- By contrast, NOBODY painted his car green when I was a kid. In American roundy-round racing it was believed to be a jinx color, so no race cars were green (Brits were apparently unaware of the danger). Wimpy Grandma greens were available as factory colors, but they didn't seem popular among young people. Today, you can't walk ten feet at a car show without bumping into a green custom or hot rod. I'm certainly guilty; I love the color now, have 2 green cars and a green house, and probably haven't finished yet. RED -- Long a staple color with hot rodders, it seems that red has continued its popularity with lots of people. Worldwide, it has different significance in various countries. It's the national racing color of Italy, so Ferrari F1 and sports racing cars have been red since the beginning. In England and Japan, you almost never see red passenger cars on the road, because those colors are reserved for Her Majesty's Post and taxicabs, respectively. It does seem to be the color of choice for a lot of guys returning to the hot rod scene in middle age. BLACK -- In the formative days of hot rodding, I guess a lot of cars were black just because a lot of Fords were made that way. But the color has always had a coolness or menace to it, and for as long as I can remember, a shiny black car looked threatening. Remember the bad guys' Charger in Bullitt? It's also the color of funeral cars, secret service vehicles, and diplomats' limos. The truth is that most cars look great in shiny black, whether the purpose is elegance or stealth, so lots of us will probably continue to drive 'em. SILVER and all those pale metallic colors that are Almost -- one good reason for these is that they don't show dirt very much. Another is that they generally show off the shape of the car pretty well. Although silver has become one of the most popular colors for new cars, it's still pretty uncommon among hot rods and customs. Maybe they don't want to be mistaken for Porsches. Can you recall car shows in the '70s and '80s when half the cars were painted in pastel blues and bright primary colors? I guy I knew said it looked like Walt Disney had thrown up. Actually, I think a lot of those colors are pretty nice, and work well on a car that has an appropriate amount of chrome details. It was the vat-dipped monochromatic look that made them so awful 30 years ago. A couple of people mentioned Titian Red and Bahama Blue, both of which were GM factory metallic colors in the mid-'50s. They were both great colors, and car people repainted their rides in those two colors all over the West Coast, at least. I mentioned a little earlier that I couldn't recall any other factory colors that had caught on among rod & custom people to the same degree, except maybe Guards Red. Did I miss any Greatest Hits? I'm not gonna talk about the growth in popularity of suede paint. Of course it hides bad bodywork, almost anybody can spray it, and you can paint your car for a lot less money than a good gloss paint job costs, but come on. Those are all acceptable reasons for having your car in primer TEMPORARILY, but does anybody really believe that the car is better looking that way? I'm kind of amazed to see high end imports in flat paint these days -- I guess it's like a Beverly Hills attorney wearing his baseball cap backwards. OK, I'm done. I guess I had fewer additional thoughts than I imagined. Thanks again for your comments; it's fun for me to read them.
This is interesting as my current color choices are Green, Dark Blue, and Silver...in that order. Leaning heavily for the Green. Good timing 50.
The older I get the more conservative I get - if I want a car painted, timeless is the first criterion. The color should look as good and non dated in twenty years as the day it was first painted. Black can often kill the lines of a car and tends to dull shapes, but then again it can work on certain cars that have killer styling and mucho brightwork. I have spent three years trying to pick a color for my current rebuild and I have looked at just about every modern car color in the red spectrum - not bright red, but everything from cherry thru burgundy, maroon to black cherry and back. I do not want a metallic as this is a resto build and I am so glad I took the time to settle on what could be an eye popping but period feeling red. Having found close to the right shade on Peter Mullin's Delahaye 165, when looking closely, it had a whitish side cast - kinda milky and the car was painted a custom mix from a 1980s production color with some of the black removed from the formula. I have been fortunate enough to inspect this piece of art on wheels minutely. We cleaned the color up with pure toners and the result will be a stunning rich cranberry red, with no cloudiness and a strong color shift just from the toner, according to light conditions. It looks different according to the weather and time of day, but even on a cloudy day it pops. Metallics date too quickly for me and do not age well so I am inclined to shy away from them. Color and stance are the two most important factors that can make or break a car....
out of curiosity anyone know the name of the lime green color used on the mopars in the 60's,70's?[/QUOTE] There were two colors of a very bright green, and 4 names, the lighter/brighter yellowier(!?) was Sublime on a Dodge, Limelight on a Plymouth, and there was a greener shade (kinda the color of a granny Smith apple) called Green Go on a Dodge and Sassygrass on a Plymouth, (I may have the name order bass-ackwards for the darker shade). 50Fraud, this is a great subject, I am at the very beginning build stages of a late 50's style Model A RPU, and already beginning the color selection process as I put the car together in my head. Thanks.
