nate99

Looking for pics and suggestions. Here's my '81 as it sat right after I got it about 3 years ago. It needs a total repaint, so going with a new color is an option.

It was originally a two tone light/dark maroon car (trim tag shows three exterior colors, no idea about that) with a red interior.

What exteriors go well with a red interior? I'm especially biased toward black cars. This won't be getting too dirty, so it will always look good.

Other options that I have though of were a light charcoal grey, or just go with red on red. Not a big of white on the 80-82's.

What do you think?

damoroso

Nate, I'm in the same place. It's time for paint, here's mine when I got it, I've got red interior too:



I've got an L88 hood on now:



I'm leaning towards black with some red pearl in it, and maybe some small ghost flames (gold pearl with red candy top coat under the black) off the hood and side vents, and maybe and a couple small "Jake Skulls" ghosted too. I also like the new GM color "Black Granite" on a friends new Silverado. Some of the new maroons look good too. You might also look at the new Harley Davidson colors...

gbvette62

If the car was originally medium red metallic over dark red metallic, the trim tag was coded 80I 98L 98U. This is typical of all Bowling Green trim tags. If it had been a solid color car, say all dark red metallic, it would show the paint code as 80I 80L 80U.

If the 81 had a bright red interior, I'd say try a dark blue for someting really different. I know it sounds a little strange, but it can look good with the right shade of colors. I know a guy with a 64 convertible painted Daytona Blue (Daytona is almost black) with a red interior, and it's striking. I think the 81 Bowling Green red interior may be a little too dark, to work well with dark blue.

I love charcoal on the 80-82 body (might be because I have a charcoal 81) and I had seen one with a red interior once, but this was a St. Louis car. You could order a St. Louis 81 in charcoal with a red interior. The St. Louis red interior was a slightly lighter/brighter red. When production switched to Bowling Green, the charcoal and red combination was removed from the recommended color combinations. This was probably because the red being used at BG was darker.

A lighter charcoal, something like 1970's Laguna Gray, might look good with the red. 71-72 Steel Cities Gray is one of the best colors ever put on a Corvette, but it has a green tint to it that wouldn't work well with the red interior. Cadillac offers a beautiful charcoal on the new CTS, It's one of their ChromaFlair colors "Thunder Gray", it's worth looking at, but again it might be a little dark to use with the red. With all the silvers and charcoals offered today, especially on foreign cars, you should be able to find something to work.

What about a solid (not metallic) light to medium gray, something like a Dove Gray? Chevrolet had a very nice solid gray in 1980, it was paint code 85 Gray. It was offered on the Caprice/Impala, Monte Carlo/Malibu, Citation, Monza and Chevette. In the end, it might look a little like white with red, but this combination would still be different, than what just about anyone else has.

nate99

Thanks for the trim tag info, I had a thread about it a few years back and never got a definitive answer about the three colors. I believe it must have looked like damoroso's from the factory.

Also, I couldn't figure why the interior looked darker, but there wasn't a corresponding color in the catalogs and whatnot that looked just right, this being Bowling Green red not St. Louis red, so thanks for that info as well. I actually just ordered my replacement interior, so we'll see what it looks like when it shows up. The trim panels and other stuff that will be reused need to be re-dyed in any case, so that's not an issue.

Does the Dove Gray look like this?

gbvette62

The red you need to order would be the 82 red. Unfortunetlely, not all vendors list, or even know that there are, 2 different reds for 81.

It's a little hard to say if the Chevette is painted the 1980 gray. It appears that it may be a metallic finish in the photo, though.

Here is the 80 gray as it appears in the 1980 Chevrolet dealer color folder. That charcoal shown above it, was only available as a solid color on the Camaro in 80, but was used as a two-tone accent color on most other 80 Chevrolet car lines.

By the way, where the heck did you get a picture of a Chevette?

I don't know if I can top a picture of a Chevette, but here is a 1980 Citation in the code 85 Gray, two-toned with the charcoal lower.

Easy Mike

Here's three:


This one happens to be silver over dark blue. 33L indicates silver on the body below the belt line; 33U indicates silver on the body above the belt line. As we see it, this car was one color - silver all over - but GM continued with the L and U codes. 38N indicates the second color to be applied on the lower surfaces of the car after it had been painted silver.

Speculation is the E probably stands for enamel to remind dealers/repairmen the paint was BC/CC enamel and not the acrylic lacquer which had been used through the 1980 model year.

nate99

My trim tag looks like this:

B 07A 101005
741 80L 80U 98N E
CHEVROLET

The 741 might be 74I, not sure about that. Thr exterior codes make sense given that they might first paint the whole car the upper color and then follow up with the darker lower coat over the bottom portion.

nate99

Well it looks like I'll be getting the brighter St. Louis red, which is fine with me. The 741 interior color code seems to be a bit of a mystery, but like I said, it all needs attention anyway. The carpet sat out in the sun for a long time and is actually yellow. pull back the floor mats and it's fairly bright red. The largest difference is in the vinyl on the door panels and seats.

I have to say I am really liking the non metallic charcoal color.

This one is larryg3's, paint code 39 out of BG



The Chevette has a wikipedia page, sadly keeping the world from forgetting it ever existed.

Easy Mike

B is the model year code for 81
07A is July, first week (A)
741 could also be 74I for dark red leather
80U and 80L Autumn red
98N dark claret

Arcticshark

Of the colors you listed, I like black.

nate99

Thanks Mike, though i suppose I'm now rendering the information on the trim tag moot, it's interesting to know what it looked like out of the factory.

nate99

It will be hard to go with anything else, tough to beat the looks of a clean black car.

Easy Mike

That's a nice color.

myoriginal77

Black

gbvette62

Easy Mike is right, 74I is Bowling Green Dark Red leather. The order code for Dark Red Leather was 742 and for cloth it was 74C, but for some reason all 81 & 82 Bowling Green trim tags show the interior trim with an "I". This makes it difficult to tell if the car had leather or cloth seats when new.

If your car had been a St. Louis 81, the red interior would be 752 for Medium Red Leather. Red was only available in leather, on St. Louis 81's.

Below is my Bowling Green 81. It is the code 39 Charcoal Metallic, with trim code 13I Slate Gray (sometimes called Silver Gray) Leather. We bought it new, it's unrestored with 44,000 miles and has recieved an NCRS Top Flight.

nate99

Thanks gb, another strong case for the charcoal, though after looking at larry's car above, I didn't realize that it was a metallic paint. I'm not against metallics as a matter of course, but for some reason, I'm leaning toward a non-metallic with a nice clear coat.

Given the basket case that my car is at the moment, it's great to see pictures of the ones in good shape. A helpful motivator of what is to come.

It looks like I will be getting the 752 color interior in any case.

terry82

2002 corvette magnetic red ppo86u wa379e it looks good on a c5 it will look great on a c3.

crf311

Go witha color you like , remember it's only paint. If someone after you wants the orginal color let them paint if. I pefer reds.

bluegtp

I vote on a metallic gray....but then again I'm kinda partial....mine is spiral gray metallic....factory color on the c5 vettes....search the c5 section for spiral gray in the titles. I dont have any real good pictures of my car in the sun yet....the metallic looks great when the sun is on it. Signature picture was an overcast/cloudy day. My photobucket link has more pictures if you need.

dbeall1968

I love the Cyber Gray Metallic color on the new Camaro- here it is, just a suggestion