03-16-2018, 04:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-17-2018, 02:52 PM by Kurt Bogerman.)
I am really happy with the paint I chose. It's a pearl enamel mixed as a single stage, rather than the original automotive base/clear application. It's called Claret Red, after the wine, and it's a rather deep shade of cherry red in low light. The pearlescense is hard to capture, at least with my camera, but it really does pop brightly in the sun. The painter seemed incredulous when I told him that I wanted a 1990s Dodge color: He acknowledged that he really liked it, when all was said and done.
At one point I considered a matte paint scheme; Maybe an olive drab, maybe even painted like a warplane, but that seemed a little contrived. I then attempted to find out if there was a "correct" Rupp color, but I was never confident that I'd identified one as such. I then turned to automotive paints that were available in 1965. I really though I'd found a winner in Cadillac's "Matador Red", which I even had mixed as an aerosol, but a sample I painted turned out to be far too copper-toned for my taste.
One evening, I found myself doing Google image searches for "burgundy metallic automotive paint", etc., and that led me to a forum dedicated to hobbyists who replicate props from the Ironman movies. Someone crafting an Ironman costume had done samples of various red paints from Duplicolor. One sample caught my eye, and it was a done deal when I realized that it was the color of my old Dakota. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Having no place to perform a proper paint job, given the lack of ventilation in the basement along with a heaping helping of impatience with the weather, I found a body shop painter who was willing to do it relatively inexpensively.
At one point I considered a matte paint scheme; Maybe an olive drab, maybe even painted like a warplane, but that seemed a little contrived. I then attempted to find out if there was a "correct" Rupp color, but I was never confident that I'd identified one as such. I then turned to automotive paints that were available in 1965. I really though I'd found a winner in Cadillac's "Matador Red", which I even had mixed as an aerosol, but a sample I painted turned out to be far too copper-toned for my taste.
One evening, I found myself doing Google image searches for "burgundy metallic automotive paint", etc., and that led me to a forum dedicated to hobbyists who replicate props from the Ironman movies. Someone crafting an Ironman costume had done samples of various red paints from Duplicolor. One sample caught my eye, and it was a done deal when I realized that it was the color of my old Dakota. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Having no place to perform a proper paint job, given the lack of ventilation in the basement along with a heaping helping of impatience with the weather, I found a body shop painter who was willing to do it relatively inexpensively.