Hey guys it wont be that awful long untill i can get the 57 ready for paint. Once i get the new doors and get them changed and also get the floor pans and weld them in ill be ready to do bodywork and paint. (oh yeah still gotta work on the quarterpanels some). But I want to have a paintjob that will cover some of the (door gaps and stuff) because i know on this car the quarters wont 100% align with the doors and ect. I want it to be a nice looking car but not a show car i still want to be able to run and drive it! Thats what hotrods are for! Ok my problem is that I want a color to beable to hide some of the bodywork my buddy and I do. We are goign to do the bodywork and pain on this car. (he works at a bodyshop doing heavy equiptment and bigrigs and everything). So I was thinking maybe paint the car white with blue ghoast flames? Does anyone have a pictue of what this would look like? Any ideas? For rims im goign to run older corvette chevy rallywheels. I also am installign a bbc 396 in this car with fenderwell headers. I was wodnering what my car would look like white with blue ghoast flames. Also if you guys have anyother sugestions on wat to paint it pelase let me know or make a picture of it done or soemthing for me to see. I am very open to opinions! I just dont want to have a color liek black that shows 100% of any mistakes that you did doing bodywork or showing the door gaps or anything. I thaught about primerign it and runnign it but then it would look to plain jane. Please let me know what i should do! thanks, jimmy
Nearly any light color paint will "hide" most bad bodywork...and nearly any dark color will highlight all bad bodywork...and shiny paint will highlight most every imperfection. Flat color (primer) will hide most bodywork...again, the lite and dark colors come into play here as well...flames on primer is accepted today. If your pal is a body man, then it shouldn't be that hard for him to get the panels straight, with your help of course, before applying the shiny paint... FWIW, it's your car, do what you feel you'd like...opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one! R-
From one friend to another, make sure the car has decent bodywork before you lay paint. If you don't, it will always look like crap - and it won't matter what color or what paint design you go with. my .02
Okay, you asked for it. I HATE ghost flames and I really dislike most white cars. How about flattened Milner yellow? Or just about everything looks good in dark gray primer. What kind of '57 Chevy is this going to be anyway? '60s hot rod? Custom? Cruiser? To me fenderwell headers and rallye wheels seem to be opposite directions. Fenderwell headers and a mag/chrome reverse combo makes sense, especially for the '60s rod look. Rallye wheels are very much a "cruiser" look and look best... well on the cars that had them from the factory.
Like 40studedude said,lighter colors will not show the body work as much,but I would still try to get it as straight as you can.I have never been a big fan of white on anything older than the 60's,but yellow or orange always looks good on those cars. I would stay away from any trendy colors or ghost flames (or any flames for that matter) Just my 2 dineros....
Hey I was wondering can you guys post some pictures of some paintjobs to let me see what some of them would look like? also the car will be pretty damn streight thats not the problem but the doors are in from the quarters a little and even with the rockerpanels. So the thing im trying to say is that i want a color that wont show the door gaps and thoes little mismatches out so badly. I am going to install different doors and hopefully that will help out in how the doors fit the quarters and rockers. thanks, jimmy
This is the only photo of a '57 I have handy. It probably isn't much help because it's exactly how I'd build one if I had it... stock but with a 4-speed and a 348 tripower. Maybe somebody can photoshop it a bit for you.
I've always liked them with a more subtle paint job. But who cares what I like. Get the body right and paint it the way you really want it, I know if I had a 57 anything, I'd do everything I could to get it looking good. Check out the gasser thread and look at the pics there, search google images for 57 chevy, figure out what style you like best and compare them. My opinon is that cars with mixed styles look horrible. I.E. flat black and red on an 80's mercedes (seen on here somewhere) also, remember that light colors will show off body gaps like the doors and such.
Yellow with a white top would look nice. If you've never seen the movie Hollywood Knights (I think that's what it's called) rent or buy it and check that one out. I'm doing a '57 right now. It's white with peeling back old paint and a set of Fenton Hawk wheels, I kinda like it the way it is. Here's a pic. And as far as your door gaps go, don't give up on them yet. First, see how your new doors look when you get them. If your old ones were that fucked up, it's possible that good used ones will fit well with good gaps. From what you were describing, I think when the rear quarter panels were installed, they overlapped the "hem" on the edge into the door jamb opening. You now have double thick steel on that edge where the back of the door meets the quarter panel, resulting in a tight, uneven gap. If that's true, you should be able to cut or grind that hem off of the quarter panel, re-weld the quarters on the outside edge, and restore your correct door gaps. Does that make sense? There's nothing on that car that you can't fix. My car is a four door right now but I've got the pieces to make it a two door sedan, and I'm not the least bit concerned with getting the door gaps right, it's all about patience and re-doing things until they're correct. Here's a link to another sedan that I'm doing the same way http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78120 (I just love showing that thread to people)
Robin's egg blue, like all the rest of them... don't forget the Conti kit! The only really good looking paint job I saw on a '57 Chevy was in a book about Roth, it was black with gold scallops outlined in red. They also shaved off all of the "bling".
The BEST flame job on a 57 that I have ever seen was on a show Nomad from the 'sixties. It was brown with gold flames, the car had Buick Skylark wires on it. There was a pic of it in TRJ a while back. The car was also used as a pic on a Revell or MPC kit instructions. They were sort of crab-claw/seeweed style and followed the trim line down the body. They looked incredible, and that will be the style I am going to go with when my hardtop gets repainted the next time. Last paint that was on the car was black with a blue pearl topcoat, and heavy silver pearl/metallic flames, and this will probably be the color scheme I will follow again. It looked good IMHO Anyone got pics of that Nomad????
In my opinion, the best color to hide stuff is silver. Use the hi-metallic stuff like on rally wheels and some cars. Also the more stripes and swirls and crap you put on the harder it is for your eyes to focus on bad gaps. Now ,my advice is work at the convience store down the street on Sunday mornings making the donuts and emptying the trash,then hire someone to make the gaps and body straight.
You can't go wrong with red and white on a chevy. It is just a rule you can't avoid. Wish I had a 57. Gabe
yeah we progressed more on the bodywork on the 57 today wtih a board sander and well the car is slowly startign to shapen up. friday all day from 7am-whenever my buddy will be here with me and we are goign to work on the car as much as possable and see what we can make of her. Also as we work the garage keeps gettign more dustier and dustier. Kinda sucks how much dust is on everything else in there already.. Well ill keep you guys updated and ill get some picutres soon! thanks, jimmy PS The quarters in the end (if i used the doors on the car what im not) they would be 1/8 inch out from the doors themselfs. too give you guys a idea what im talking about. but yeah the car is startign to shapen up alot.
One of the coolest cars in town when I was a kid (65-66) was a 57-150 2dr post painted 57 Pontiac Limefire green with green tinted windows and a roll bar. It was also jacked up a little with Cragars, 327-4spd.
Ghost flames and rally wheels would give the car an '80s style look. Not so traditional, kinda "streetrody".
I already replied, but I didn't give an opinion. I like solid colors on drag-oriented '55-57s. That sounds like your direction when you mention fenderwell headers. So this red '57 pretty much nails the look, even though it's only about 8" long: http://www.gassermadness.com/modelers/gassers/pen4/
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