Projects Tony Miller's Custom 40 Ford Convertible

Man o' man I cannot believe I missed this thread before. The car, and the talent being used to create it are both incredible. Simply stunning.

Since the discussion is back on color, I will add an unsolicited thought on the subject. Several times you have made reference to a more "look at me" color to draw attention. I think this, and only my opinion of course, is totally backwards.

This car in my mind long since p***ed the line from custom car, to coach built car. I think there is a difference. The entire vibe of this car isn't that someone looked at a 40' coupe and said lets slice and dice - it is more as if Edsel or William Clay Ford took a running ch***is from their product to a coachbuilder and said "create something that has the "soul" of our product, but the elegance that I am looking for as my personal country club driver.

Taking that to the subject of color, it seems it should be something with period elegance. The polar opposite of "look at me". The elegance of your ideas and Don's craftsmanship are going to stop people in their tracks no matter what color it is. So it just seems that going too in your face with color says "custom", which might be a dis-service to the car.

I'm not sure what the color is . . . I'd be looking at high end coachbuilt cars (both American & European) from the 30-40's for inspiration.

I can't wait for the final top to be built. I know you have done some studies with tubing and tape, but have you considered putting a block of foam on the car, and carving and sanding until you are happy with the shape. Blue art foam is cheap. I have successfully used it in similar situations - even building two or three different studies that can be interchanged - then the chosen one used to template the final parts.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I'll try to explain myself a little more completely.

I need to take exception to the notion that this is a coachbuilt car rather than a customized '40. I enjoy taking cars that are pretty good looking to start with, and giving them a little tune-up to fix minor flaws in their shape. This one started purely as an exercise to fix the '40 convertible top, and has since grown into something else, but it's still in my mind a '40 Ford with some adjustments. The grille, taillights, shaved deck and rubber rake are just the '50s hot rod kid in me acting up.

It's been clear in my imagination from the start that the car would look great in a very dark metallic grey, call it charcoal or anthracite or gunmetal. I'm equally sure that the right shade of tan top would look exactly right to me, over that grey paint. My biggest reason for turning away from that choice is the tremendous popularity of this kind of grey on every other stock vehicle I see on the road these days -- I want something that's more distinctive, just as the car will be distinctly different in detail from other '40 Fords.

The charcoal green on the Edsel Speedster would be ideal on many levels: it's a real Edsel Ford color, it's very close to the grey I first imagined, and it's unique. Its only negative is that the color does not photograph well. It's beautiful and subtle in person, but it just looks like another grey in most photographs.

The "Look at Me" thing is like a devil on my shoulder. I can judge for myself which colors would look good on the car, and because my taste is fairly conservative, my color choices are generally understated. But there is that exhibitionist devil who steps up occasionally, and is irritated when my car goes unnoticed. That guy is the one who keeps insisting that something more colorful is needed.

As you can see from the colors I posted above, my version of "look at me" is still pretty quiet -- no candy red or deep purple or bright yellow for this car. I'm confident that I'll get it right in the end; I may just have to go through some more exercises to get there.

About the top: I've never planned or built a padded top before, and neither has Don, so we're kinda making it up as we go along. However we mock it up, whether it's tubing and tape or sculptural foam, the thing that we will have to build as the armature or framework for the final shape needs to be undersized by about an inch all over. It will eventually be covered by padding and fabric which will "inflate" the shape a bit overall. It's also imperative that we get the geometry of the rollup windows defined, since they will dictate the shape of the opening and the tracks into which they must slide.

Again, I'm confident that we'll figure it out. Thanks again for the comments.

 

This . I agree with your sentiment that people should notice this car. Many of the high end cars on the lawn at Pebble Beach are Black or Dark Navy Blue or Red. However some are bright pastel colours as well.
For my money, the colour above on the Caddy would justly show off the design and give you the best bang-per-buck .It would photograph well. It shows off the curves,is a bit racy and yet remains cl***y not cheap!

Thats my .02.... PB

 

^^^More than a couple of us have been sayin' that all along...Don did a test shot, it's a late model Ford truck color...but it's only a test.

