MCW Automotive Paint Reference Guide
by David Dodge
Ask any car modeler, “What’s the toughest part of building
a model?”, and chances are one of the top answers will be finding
the right colors. Historic race cars, mainliners, replica stock, movie
cars – all require not only correct body shapes and amenities, but
spot on color as well. Of course, red Bel Airs and Plum Crazy Cudas are
easy – what are valid color choices for a ’67 Buick, a ’50
Chrysler, or even a ’37 Cord? That’s where Model Car World
comes in.
David Dodge from Model Car World (MCW) Automotive Finishes fills the
gap with his book, titled “Automotive Paint Reference Guide for
Model Cars”. Clocking in at 117 pages in six different sections,
this guide covers not only Ford, GM, and Chrysler products, but also AMC
and a host of others (such as Kaiser, Willys, Nash, and Studebaker, to
name a few).
Each major section is split in subsections, organized by year and make.
Each subsection lists the manufacturer’s paint code, color name,
brief description, the MCW airbrush and aerosol codes (where available),
and how close they match the real color. Two-tone options are given under
the subsection where applicable, as are model specific colors. One small
errata sheet covers 1932 Fords, which were missed in the original printing.
Color samples are not given – short of the sheer difficulty of
collating samples for the thousands of colors listed, there is no way
to accurately print them in a book of this format. The descriptions given
are also necessarily short and succinct – space constraints and
the impossibility of describing colors in words explain why.
The data listed was compiled from various 1:1 scale auto paint vendors
over 13 years, and is very complete. To give you an idea of the quality
of the information, here’s some data on the 1962 Chrysler line –
there were 11 colors available on all 1962 Chrysler models that year,
but the 1962 Chrysler Imperial had different choices. Chrysler didn’t
offer the Imperial in Bermuda Turquoise, paint code J, but made up for
by offering Cordovan Metallic, paint code S, among others, only on the
Imperial. MCW carries both listed colors – a fair match to Bermuda
Turquoise in aerosol, and an exact match to Cordovan Metallic in airbrush
bottles.
Of course, the book is meant to sell MCW paint, but that’s part
of its strength. Once you’ve found the correct color codes, you
need to select and apply that color. Finding the correct Torch Red for
a ’57 Bel Air or Plum Crazy for that ’70 Cuda project is relatively
easy with any well stocked model shop – finding the right Blue Mist
for a ’67 Buick or Tampa Beige for a ’50 Chrysler (or Cordovan
Metallic for a ’62 Chrysler) is a lot tougher. MCW makes it a lot
easier than guessing, or heading to your local paint shop to buy whatever
their minimum amount of custom mix paint would be.
My one and only complaint about this book is the lack of visible and
easily identifiable breaks between the subsections. It’s not easy
to scan through the book to find a given year/make combination, which
requires a lot of back and forth to find the year heading you’re
interested in. Even with this drawback, it’s a lot easier to scan
this book than to try to find the same info elsewhere.
|
|
