I'm painting my car, trying to do it spending as little money as possible. Anyhow, my car is/was metallic red/copper (See pic in sig), and I immagine paint will be fairly pricy and hard to find. I dont REALLY want to spray the engine bay, but it wouldnt be TOO hard cause most of the wiring and stuff is gone, basicly just the engine sitting there. Anyhow, should I think about spraying it a different color? I want something thats "forgiving" as far as hiding imperfections in the paint, something thats an easy color and will look good. Believe it or not, I was thinking maybe a creme-white would look good on a firebird......not white, not yellow, somewhere inbetween. Probably hard to picture, but i dunno, just one of the things I thought of. Any other ideas?

 

Heres a quick chop of the color i'm talking about.....
What colors tend to be cheaper? what colors tend to be easiest to work with?
how bout a sorta pewter? silver?

 

Nasty. Your stock color won't be expensive nor hard to find. It's a nice color. If you can't afford to do a good enough job to make that color look good, save your money longer. A ****ty paint job will look ****ty no matter what color it is.

 

Been there and tried it, changing colours is hard work.
For instance you need to rub down either with wet and dry, or Scotchbrites , every bit you need to paint, otherwise 1 steamclean later, and instant 2 tone paint job. 1 little chip, and you can see what colour it was, thats if you can spray 100% of the paintwork and hide all the original colour. [good luck]
If you cant afford custom paint, stay original, think of all the cash\time you will save not having to change everything.

 

ive just been respraying it back to the factory color for my first time, and im exhausted from that.. cant imagine color change
finishing up tommorow and im not sure if overall its going to look better then before or not ;0
learned some stuff, blew some money.. hey whatever

well the cream would be unusual.. ugly and unusual, but hey originality is always good

 

yea color change isnt a really good idea unless you are positive you want to do it and have a lot of money and the bodys pretty messed up as it is. between under the wetherstripping, under the hood, the door jambs, inside the hatch etc, you would either have to remove many parts and/or tape up stuff for hours. you can do a color closer to yours though and leave everything else. my car is gunmetal grey and i was thinking about making it darker maybe, maybe add more metal flake, or maybe adding some blue or green tint to it.

 

chris just leave it the same color, you are in deep enough as it is with the sanding you did lol

 

Went from tis color...



To this....



To this....



And I'm changing it again... any question why I'm burnt out on this p.o.s. ?

If you're going to change colors... do research and be dammed sure to pick a color you're going to be happy with for years to come so you can stick with it w/o walking up to the car and going 'Geh... WhyTF did I paint it this color?'....

 

haha i share your inspiration lol

 

Yuck man, cream does NOT work on 3rd gens

Stay with the original Flame Red Metallic. You will be amazed how excellent it looks when fresh and then properly maintained. Here is mine just finished a month or so ago. Pix can't do it justice.

 

See the difference? Same car, same paint, just a different reflection from the sun light. It really "pops" as they say. My body guy says to use Sikkens paint, claims it is better than DuPont, etc.

 

One word.... YUCK!

Speedingpenguin,
You're a great guy and helped us a lot with our engine rebuild. Please don't take that wrong.

 

You should be sanding it properly regardless of what color you paint it. Paint chips don't happen if you prep the car properly.

 

Go with GREEN!! hehehe. Not my babypoo green though, the factory green.

 

A good point.
But to be fair ive been in the job a while, and sure if your doing it yourself, then its up to you.
But if you think every body shop will take the trouble to do what you would do, prepare for dissapointment.
Most people cant afford to have the shell stripped and bead blasted, [ideal of course] and at least if you miss a bit, and it does chip, and its the same colour underneath, its not really noticeable.
And if you visit the shops in it, or supermarkets round here, you are pretty sure of a few chips and scratches before you leave.
Ive seen women piling their groceries on other peoples hoods while they put their stuff away.
Some people.

 

Don't do it.

My 87 GTA was origionally gun metal gray. Then it was white. Now it's blue. It shall remain blue. No more colour changes!

Sometimes I have gray stone chips, some times white. No sir I don't like it.

 

I am planning to do a color change. granted I plan on stripping the car down to bare metal, already have all the interior gutted and will be taking the motor out to replace with a new 350.

Its hard to do a color change unless your going to go all out.

 

I am doing a color change on my camaro, was bright blue metallic, changing it to GoManGo (burnt tangerine) and ive been working about 1-4 hours a day on it, and its been like 2 months now, still not even primed. Its hard for a color change, and even harder if u got body work, stick with the same color unless u have alot of time

 

ok
because i'm doing this just to sell it, and because i'm going basicly down beyond the old color, i think what i'm gonna do is go with either red, silver, or blue....leaning towards silver cause its unique.....
For the engine bay, since i dont have much wiring or anything to deal with, i'll mask off the engine and the crap i dont want painted, and just rattle-can it flat black when i'm done. Door jams and stuff i'll do with the rest of the car.
Meh....live and learn, huh?

 

I WANT THE BABY POO GREEN, you wouldnt have happen to find the code for that color yet have you?

 

stick with the color it already is.... specially if you're going to sell it!

easiest and cheapest!

 

Hahahaha! It was actually a PPG mix we made, trying to get close to the GM color "Fairway Green Metallic" found on Vettes and S10 trucks. We were off by alot but it still came out OK. I can get you all the info so you can make your own batch if you want. It would probably look pretty good with clearcoat.

To the original poster definately stick with the same color if you're planning to sell, easier and cheaper.

 

i like the dark metallic forest green that came on the birds....that looks awesome with those gold wheels...

 

CrazyHawaiian

i pmed you about it a while back, but if you could PM some info on the color that would be greatly appreciated.