So as a young guy who wasn't there, let me ask you older fellas and scholars of tradition a few questions. Maroon shades seem to have been a popular alternative to black on early customs, but in the early and mid 50's a lot of mild customs seem to have retained Factory colors or very subdued tones, until the late 50's when Watson and all of the wilder paint started coming alive. In the latter half of the decade were guys still doing mild customs with subdued tones or were most "hip" cars really extravagant in paint choice and style. Not just magazine cars mind you but the average younger guy rolling into the burger joint on Friday.
The thing trhat surprises me is that people will put colors on their hot rods & customs that they'd never put on their daily driver. Even more so with street rods... Some time in the early '90s I went to a big show. And in a sea of pastels, truely horrific color combinations and graphics there was one '33/34 coupe in non metalic gray. Steelies, hubcaps, fenders. A nice no frills Hot Rod. To me it was stunning in its understated simplicity. I like greens. Dark metalics and non metalics, and really light metalics ( Porsche has some great ones...) I love the grayish green metallic that they used on '60s Grand Prix BRM racecars. And according to a modelling website, there is a '80s Maserati color that is a good match to that. I dont like yellows or beige's, but funny enough I do like some browns. McQueen had a Ferrari in dark brown. ( seems to me it takes big balls to order a brand new Ferrari in brown, but I'm glad he did. That car looks fantastic in it ) Some cars just need to be red ( some of mine are, and I couldnt even imagine them in anything else ) I never gave much thought to white, but I own two that are white right now. ( a white latemodel truck because its a practical no frills color that makes sense in a hot climate, and a project car that I just painted in that same white with a very dark blue to set it off ) And I've had a couple of black cars. Some cars just need to be black...
IMO consumer research should be taken with a grain of salt. These generalizations may hold true over a large statistical sample, but there are certainly many exceptions to these rules. For example, I own a green car, a red car, and a black car. I haven't noticed that my confidence or my driving speed changes noticeably among those several colors -- in fact, my last three speeding tickets were in the red one. Absolutely. Awning striped Ruxtons, or cars with broad sides covered with Tattersall checks or woven cane. That stuff all seems to have vanished now, although I remember Inspector Clouseau driving a cane-sided Mini in one of the Pink Panther movies. Re-reading what I wrote before, it sounded dismissive, and for that I apologize. What I should have said is that, for me, color choice can be one of the great satisfactions that come from building a customized car. I agree completely with what you've said above, and would absolutely prefer to choose a color that suits the car, its purpose, and my taste. Never mind what's "correct"! This sounds exciting. What's the car on which you'll use this red? My sense is that postwar and early '50s customs from the major shops -- Barris, Ayala, and those guys -- were usually dark shades of blue, green, maroon, purple, or black. All pretty somber. The use of factory colors on mild customs in the mid-'50s (Titian Red and Bahama Blue again) was probably as much an economic choice as anything, plus the mild customs didn't have the sinister vibe that the earlier radical customs preferred. The wild candies and flakes that came into use in the late '50s were pretty spendy paint jobs, and probably used more on cars that were shown than the ones you'd see in the high school parking lot. That car really was a stunner. Incredibly, the guy that bought it at auction for over $1 Mil had it repainted red. WTF???
Hopefully that mistake will be corrected by its next custodian. Talking about odd repaints on vintage Ferrari's, I saw a British collector on Top Gear who had a slew of white ones. Miami Vice overkill, in the worst possible way...
While reading the above post by 50Fraud, Fraud mentions about getting 3 tickets while driving a red car. When I read that, it brought back memories of back in the early 70s of how my Dad always used to tell me never drive a red car because they are ticket bait. I did own 1 red car in the late 90s, a Camaro Z28. I never got a ticket though and I once got up to 130 m.p.h. on the way to Vegas. He always used to tell me to get a old car and paint it Cordovan Maroon.
