Reply To: Paint Related Questions

[Jim Chase]

Being in the camp of doing colors that look best on the car versus absolutely original I cling to the usual argument that virtually the whole spectrum of colors could be custom ordered from the factory- including metallic. 1/2 of factory color options for Packard in 1936 were metalics (but metallics back then generally used only the finest size flakes, not bigger ones common now). A friend knowledgeable about paint history pointed out to me that most of the candy colors like vibrant purples popular in the ’60’s weren’t achievable in the ’30’s. Don’t know about Pierce, but years ago in the Packard Club there was a dispute that although technically you could order any color, it was rarely done and shouldn’t be condoned by the club. One of the guys who worked in Packard’s design group in the ’50’s responded by recounting the big wall of index files full of custom color and interior orders dating to the the ’20’s. To try and justify my stance I also use the technical argument that you can never know exactly what the color was when it was delivered. The color chips fade, they weren’t necessarily spot on in the first place and they weren’t always consistent. Bits of paint protected from the elements are pretty close – but still age to some degree. Years ago there was a paint shop that still carried original Ditzler pigments and could mix ’30’s colors to the original formulas in lacquer. I had several mixed when choosing colors, but even there, how much have the pigments shifted with age sitting in the can for a few decades? In the end one get pretty darn close but there is no such thing as an “exact”” match. My personal choice is to drive a truck through that argument and modify the colors to get something that looks good to me and still is in the “”spirit”” of the original colors – but I also never have my cars judged.”