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My 1931 Pierce-Arrow is painted Chinese Red (main body) and Alhambra Tan (Very dark brown, fenders and belt-line trim). The color names are from 30’s paint chip/cards (Acme White Lead and Color Works, Detroit, Michigan).
I assume the factory luggage rack should be painted the Alhambra Tan (vs. black), correct?
This winter, I will be restoring a metal truck for use on the car. I assume the truck should also be painted Alhambra Tan (vs. back), correct? I am inquiring since I know that Pierce-Arrow didn’t have an official trunk and that most after-market trunks came painted black or had a black leatherette covering.
When my car was restored, it was painted with lacquer. I have the DuPont lacquer paint numbers, can they convert the lacquer numbers into an exact enamel paint formula?
Is there a computerized system for auto paints that can scan an existing sample to create an enamel formula?
Comments and thoughts would be appreciated.
John: I would not recommend trying to do an exact color match mix. Find a body shop that has a buck of truck fleet colors that are not metallic and select a color that comes close. I did what you want to do many years ago, and then continuing to match that mix color subsequently was always a problem. Better yet, my ’36 is an ’82 Chrysler “factory pack”” a color that can be bought off a shelf forever.”
John, I second Tony’s comments re: an off the shelf approximation of the original color. The Series 33 touring I now own was given fresh paint by past PAS pres Rob Lyons back in the late 50’s. Now when I need to touch up a chip, it’s really nice to be able to order a pint from the ’58 Chevy color chart. Did some chip touch-ups today after a great Modoc tour last week.
Tony x 2,
Thanks for the comments about fleet/standard colors, I will try going that route. I will need to have the fleet color match fairly closely since the trunk on a sedan is very close to the belt line on the car (easy to see differences when like items are inches apart).
I am still curious if a good auto paint place can cross from a lacquer number to an enamel, or scan an existing paint and formulate a matching color with any accuracy. Does anybody have recent experience with this?
I still need to know if the trunk rack should be painted the trim color, or were most of the racks painted black regardless of the body/trim colors.
Thanks,
John
After trying my best to come up with the exact color for my 1930, I finally decided that the most ‘beautiful color’ was more valuable than the ‘correct color’. All the shows I have shown my car in seem to confirm my thinking: Stanford Concours – Most Beautfical Car, Chico Concours – Most Elegant Car, PAS International – Most Beautiful Paint.
I took Prussian Blue (standard for Pierce that year) and added a little white, a little red, and painted it over Black primer. I have seen so many exspensive paint jobs that had all the right research, and 15 coats of hand rubbed paint, come out looking only so so because the color chosen was just not interesting. The color chips you may have in your possesion probably no longer look like they did when produced. I would lean toward ‘beautiful’ rather than ‘authenticity”. My Pierce often stood next to my partners 1931 Pierce-Arrow Lebaron Victoria Coupe which is absolutely perfect in every detail, including the exact paint colors. Every one would stand around my 1930 Sedan and Oh and Ah, with their backs to the Coupe. Of ocurse the judges had to give the Coupe the top awards, but I had the honor of being the most well liked! Mine sold for under $100,000, the Victoria Coupe for $375,000. (It was one of a kind, mine one of 25 existing and 100 produced) Good Luck Bill
The 1930 Pierce-Arrow accessories catalog lists 3 available trunks (metal clad, fabric, and leather clad. The illustration shows that the rack is painted body color. The description for the metal clad trunk includes this statement: “The trunk is furnished in black but can be finished at a slight additional charge, to match the color of the car”. The suitcases are listed separately as several luggage fillers were offered. A trunk cover was also available as a separate item.
The trunk on my car is a Steel Kraft, I’ll attach a couple of pictures. While it didn’t come with the car, I’ve been told this is a brand of trunk Pierce used. I was at White Post Restorations one day when a phone call came in, Billy Thompson asked if anyone wanted a car trunk, a lady had called from Winchester and had taken one out of her attic. I went and looked at trunk and gladly gave the $100 asking price. I was amazed when it was a perfect fit to my 31 trunk rack, and when I say perfect, I mean it’s within 1/4 inch or so all the way around…
The nameplate, a little far gone but readable….
Oh, and by the way, the mounting for my rack is not factory, the original mounting sticks it behind this bumper, and in fact I think there may have been accessory bumpers that extended further back. I made a couple of brackets for the front mounts and sucked the rack in closer to the body, keeping the back of it within the standard bumper limits. I personally like the look of it where it is now. But, it is not original.
Whatever modern paint you use, keep in mind that the color coat clear coat procedure changes the original color. This is so very obvious to me in 50’s and 60’s cars where I can remember the original colors (sold some of those cars new and used). There is definitely a difference with this procedure from the original lacquers and enamels.
I vote for NO trunk. I know you didn’t ask……. I like the looks of your car with clean lines. I know they are handy…… my coupe has a trunk that came on it when I bought it, I don’t like the look of it either, but I know if I remove it I will NEVER install it again. My best….Ed
I agree, Ed, car is better looking without a trunk…but a place to carry a water container, gas can,fire extinguishers….sure comes in handy…and I think the looks are OK with the trunk tight to the body
I think Bob Dluhy has new Steel Craft stickers made when he did his car. I understand and agree about storage space. It’s just that I hate to make my car less attractive.
Dave, I thought your trunk looked beautiful when I ran out of gas on a meet tour some years ago and you had a full spare gas can stashed there to get me home. Thanks again!
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.”
Thank you to everybody for your thoughts and comments.
For clarification:
My car was restored 25 years ago. The restorer picked modern colors that were very close to 1931 Pierce original colors. Where and how he came up with the original colors, I do not know (he passed away five years ago). He liked the original tan color I previously mentioned, but thought it would be better looking if it was one shade darker. He found a modern tan color(really very dark brown) that he like and used it.
In 2007, my first PAS meet, one judge commented that while beautiful, my colors were not original. I didn’t say anything since I really didn’t care, but I knew the restorer (and friend) researched the paint.
Two years later, four (4) 1931 paint cards came up on ebay. Guess what, 2 of the 4 colors are the same ones as used on my car. You gotta love eBay for some of the odd stuff the comes up! Now if anybody questions the colors (and they do), I just pull the 4 paint cards out of the door pocket.
So what am I going to do?
Try to find an enamel non-metallic fleet color that is identical to my trim and fender color. If I am not satisfied with the match, I will go down the path of having either the lacquer number converted into an enamel formula or have my paint scanned for a very close match. I really hate to see shade differences on panels that are next to each other or inches apart.
Again, thanks for the input!
John