Great thread lads. The mass produced cars and colours they wear today are directed to the female market. Apparantly they make the decisions in the majority of vehicle purchases where of course the 'Colour' is paramount..... therefore conservative. The only good,(or fresh) new colours are in the small car market aimed at 'young' women..watch out for the little toyotas and mazdas you wont miss them. So there you go another good reason not to take the wife or girlfriend to buy a car as most of the time the only coment you will get is....."I don't like the colour''. Those marketing people know there stuff. After 40 years of looking at and painting cars and bikes and deciding on colour the best method I have found is to "Wait for the car or bike tell you" This usually comes at some stage of the build in a quiet moment of reflection. And most importantly paint it for you not your mates.
The Theory of the Red car attracts the crabs works in Australia as well, thats unreal, and we dive on the other side of the road upside down!
I got hasseled in the bright cars from my past, 2 orange and 1 red. The red one was Guards Red, the other 2 were Poppy Red (Calypso Coral) and Hugger Orange. The Hugger Orange car had a white conv top, a double hit for a 19yr old. The most "serious" of my bright cars never got any grief when it went orange, in fact it started out Acapulco Blue. I had way more grief from the law in blue with that one. Coincidence? Nope. No matter what color, sometimes the law just has to give you as much trouble as they can, sometimes we drive with such enthusiasm we earned that grief. Some of my gamesmanship woulda been noticed in flat black at night! I really am enjoying this topic. Also, no apoplgies needed 50. Sometimes my ideas don't read in print like they do in my head (!). And about greens, my favorite too. My "big project" is slated for Kandy Organic Green. Eve though you're right about it's recent popularity it's variable enough to stand on it's own depending on how it's applied. That application needs to be as defining as the color itself. There's and infinite number of bases and colors that could be used. Fine, coarse, flake, pearl, silver, gold, green, black...
The most important aspect of creating a color authentic to a certain time is to stick closely to the technology that was available then. Unfortunately a lot of that technology is no longer available when it comes to metallic colors. In the 50's and 60's there were maybe 5 or 6 aluminum pigments to chose from varying mainly in particle size and no pearls ( in factory paint ). Also the aluminum pigment back then was not as bright and clean making matching those colors in modern base coat clear coat difficult. A few weeks ago I had to match mid 60's Pontiac Tiger Gold in base clear and was supplied a quart of factory package lacquer from the 60's for comparison. Although getting the color was fairly easy getting the "look" of the flake was impossible. By using the correct size flake I could not get the dark flop travel of the original lacquer, and the flake that did travel correctly was too coarse and bright so it ended up being a compromise. The average person wouldn't notice it but those who remember what those colors were like would. I painted my 63 Impala in 1985 with RM lacquer and it perfectly matches the original paint still in the jambs.
Nice 63 and good choice going with Lacquer. For all the baloney about "Tradition", this H.A.M.Burger stand is so "pro-alternator" and "anti-lacquer" So whenever someone uses lacquer on their old GMs, it makes me happy because that's O.G.
I read a study on how Pantone, the leading supplier or printing inks, etc, determine future color popularity. It seem that they could predict, two years in advance, what colors would be in wide use. Their extensive studies found that a color that would be popular in the near future was directly related to the color or underwear that women were wearing presently. I'm not certain if this remains true today, but researching it might be great fun!
I miss color-matched interiors. Late 50's pontiacs had the most extravagantly colored interiors i've ever seen. Tri-colored metalic vinyls. My dad's 69 Firebird was in a slightly dark blue (one of the best GM blues imo) with a perfectly matching blue metallic interior. I blame the japanese for introducing tan and grey interiors.
I saw a late model lexus the other day that was in a very dark purple. The clearcoat was peeling off the bumper, so the satin basecoat was exposed. It was one of the most beautiful purples i've ever seen. Being in satin, it glowed brilliantly like a pearl. Outstanding color.
For some reason lately I have been thinking of painting my 34 5 window a 50's salmon (yeah pink, I know) or seafoam green color. I know it sounds weird but I think they might both be awesome. Wheel tire/interior has to be right to pull it off though.
