OLDER / CUSTOM COLORS

We maintain a vast collection of paint swatches that allow us to make cars dating back to the early 90’s. The color swatches allow us to make the paint and then test it against the swatch to ensure it is a good match.  Even on colors prior to the early 90’s,  our formulation database dates to the early 1930’s and we do have formulations on many of these older that in most cases allow us to make the color without a backup color swatch to test the color once made.     

If on these older cars if we have a color sample that you can provide that is a good match, we have the tools in place to create the color to match the swatch.  

While we can’t guarantee a color match without a sample, if you have the code, we can mix the paint according to the Factory paint formulation. We do, however, strongly recommend you try and get us a paint sample if possible.

If we send out a color and you do not feel it is a good match or needs to be altered either darker or lighter, we will work with you to remake the color.   Sometimes all it takes is a photo of the paint we sent you applied to a small chip on the car and we can determine what needs to be altered to provide a better match.

The best way to provide you with a color match on cars made prior to 1994 is with a paint color sample. We do have formulations for cars dating back to 1924. However, if you want the best chance of a good match we recommend you send us a sample part, old touchup paint, or a color chip with the color on it that we can use to match against.

A photo of the vehicle can help us get an idea of the color but is NOT something that we can use to guarantee the color match.

If you don’t have a color sample that you can send us, there are several ways you can get us the information we need to provide you with a good match. Try visiting a PPG, DuPont, Sherwin Williams or BASF paint distributor to review their color chip books.

All of these companies maintain an inventory of color chip books that they will allow you to look through. If you can identify a good color match by visually comparing the chips in these booklets to your vehicle’s color, then all we would need is the color code for the chip that you feel best matches your car and we can formulate the paint using this color code information.

If you can’t find a good match in the color chip books, then ask them if they have a photo spectrum gun that they can use to take a picture of the vehicles panel. They then run this through their formulation database to determine a close color match. Normally this can be done not just for cars but also for motorcycles, RV’s, boats, ATV’s, Scooters, Airplanes etc.

Send us a sample. The paint distributors can mix up a small amount of your custom color based on photo spectrum gun findings. The paint can then be sprayed onto a piece of paper to create a sample color chip. If you can only get the paint mixed (bottled) but not sprayed onto a piece of paper, paint a sample onto a business card and send it to us along with this form: