I have several pet hates when it comes to model road vehicles. The first is over-shiny paintwork. The other is bright colours.
In the steam era, most cars, indeed most of the world, were painted in dull shades of murk. Today's gaudy shades were but a dream.
I'm reminded of this when reading a useful article on the red paint offered by Volkswagen over the years. Despite some of the best engineers in the world, the first red didn't appear until 1956 and even that was a pretty dull. Over time things got stronger and brighter but you'll need to wait until 1968 for a really glowing shade.
While this only covers VWs, the rest of the automotive world was much the same so if in doubt, as the Rolling Stones would say, paint it black!
3 comments:
I remember in the 70s Mercedes had a particularly vile orange/red that they called English Red
http://bringatrailer.com/2012/11/28/bat-exclusive-31k-mile-1979-mercedes-450sel-6-9/
I quite like it...
There were indeed some garish colours around in the late sixties and the seventies. Beetles could be had in a startling high-visibility orange, or a rather shrill lime green. I don't know whether modern cars are garish now, though. Minis and Fiat 500s are available in a range of rather pleasant pastel shades, but for larger cars the overwhelming preference is silver (i.e. grey) with a few in white and a handful in black or possibly red.
Of course 1:76 scale cars would look better in a satin finish. The colours on the Classix range look reasonably authentic, especially if the gloss is toned down a little.
It has to be said that the Beetle at Crich in the picture does look, well, shiny....
I really liked those two-tone painted wheels. (Can't stand the fad for hideous alloys that take as much time as all the rest of the car to clean...)
Chris Thomas
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