If you are beside yourself picking a color for your car, having a Photoshop fluent friend can be a big help. I agonized for a year on what color to paint mine. First Antifreeze Green, then red, then deep wine red, then purple, then back to green. I actually stopped talking about it because I felt like someone who couldn't actually make up their mind! So I did photo versions of the car in about everything imaginable. As of today, I've settled on an orange with pearl and white trim. What really helped me with a decision was a question I asked myself. The question was... "what sort of character do you want in this car?" The answer was... "FUN". I always liked orange cars and it looks like fun to me. A hint to those who have a hard time picking a color. Research high performance sports cars on the internet. There are some fantastic colors that you don't see everyday on these cars. The orange I picked is from an Audi R8. Here's a set of pictures I used as a help.
Yes, and I just did a bunch of searching on this one. You may recall several high-profile magazine cars in the fifties referred to in the mags as being painted "Goldenrod Yellow"? We just had a little discussion about this in one of the social groups, and alot of guys thought it was just a generic term for a pale yellow. I had done some digging and was almost ready to agree with that, but after a couple months of digging in my spare time, I finally found it on a '54 Ford paint chip sheet. So you can add that one to the list of great, fifties, period-correct hot rod colors. Oh yes, and lets not forget Omaha Orange, popular fifties hot rod color, IH fleet color, and original Max Wedge engine paint.
A stark, refrigerator White with a med. blue interior can REALLY pop, especially on a sixties car. Thats how I am doing my o/t '66 Chevy II.
Bobert"s Olds was done in a solid gray and the sun can play off a solid color as well as a pearl or metallic. You can have some great results with solid colors.[/QUOTE] A pic of the Olds with trim and in a little different light. It's nonmetallic single stage conservative gray. I'm happy with it.
Perfect subject as I am working on finding the right combination of colors for a customer's car. The guy fell in love with D'Agostino's gold 61 Olds, so he went out and bought one. Brought it to me, but I didn't want to copy another car exactly..he is even using BUick Skylark wires, and wide whites, just like D'Agostino. Couldn't talk him into two toning it with Candy Red, Dark Candy Green, or Candy Rootbeer. But I am going to two tone it in a more subtle way. Here on a sign blank I painted the body color, which is Candy Pagan Gold over straight Orion silver. That is top left. Top right, I put the gold over a staight Solar Gold base. I felt it was a bit too dark, perhaps a bit too orange-y as well. SO I mixed 2 part silver to 1 part gold for a base, that is bottom left. Still too much contrast, and most of the orange went away. Next, bottom right, I mixed about 1 part Galaxy Grey with 2 parts Orion silver as the base. Still a bit too dark, but this is the direction I want to go, perhaps a bit light, 4-1 or so, but keeping the Pagan gold the same tone, just a few shades darker on the roof and inside the body cove. This is the trouble you can go through with custom paint, even when you've got the color picked out!
I think Pontiac really had it goin' on in the early '60s. I remember two '60 Pontiac 2-tone schemes that I thought were knockouts: one was a silver top with a metallic charcoal body, and the other was a gold top on a metallic brown body. Beautiful! Pontiac also had the all-time greatest ad artists working on their account during these years (Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman), the best of GM styling (at least '60-'65, IMO), and the sophisticated interiors you mentioned. John DeLorean was the big gun at Pontiac throughout the '60s; I wonder if he was the architect of all that good work. I miss Pontiac; I think they were great cars during that era. Not exactly seafoam, but this '34 knocks me out. You could sure do worse than choosing a color like this (Ford called it Cloud Mist Grey): That's a great set of color studies, and I think the one you chose IS the most fun of the bunch. I don't think it needs the scallops, though. I do remember the term Goldenrod Yellow, and didn't realize it was a Ford color. Thanks for that! Very nice. Looks rich. I hope you plan to use these two colors immediately adjacent to each other. My experience is that when you use two close shades but separate them by any distance, as on roof and body, you can't tell that they really are different colors. A few years ago, Mercedes or Lexus did a sedan that was off-white on top & warm grey on the bottom, broken by a crease in the body side. I must have looked at them 20 times before I was satisfied that they actually were 2 colors, and not just a shadow on the white.
Does any one think they worry and stress more about picking a color because the paint is no expensive? Would more people be willing to try something more adventurous if paint was cheaper?
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