Help with colour please!

[Al9000]

Hi everyone, I have inherited my late father's 1959 A7 SS and I am in the process of restoring it back to it's former glory but I can't seem to find any information on the green metallic paint.  Does anyone know the name of it or the paint code if it is available?  Or is there a suitably close equivalent?  I am in the UK.

Thanks,

Allan.

[MG]

Hi Allan!

THe original colour was plychromatic green, which nowadays is called "metallic paint".
Literature states "Toyota Altair green" as a substitute. This was used for the first Celicas and is no more available today, at least not here in Austria.
So I spent searching hundreds of sample cards at my local painter's, comparing them to a mudguard with original paint, and what I found are the following alternatives:

1. Daihatsu G27 light green /D. (from 1998). There are two tones of this colour available, the darker shade is the closest match I could find.
2. Rover HQJ/GM cimarron green (from 2004). This is the next best match, should definitely be available in the UK. As far as I can remember, it was pretty close, too.

If you don't have a direct comparison to the original paint, you won't notice any difference. But from what I could tell, the original paint didn't have as many metallic particles as the modern paints do, so the "glittering effect" in direct sunlight was not so distinctive. Well, it's something I can live with, but if you have the paint mixed up for you, maybe they can reduce the metallic effect a bit???

Hope that did help.

Regards, MG

[Al9000]

Thanks MG that's brilliant.  I wondered if it might be a case of trawling thro hundreds of colour charts, but now with your information I have somewhere to start from!  I dropped the tins off at the painters today, I will ring him tomorrow with your info.

Thanks very much for replying to my post, you're a (shooting) star!!

:-)

Al.

[MG]

You're welcome, glad I could help.