 

Far be it from me to give you advice on your builds, because you and DRD are so far beyond my skill set it's laughable, but I tend to agree with Markboat. Let me explain why:

A light or medium color will look tastefully understated. It will accentuate and emphasize the body mods to the few who can identify them.
A bright, dark, or metallic color will hide or camouflage all of that hard, tastefully done work. The amount of work and how well it's executed stands on it's own. It doesn't need a "look at me" color, it needs a "look at how incredible all these mods are done with tasteful restraint" color.

The car stands on it's own. It doesn't warrant a loud or flashy color. A subtle, cl***y earth tone (light to medium) would fit this car best in my opinion. Colors that take away from the overall build will make people ask if it's fibergl***, where they can buy a kit car like yours, or "nice street rod" comments. At that point you may as well add 24" bullets. The car deserves a better fate than that. Again, just my opinion and that ain't worth much!

My '27 T Roadster build: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t= 734383

 

I rarely comment on custom builds because I tend to be a bit harsh in my opinions of the styling; few manage to successfully integrate changes into the overall shape of the car, with most looking like obvious modifications (and I include most 'famous' cars in this category). Add in the current sheep-like worship of 'trad' parts whether or not they 'fit' the car and it's no wonder that many customs don't quite look 'right'.

Not the case here; this car is right and in all the details too, which sets it far apart from the crowd. I am particularly impressed with the scratch-built grill and the effort you put into the rear fender mods to 'set' the taillights 'right', although by no means is my admiration limited to those. And it's definitely a custom, I'd never mistake this for a coach-built car which IMO generally look too sterile.

With that said, my opinion on color. I'm fully onboard with the 'look at me' idea but agree that anything that even hints of garishness would be out of place. I somewhat like the green on the Charger, but this car needs a paint that looks rich and has depth. Not a fan of earth tones or lighter colors, I think those colors would de-emphasize the body mods in a negative way and make it look two-dimensional. And a 'subtle' color would tend to give a bit of a 'coach-built' vibe. A 'jewel' color like a deep, dark jade green or sapphire blue with depth (I see a near-candy type paint but not quite that far) would make the car's lines stand out and make the trim and wheels 'pop' without being eye-searing. In any case, rich and depth should be the primary criteria for selecting color. Just my opinion, but food for thought...

Fabulous build.....

 

I have to say I love the cream color you posted as well. I have always wanted to see a custom done in Packard Cream with a red interior. I think it would look killer.

 

Hey Tony,

Since ya asked........................To me, nothing dates a build like a custom colour choice When I look back on the cars I painted for guys thirty years ago, the teals & metalic greys & those ugly ***ed magentas, with splash graphfics, I feel like a ***** in church for ever having been a party to such, but that was 1983 When I look at some of the big money kustoms built in the last fifteen years, with selections made off the HOK or Chroma lines I ask, who but a doorman for a bordelo would be seen drivin' something painted that colour?

The thing I've always enjoyed about your builds is the sober, tasteful colour choices- no clown show colours necessary! The number of mods made to your fourty will be quite hard to miss to all but the clueless, and for them, a piece of foil on a string should answer for it.

I'd look at the Cadillac "Firemist'' colours from the sixties & early seventies for colour choices you'll probably not pull up next to at a traffic light or a show.

" Picture all experts as if they were mammals ''

 

I just saw this car online and I think it's cool for some inspiration. I'm guessing a '37-38 Ford, but don't really know. I personally like more of a bare metal, derelict look if the patina is in that right condition.

However, the Edsel charcoal green you mentioned, I think that would go really, really well on your car.

 

That car is a phantom '37 Ford 3-window (which don't exist), but it's FIBERGL***! All the patina, including pockmarked rust, is fake.

I actually love that car, but if I had built it I would have done it in a nice glossy paint finish.

