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Customer handed me a photo of his car from 1987 and asked me to match the paint exactly
Guy rolls into my shop in Phoenix last Tuesday with a faded 1986 Monte Carlo SS and hands me a Polaroid from his glove box showing the car brand new, saying he wants it to look just like that again, and I had to explain that lacquer paint from 40 years ago just doesn't exist anymore - has anyone else had a customer bring in old photos expecting a perfect match?
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sagejackson5mo ago
Wait, lacquer paint from 40 years ago definitely still exists in a way. You can still buy single stage lacquer, its just not as common and you gotta really hunt for it. I had a buddy restore an old Datsun and he used a modern equivalent that matched the original formula close enough. So it's not totally gone, just harder to find and a pain to spray since the VOC laws changed a lot.
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kim_mason555mo ago
Wait @xenam84 mentioned spectro on Polaroids but nobody talking about how old paint fades unevenly lmao
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xenam845mo ago
Has he tried looking into brands like HOK or PPG that still make single-stage urethane that's close enough to the old lacquer look? @sagejackson is right about VOC laws being the real headache, but you can get a modern basecoat/clearcoat system that mimics the depth and gloss without the headache of finding original lacquer. I've had luck going to a shop that specialises in classic cars, having them scan the Polaroid with a spectrophotometer (yeah, it works on photos sometimes) and mixing a modern version based on the original code. Just warn him that the new paint might look slightly different under certain light because the old lacquer had a unique way of laying down that's hard to recreate.
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