auto_cran

Long time C4 Corvette owner (and CorvetteForum member) and I have been looking for a nice, clean 1982 Corvette for awhile now. Color is a big concern and have narrowed it down to white, silver, or preferably white/silver two-tone.

Over the past few months I have travelled to see 2 nice ones - a 53K mile two-tone and a 30K mile all silver. Both claimed to be garage-kept, excellent... you know the spiel...

Both cars were for the most part nice and appeared to live an easy life. Good, soft leather, no cracks on the dash, no rust, etc...Drove well.

But both had the same paint issues: on the silver front/rear caps, there were fine, horizontal, scratch-like lines - almost like someone ran a brillo pad across it. I understand the caps are different material than the rest of fiberglass body, but this just didn't look right. I passed on both cars because of this.

When I saw the first car (silver,30K miles), I thought it was just that car. Then last week when I saw the two-tone and saw the same issue on the silver parts, I started to wonder - was there an issue with silver paint on 82 Corvettes?

BTW - I tried to take a pic of the scratch-like lines, but it didn't show in the pics.

Am I just being too picky??

Easy Mike

Not that I've heard.

Only if you are expecting to find perfect thirty year old paint.

Good luck with the hunt.

Redwing01

I've never seen a white \ silver two tone combo but best of luck with your search.

Easy Mike

I googled these. Trust me, the white/silver two tone looks much better than these pics show.

540 vette

I recently bought an 80 and in my search I was real picky. I soon realized that we are dealing with 30+ year old cars. And unless you find one that has been recently restored they will all have something wrong. Find the one with the least problems and fix the ones you don't like. If you like one of those cars you looked at and the price is right buy it. Then you just have the front and rear bumpers resprayed.

auto_cran

They made just 664 of the white/silver two-tones - so they are not very common.

Here is a shot of a nice one! If this belongs to a Forum member - beautiful car!





Now if I could just find one...

kjb13

I'm not usually a fan of two-tone, but that is a SWEET looking car.

qwank

wow! what a nice looking car! I love that color combo on these Corvettes!

Lupigiato

gbvette62

I've never heard of any problem specific to paint on 82's, or 82 silver in particular.

Silver doesn't tend to age as well as other colors. Also, there has always been issues with the paint on Corvette urethane bumpers. The flex agent originally used in the paint for bumpers, often effected the color and sheen. Even when new, the bumper covers often looked different, than the paint on the body of the cars. Because they are bumpers, they do occasionally get "bumped", which can cause the paint on them to craze, or develop faint hair line cracks.

I won't be real concerned about the paint on urethane bumpers, of a car I was really interested in. Bumpers are easy, and relatively cheap, to get repainted.

Mark G

This is not uncommon with these years Corvettes.

I think the root of the problem is that back in 81 they used lacquer based primer and lacquer based paint. Then, they switched production to Bowling Green and switced to Acrylic Enamel based paint which was state of the art back then. But AFAIK the primer underneath was still lacquer (someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure this was the case). Lacquer-based products are rather brittle and enamels are somewhat more pliable. BUT, in order to get the sort of pliable qualities needed to flex with a urethane bumper that needs to bend and bend back w/o much damage, a flex additive was used. Flex additives were known in the day to affect color. But I think the REAL issues is the lacquer primer beneath the acrylic paint. It can't handle flex and shrink well w/o cracking.

The paint on these years Corvettes never held up all that well anyway. In fact, I would just say in general, paint on cars made in the late 70's and in the 80's paint didn't fare so well. There was a lot of experimenting with new formulations, acrylic lacquers, Acrylic Enamels, waterborne paints, etc.

If you find a car you like and the bumpers are aged more than the original paint, I would go ahead and buy the car and have the bumpers repainted.

My favorite 2 tone color combination was the Silver/Dark Claret Metalic (maroon) and Silver/Blue. I also thought White was a nice color on the 82's. Wait, is White technically a 'color'?

Mark G

Priya

When auto_cran mentioned two-toned white/silver paint I thought he/she must be mistaken, that there was no such thing, so I was surprised to see the pictures - looks pretty good!

Clams Canino

I also never saw one of these 664 cars. Cool!

-W

2TONE82

As the proud owner of a two-tone blue (silver blue over dark blue) car I'd recommend you stray from the silver to a tint color. The 80's silver on any car did not age well and only gets worse with plastic bumpers. Add in the early days of clear coat and well, you've already seen what I'm talking about.

My bumpers are faded and I've been tempted to repaint but then she wouldn't be 95+% original after that! As others have said, these cars/paint is 30 years old.

Enjoy the hunt. I too fell for the white/silver two-tone cars and also the silver/claret but couldn't find one with good paint...hence, I'm the proud owner of two-tone 82!

~Stingray

I, too, have never seen the white/silver two-tone until this thread. Nor ever heard of it.
I hope you find exactly want you want.

Also keep in mind that since the bumpers are "rubber" so to speak, that any give or bump could cause the lines in the paint. Think of them as micro stress cracks in the paint as it was not designed for any kind of give. Unlike plastic bumpers and todays paint, we can bend and bend and nothing happens. Don't do that with an original bumper from the 80s.

Ironcross

GM`s paint was the problem and it was not just one color.....the clear coat started to fade and peal off after a few years of Sunlight.....My Red 84 was one such Vette...I bitched about the problem and the dealer repainted the whole car....I believe it was a major problem that they wanted to have quietly go away.....

Easy Mike

Oh yeah. This is a much better pic than what I found. Nice combination.

auto_cran

Thanks for all the replies!

2Tone - are the bumpers on your silver blue just a little faded or can you see any hairlines in it? That's what got me - looked at 2 very nice '82s and the silver paint on the bumpers had the exact same flaw: very fine 'scratches' - almost like from a super fine paint brush. Not the typical spider-webbing or issues from a minor impact (and it was on the entire bumper - even the part that wraps around the side of the car just before the sidemakers).

And I totally agree - that white/silver looks really good. I've been wanting an '82 to put next to our '88 35th Anniversary Editon C4 and my wife really like that white/silver combination (and we all know - a happy wife is a happy home!)

So the hunt continues! As Wayne Carini says, "it's all about the hunt!"

Chris
(auto_cran)

Priya

I see it differently. Assuming you've got the cash and a white/silver car is what you want, don't compromise, get the car you want. If it needs paint more frequently then paint it. To me I'd rather spend more and get something that's what I want than make economy the priority and live with second rate.

auto_cran

I can see both sides to this.

Ideally, it would be nice to find a car that has this issue resolved - where the previous owner already had the bumper caps repainted.

The 2 cars we saw were listed as "perfect" and "excellent" and priced that way (both above $15K). We even had to travel to go see both cars - 1 was 200 miles away, the other 300 miles. We don't mind paying a high price for the car if it is perfect/excellent, but not if we need to have the bumper caps repainted right after we buy it.