 

Tony. Looking at the tentative hood side trim, I wonder if you have considered having the leading edge mirroring the hood whiskers (inverted speedboat) rather than an arrow point? The built is fantastic and I hope to be in CA when it is finished and shown (GNRS???) Keith

 

The last several posts have actually been food for thought. Several things come to mind:

About coachbuilt cars -- the most remarkable thing about their colors is that they are unremarkable. Black, blue, maroon, cream. The French (Saoutchik, Chapron, Figoni) liked two tone blue or green, blue with silver, blue with cream. I think one or two Figoni Talbots were done in some shade of purple, but for the most part they were painted pretty much like ordinary cars.

Light and medium-value colors, and especially FLAT light and medium colors, do reveal the shape of the car most clearly. The light falling on the car's surface is not reflected or diffused by highlights or reflections, so every detail is clearly visible.

Glossy, dark paint produces sharp reflections which can camouflage surface detail like creases or vents, and of course those same reflections show bad and uneven surfaces plainly. Metallic colors ****ter light, making highlights go fuzzy and diffuse rather than sharp.

My car, like any '40 Ford, is really a pretty simple shape. It's basically a soft-edged brick with a waterfall trunk and a pointy nose, with some teardrop fenders tacked on. There's only one "design line" (or crease, or reveal), which runs from near the nose rearward until it defines the edge of the trunk lid. Compare that with almost any '60s car, which have lots of sculptural detail and surface embellishment along the sides -- those features are what gave Larry Watson a reason to live!

The customizing on my car has relatively little to do with sculptural form. No additional features have been added; the changes have instead been in the proportions and relationships of the various body details. ***uming that Don is successful in "fairing" all of the surfaces so they are similar to the stock forms, there really isn't all that much about the car's shape that I need to worry about, paint-wise.

One exception to what I just wrote is that any dark colored car, if photographed on a sunny day, can turn into a black hole. Unless the photographer is careful with the lighting on the car, the details of the surface can just disappear in the photographic image. For this reason particularly, I like medium-value colors like the grey-green on the '56 in my avatar.

Metallics? I just like 'em. They were relatively new, up-to-the-minute finishes when I was a kid in the '50s, so they just seemed preferable to me over non-metallic colors. They also do help to disguise surface imperfections in the bodywork that a glossy, non-metallic color will reveal clearly.

Okay, none of that was really profound or important, but the comments on this page had me recalling all of that stuff from past experience.

 

There is much controversy here on car colors but for over all colors, Henry Ford seems to have got it correct: Any color, as long as it is BLACK..........

 

That's a neat idea, Keith, and it hadn't occurred to me. Our current plan is to use repop '39 Ford side trim, with has a peak in its cross-section and does come to an arrow point. I'm not sure if it's possible to modify the end, but we can take a look.

If it does get to the GNRS, I'm afraid it will be in 2016. NO chance for next year, and I think '15 would be a stretch for us.

Black is cool, and I think the car would look great in black. The reason I wouldn't do it is that the Jilek car is black, and that's the car mine will be most obviously compared with.

 

I've gone right off that bronze.

 

Maybe consider 1967-ONLY Corvette "Lyndale" blue? Always been a beautiful, subdued metalic for me with a hint of a charcoal grey, and I don't like blues. Lovin' where this '40 is going. DD

 

That IS a nice color, and definitely in my preference range. Thanks for the tip!

 

I hear ya, 50Fraud. Maybe I could talk you into building a car like that for me one of these days.

 

I can't stop staring at this color ever since I seen it.

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Hole-eee cow!

 

Spot on! i agree on the Firemist colors!

 

That is an awesome color. It would look good on anything.....

 

Whew! That was a ride. I had heard the term Firemist, but wasn't familiar with it. I Googled it and found this post on the Cadillac Owners.com forum:

Sandy
Cadillac Owners Master
Firemist Paint Colors
Been some talk lately on this site regarding Cadillac (actually GMs) Firemist Paint ~ Just a ltttle background, here. Being a New Jersey native, I am kinda proud that Firemist Pint was invented by Englehard Industries, not far from where I was born & raised & still live. Cadillac first used it in 1964. It is a premium paint process using larger and reflective quality metallic "specks". In later years unique (not shared with Cadillac) Firemist colors werealso available at extra cost on premium Oldsmobiles, such as the Toronado & Ninety-Eight. Here is a paragraph from Englehard Industries site:-

Engelhard's Firemist pearlescent pigments, based on borosilicate, exhibit "intense sparkling and depth in a wide range of interference effects," Rochard says. "They are engineered to deliver more chroma, color purity, brightness, transparency and reflectivity." The pigments offer a spectrum of effects to work with, he says, adding that the pigment's smooth surface and large particle size convey a "brilliant, star-like glitter."

