Color matching

aviator8

Promoted Users
I understand the depth and complexity of color having done photography my whole life. Wanted to see what some of your experiences may be when trying to match a paint you don't know the color code for.

To any color mixing experts here. I am looking to get as close to a color I found on a car as possible. I contacted Chad's and he directed me to https://paintref.com/paintref/index.shtml to locate the color or they could match with a chip if I have one. I don't have a chip, just a picture off the internet. I spent some time looking through various chips searching different ways. I came up with a couple choices that I viewed on a color corrected monitor and sent over. They could not pull the codes on their lines. Also, of each colors that I though was a good match when I went to the image search to view vehicles painted in that color they seemed WAAAAY off.

I asked about filtering selections down to just what their lines could match but there was no way. I sent the picture them to give it the best ballpark eyeball match. In the meantime I did some google image searches and I am told it is seablue code L360 for early 60's VWs. I asked the to do me a sample in that as well as thier best match. They mixed up the two and I got them last week. The eyeballed sample is not even close. The L360 is a lot closer but still lacking in deep blue, Its a bit too green. At $19 a pop for each stab in the dark I am wondering if anyone has any experience with tweaking a close match, or a better way to look at a paint chip and ensure that what you are looking at and matches on screen is going to translate to what you see in your sample.

I'd love to be able to say this L360 is 95% there just add a touch more navy blue pigment, but a touch isn't necessarily an accurate measure. I'm cool with trying to tweak the mix myself but I don't know what pigments or dyes I would need for compatibility.


For reference I am going for the color on this beetle
IMG_0238.PNG


Here were the three I thought were the closest match


Here is the L360 chip


Here was the chip they matched to the picture by eye.
s4-0124.0.jpg

The sample was very close to the chip but far off from the beetle to me
The L360 sample is here, close but needs more blue.
IMG_0811.jpg


Note the pictures of the samples they mixed are appearing slightly bluer in my camera shots. The l360 as it appears in this sample picture is closer to perfect but not in reality.

IMG_0813.jpg


Thoughts?
 
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Looking here: https://www.autocolorlibrary.com/pages/1962-Volkswagen.html

IMO L360 is not the color of that Bug. Looks much more like Gulf Blue. L390 Dan beat me to it. :) Great minds think alike. LOL.

Trying to match something on the Internet is a crapshoot. Too many variables. That being said whoever matched that first sample can't see color very well. Your second color is more green while the car picture, the color is more to the blue scale. Again this is all a crapshoot due to variances in monitors and the lighting of that picture.

All that being said I have a decent eye for this, and if it was me I would try the L390 Gulf Blue.

And to further complicate things the formulas developed for these cars orginally are irrelevant to what is used today. So companies adjust/convert the old formulas to modern basecoats/single stages. This means getting something that exactly matches the orginal color is unlikely. It may be a shade or two off, or it may be far off. Matching these colors really requires a sample of the original color that can be scanned by a paint company's color matching tool or the formula adjusted by someone who knows how to do that using the sample to match the color.
 
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Hello aviator8,
My brother-in-law that is really into similar colors. A long time ago. Like 40 years he had a TR 250 that came in "Valencia Blue" a nonmetallic that he painted in the same color. He like the color so much recently on a 1964 XKE he restored he painted the same color. I tend to think it's a bit more green than the beetle pic. Great color nevertheless.
Larrys XKE-01.jpg

Larrys XKE-02.jpg


Here's some pictures I harvested from Google of the same color.
1969 Triumph GT6 Valencia Blue.jpg

1968 Triumph TR250 Valencia Blue.jpg

Note the difference in color. I believe the TR 250 is more true to the actual color My experience has been pictures never tell you what a color really looks like. You need to see it in real life. May want to look into some German colors from the 1950s. One of my favorites is "1955 Porsche 356, Speedster Blue Code Code R602" It may be very close to the beetle color in your picture.
1955 porsche 356, Spedster Blue Code Code R602.jpg

If my memory serves me well R602 Speedster Blue is a nonmetallic. You will need to do some research though. It may be available in in metallic and non-metallic. I think Porsche changed from one to the other over the years.
 
Take a look under Auto Color Library Maybe like 1962 VW I will see if I have any color books in that years
IMO L360 is not the color of that Bug. Looks much more like Gulf Blue. L390 Dan beat me to it. :) Great minds think alike. LOL.
To me your first bug pic looks like L390 gulf blue, but I like the l360 they mixed up for ya.
I think I will ask for a sample in this as well, Thanks for pointing me to it.

My brother-in-law that is really into similar colors. A long time ago. Like 40 years he had a TR 250 that came in "Valencia Blue" a nonmetallic that he painted in the same color. He like the color so much recently on a 1964 XKE he restored he painted the same color. I tend to think it's a bit more green than the beetle pic. Great color nevertheless.
This does look nice and I think it is a bit green but I may try a sample.
 
The post at the link below is the owner of that bug asking what an original L360 paint code sticker looks like so it’s likely you had the correct code.

Yes I got a reply from them telling me it was L360 but it still looked a bit different than other l360's I saw.
 
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