Paint.... I hate it, help me find a colour,

Go into the Honda dealership and just ask them for the paint code. That's what I did when I was looking for a colour for my car. Most of the dealerships were very helpful, only my local ford dealer wouldn't help at all. Annoyingly it was a Ford I was painting!

Could it have been Orchid Yellow? Trouble is, if you do an image search almost all the results will be a bright yellow but it should be a sort of dirty-white colour that can look grey or very pale yellow depending on the light. If I've got the correct colour, it looks like this.


Arum White (listed usually as Austin or Rover) is a good yellow-white well suited to the peanut's shape and tends not to look dirty or dull.

Ian - This is what I suggest to my clients whom are unsure on what colour / colour scheme they want - go to your nearest large DIY store paint section - pull the swatches of the colours that peak your interest and take them home - then have a think about them - deleting the ones that that you thought may work initially but now don't - keep reducing the shortlist until you make a final decision but remember to check against external trim & interior trim for contrast etc - once you have a final decision hunt out a good independent automotive paint factor - take your colour swatch / chip and get them to match to the nearest available colour in a automotive finish - most of the factors are very helpful - mine just lets me run through the swatches until I find what I need



This was a old BSA motorcycle tank that I took to them recently - no idea what the colour was or colour code etc



Just leafed through the colour reference swatches until we found something - a GM / Opel colour that was close enough

I like your idea of grey - Austin did the van in mid light dove grey in period but the Fiat darker grey that you mention would work very well IMO

How about late '50s Ford Pembroke Coral. Lovely period colour and can be used with either grey or Ermine white roof for a 2 tone.

There is in excess of half a million automotive colour refences and you will always get each vehicle manufacture having a version of the in vouge / market trend colour of any particular period and then giving it either a naff or sometimes a very exotic name - but it's all about marketing more than anything else

Ah yes, the good old Varicose Vein Blue so favoured of pensioners and tightwads of the era. It's a properly nostalgic colour.

Period Austin paint colours / codes:-

www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/colour_swatch
e.g.
www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/colour_swatch_austin_1954-63

I know you said no greens, but that tintern green is quite nice