"" Rochard says that when various grades of Firemist pigments are blended, individual colors show through due to the pigments' transparency and chroma, which counter the addition effects that "gray-out" normal pearls. The Firemist pigments can enhance the appearance of depth in coatings because the borosilicate flakes promote light penetration, he says. ""

Firemist™ Pigments
Firemist™ pigments are made from discs of calcium, sodium and borosilicate, and produce truer colours, a more intense shine, better transparency and reflection than traditional pearl lustre pigments (particle size 5-300 µm).

Firemist™ is a registered trademark of Engelhard Corp., Iselin, New Jersey, USA
________________________________________________

Still not knowing quite what it meant, I Googled Engelhard Corp, and found that their pigment line had been acquired by Johnson Matthey Co., who were in turn acquired by Rockwood Pigments, who were finally acquired by BASF.

About all I had learned was that Firemist pigments were Borosilicate particles, or sometimes ***anium Dioxide, and they sounded kinda like Metalflake. So then I found a '67 Cadillac color chart, which showed a number of Firemist colors. None of them looked particularly remarkable to me, except one green (Tropic Green Firemist) which looks in pictures almost exactly like the Polo Green that's on my shoebox -- and Polo Green was a Cadillac color. I did discover that when they were offered by Cadillac they were a $167 extra-cost option over other colors.

So, I'm still not any smarter, and don't know how to tell a Firemist color from anything else. Guess I'll just keep on a-keepin' on.

 

That's a POWWWWERFUL blue. Too intense for me, though.

 

Tony, been following your '40 build and enjoying the progress being made. For my 2c on color choice, i'm so taken with the green tinted gray on Edsel's roadster. Thinking the use of this rich distinctive color would really show off the '40's round shapes and maybe the use of his interior color for a top covering would serve to enhance the green tint in the paint and strongly unify the body and top shapes. Another 2c, have you given any thought to the use of a '40 Lincoln style front bumper, that open area to show off your grille, maybe thin the bumper outer edge by "3/8 in. and use shorted bumper guards for that near stockish look. What ever you choose the resulting '40 will be outstanding, best of luck on your continued progress...DYNO DAVE

 

Firemist colors stood out when compared to other metallic paints of the time. They had more sparkle ( think of a very fine metalflake ). They could be a pain to refinish since the flake was right at the surface of the paint film and had a tendency to scale when buffed. Many painters of the time would spray a couple coats of clear lacquer over the firemist to minimize this occurance. Firemists were the GMs first attempts at producing a factory custom paint job similar to todays tri-coat and pearl finishes . Firemist colors are expensive and difficult to get mixed with todays color toners and only one or two companies have the correct material to mix these colors. As Rex stated before " nothing dates a build like a custom color " and I just can not imagine this car being built in the early 70's . Tony you have a great eye and understanding for the details necessary to produce an outstanding and timeless custom . I'm ready to say surprise us. Its what "buzz" is all about ..

 

I agree with Dadio211.Henry Ford had beautiful colors,but no matter what you pick,please,no metallic.

 

I agree, 100%. I did my 57 Chevy Bel Air post in Olds Fire Mist Cranberry , it was disappointing . It does photograph well but too gaudy in real life. Best to keep it simple , but spectacular. If Fire Mist is so great there would be more cars with it. I'm sure when the time comes, you will get it right. Good Luck.

 

The Firemist colors only show well on curves, a colorchip does not do them justice.

 

I would go with satin color. Nothing accents nice car better than satin. Gloss/metalics hide car's lines, satin doesnt'.
On my other very OT car i went with dark blue and in person it looks killer, although some people ask when i will paint it. But i live in Poland, we don't have many customs here
Just a food for thought...