My car needs a little bit of body work just about all around. So I was thinking of maybe changing the color. The problem is, my car is still the original color and i am told it is rare. i have a gunmetal camaro with charcoal gfx. I at least figured if i changed the color that the door jambs/under hood etc, would not look too bad. i am in my second year of my auto body class and I am allowed to do my own projects at the shop. I am already definantly doing the bodywork and repaint most of it. so what do you guys think? i have pictures of the car, but not good enough ones to show all the dents everywhere.



more pics in my sig and in my cardomain.

 

by the way, heres a pic with a quality camera that shows some of the body damage (not all of it from the area showed up though, there are 2 decent sized dents along the door mouldings too).



plus all i would need to pay for is price of paint...and i get charged for things like bondo, tape, etc. depending on how much of the school's stuff i use. so no leftover stuff, plus they dont measure anything they just kinda make up a price.

EDIT: I just found a cool looking color that I can get the formula for because its stock gm and it wouldnt look wrong with my door jambs. plus its pretty similar already. its called purple pearl metallic.



http://www.rogerscorvette.com/spots/nov01/spot.htm

 

Someone in my neighborhood has a thirdgen IROC in gunmetal - the car is near perfect and is drop dead gorgeous. I've never had the opportunity to talk to the owner but I see the car quite a bit when I'm walking the dog.

Keep the gunmetal; thirdgens look great in this color.

 

not only do 3rdgens look good in that color... they are rare. Keep the gunmetal, and if you want to make it look less bland... slap some heritage stripes on it.

 

yea, i was thinking about lighter gray heritage strips...or maybe black, but id rather go with the lighter gray.

 

and what should i do about the striping along the bottom if i have to remove. the only place ive seen it is hawks, and im not about to pay like 350 bucks for some stripe stickers.

 

color looks ok to me, keep it

 

I would strip the stripes, paint the car and ground effect the same color and toss black heritage stripes on it, but hey... thats me. I just dont like the stipes by the ground effects.

Heres what I'm doing...
3" Jongbloed Hood
5" RS Style Spoiler
Factory Flame Red Met. Paint
Silver Ground Effects
Silver Heritage Stripes

 

Now how could you possibly forget the obligatory.. 'add 91-2 ground effects' comment as well ?
What kind of thirdgenner are you, reallly ? (note the sarcasim hopefully )

 

I'm not entirely sure that 'rare' and 'nice' are always equivalent. Sure the gunmetal color is less common on thirdgens, but that may be for a reason. The lines of the car don't seem to stand out as much in gunmetal as they do in a brighter, more 'colorful' color. However, you may prefer something more subtle, in which case the gun metal color is perfect. If you do prefer to stay with the same basic color, the idea of spicing up with the paint with a metallic or pearl finish would certainly make it look more interesting. At any rate, I wouldn't worry about keeping the exact same color strictly because it's rare. In the case of a thirdgen, it won't add any value...so paint it whatever color has value to you.

 

What I am kind of looking for is something that really catches the eye, but is subtle at the same time. I was thinking maybe doing SOM, like crazyhawaiin, but keeping everything else sublte, such as my stle spoiler and gfx. i think it might look cool to see a screaming paintjob, but that being the only flashy part. i dont know, do you know what Im talking about? if not, I might just try black. I got some time to think about it. We got one more car for our "car club" thing at school and then I am up. Just trying to gather some thoughts up.

 

Never, ever, color change a car unless you work or own a bodyshop. They all come out looking like they've been color changed. They look good for awhile and then you start noticing the places you or "they" missed and it grinds on you. Some of these guys do it right by taking out windows, trim, engines and then they spray the whole thing. That works, but the "paint the door jam thing"....VERY iffyyy.... My opinion only though. I think the color on your car is awsome.

 

A color change can certainly be done, but it either takes a whole lot of money, or a fair bit of work on the part of the owner. Mine's in the shop for the winter...but I sent them the completely stripped car...so everything, including the interior and underside of the unit body, plus the backside of every body panel is going to be painted the new color. Then the car will be reassembled, the panels lined up and have the final exterior finish coat done. This is no feat you can do if you have to drive the car daily, however...I was the better part of four months dismantling, labeling and cleaning up the car, and now the body shop is going to have it (or half it's pieces) for at least 8 months. In the end, I get the piece of mind knowing that the job was done right.

