Re: Packard Ad article in March 2010 Hemmings Motor News

Posted by BH On 2010/1/30 12:26:31

You'll also find examples of such artistic license employed in an occasional ad of later years - like a black/orange/black paint job on a '56 Caribbean convertible and a dark-blue/white/black three-tone on another. Mind you, I'm not saying that there weren't deviations from the four standard three-tones offered on those cars. In fact, IIRC, one '56 Carib was actually painted by the factory in all-white, and Randy Berger's was done by the factory in black/white/black. However, I never saw a factory-produced example of the two shown in those ads.

Yet, the use of artistic license even extends to the manufacturer's showroom literature. For example, there's a hardtop show in the '56 Executive brochure that's rendered in a green/white two-tone, but with a shade of green that was never offered. I wouldn't call it attractive, but it did catch my eye.

However, Packard was not alone on this. Showroom pieces I found to help document and detail a 1950 Pontiac survivor showed the "Silver Streak 8" engine in an incorrect color - a golden shade, when the factory painted them a dark green. Because the cylinder head had been replaced and the engine repainted red at some point in its previous life, it took careful cleaning and inspection of the block for the owner to feel confident about using the dark green.

Except for a few years, we have some supplier paint chip sets here at P'Info dating back to 1947 (one for 1941), but hopefully that will continue to grow. Meanwhile, autocolorlibrary.com has scans of paint book pages for Packard back to 1929, but it seems like the older ones have no chips - just text.