Doing the underside of the car makes the bill start to look scary, but doing something to this effect would work well (and here's some SOM for ya!). http://imageevent.com/ls1z28/1990irocz

 

i just figured if all the other crap was gray it wouldnt look too bad, or a cheap black or something. but, thats also why i suggested the color on that corvette. it was basically the same with some purple pearl in it. or like i was saying i can maybe add more metal flake or something.

 

My vote is always keep the original color unless your devoted to stripping everything down and painting every little thing.

Unless the car was yellow orange or purple to begin with...

Maybe you could get the same gunmetal grey and add some metal flake or something.

That 'purple' grey isnt too bad of an idea, but definetely Dont do a drastic color change it'll never look right.

 

keep it gunmetal, that colour is the ****

 

No way, that Corvette has alot more in that paint formula than a little "Purple Pearl." If you took the paint formula for your Camaro's stock color and that of the Corvette and compared the two you would be looking at two totally different things.

 

well its not the same color with a purple pearl added to it. im saying the color looks pretty similar aside from the purple pearl. meaning when you open the door and there is no purple in the door jambs it still wont look wrong. anyways i also started thinking about this pepper gray metallic i recently saw in the appearance section. it looks really similar to mine at night, but brightens up to like a sebring silver in the day time, it looks really great. and also, could i get away with just doing the door jambs and the area on the hatch if the color is kind of similar? like if under the hood and in strange places like the back of panels was the old color, if the new color was a little different gray? do you think it would really show? i figure if i get in the hatch and in the door jambs, everything else should look fine. because dark gray under the hood isnt very awkward...and you almost never see any other places that would still be gunmetal...am i right?

EDIT: I am only talking about for a different gray here, not anything like SOM.

 

You talk to who ever is going to do the spraying and decide where you're going to cut the color off at. Maybe right at the very opening of the door, maybe a 1/2" in. Maybe all of it. A good painter can blow color into some pretty tight places without going too far out of the way. What you have to be concerned with if you do this type of color change (taping off instead of striping down) is when you have to replace things like window sweeps. The new sweeps don't cover exactly what the old ones did now you have a 1/8" line of a different color on top of your door. The same thing with many other parts. Any trim that didn't come off when you painted and now you have to replace, for whatever reason, and it fits but not EXACTLY like the old piece, it starts to show. You might think about keeping your paint and talk to a professional about some different style of graphics

 

ok, but if you read above, i will be painting it. and my teachers are very experienced painters too. my one teacher paints custom choppers as a side job from teaching. so yea, plenty of available experience and rigging stuff to work.

 

Pepper Grey Metallic ... . It's what I'm going to paint mine. I think it will look perfectly fine without having to do much color changing work. I would do the door jambs and such too, but you could leave the engine bay. It would look too out of place at all. Just a different shade.

 

Well, just remember, even doing it yourself it's going to cost a few dollars. Budget the project so that you'll be able to finish whatever you start and you should come out fine. Good Luck and keep us posted.

 

itll be a little while. i just want to have my plan set out for me before i start and then get stuck.

 

i say you leave it as is

peel the stripes

and keep the color combo, since it's rare, stock, and it looks really good.

if you want something new

add the heritage stripes in the same color as the ground effects

maybe get some firebird rims with the black crosslace too? I think it would look sick.

 

yea, with the polished edges right? didnt even think about that. i was also thinking the lighter silver stripes. ive seen those before on a gunmetal one, plus i know theyre readily available and i wouldnt have to do all the taping and buying new paint and crap. i was thinking about the hyper black zr1s though...drool.

and you think i should get rid of the stripes?

 

Yeah ditch the stripes

I really like the gunmetal. Dont let 'rarity' change how you want to do it. It wont effect the selling price of the car later on much, but a crappy paintjob will.

Charcoal heritage stripes could look real good...