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I recently bought a 1978 Silver Anniversary Edition Corvette with dark blue interior and a 4spd, I was wondering what peoples opinions are with repainting, should I repaint it original with the 2 tone and pin stripes or should I just do a solid charcoal silver or silver? Im on the fence and don't know what I should do, thanks!
I had a charcoal 81 I liked my 69 is gonna be flat black and I could not care less that no one but me digs that.
I know with a thread like this you will get a zillion people saying it just has to be returned to stock, well, no it doesn't, it's YOUR car and if you are on a fence it's likely because you just want to be validated that a color change is okay...and it is IF that is what YOU desire.....
I don't think blue interior was offered anyway so may as well just do what you like at this point. I'm not hung up on originality anyway . It's your car and you should do what you like.
I recently bought a 1978 Silver Anniversary Edition Corvette with dark blue interior and a 4spd, I was wondering what peoples opinions are with repainting, should I repaint it original with the 2 tone and pin stripes or should I just do a solid charcoal silver or silver? Im on the fence and don't know what I should do, thanks!
I am in a similar boat when I re-paint my 78 SA 4 spd too. I think Bill's right you should do what you like. Presuming you've looked at the trim tag and confirmed it was an original two-tone Silver car - your tag should read 13U(upper) and 07L (Lower) if it has the B2Z anniversary paint job. This is what is listed for mine.
As you can see from the picture, my car was re-painted supposedly in the mid-80's with the two tone paint but with a different (in this case blue) dividing accent stripe. It's kinda of what drew me to the car in the first place because my 79 TA is a Silver/Blue accent car from the factory.
So if you like the charcoal, choose that for the repaint. The only problem IMHO with the base silver only is there were cars from the factory in 78 produced like that so again IMO it would be making the car more base looking and less distinguished. Pretty sure the charcoal color was not offered as a color option until later, 1980?
There were 15,283 B2Z paint code cars produced out of the 46K total run. You're good to make it your own
believe me if you painted it purple somewhere come sell time someone will go nuts over purple. It doesnt matter long as you enjoy it;who cares what someone else you havent met may want anyway
I am in a similar boat when I re-paint my 78 SA 4 spd too. I think Bill's right you should do what you like. Presuming you've looked at the trim tag and confirmed it was an original two-tone Silver car - your tag should read 13U(upper) and 07L (Lower) if it has the B2Z anniversary paint job. This is what is listed for mine.
As you can see from the picture, my car was re-painted supposedly in the mid-80's with the two tone paint but with a different (in this case blue) dividing accent stripe. It's kinda of what drew me to the car in the first place because my 79 TA is a Silver/Blue accent car from the factory. Attachment 47985836
So if you like the charcoal, choose that for the repaint. The only problem IMHO with the base silver only is there were cars from the factory in 78 produced like that so again IMO it would be making the car more base looking and less distinguished. Pretty sure the charcoal color was not offered as a color option until later, 1980?
There were 15,283 B2Z paint code cars produced out of the 46K total run. You're good to make it your own
believe me if you painted it purple somewhere come sell time someone will go nuts over purple.
That'd be me.
I think all your choices look fantastic on a 78. Solid silver looks like a spaceship, charcoal silver is more unique looking but for me the factory two tone paint job is awfully tough to beat.
FWIW: all regular interior colors were available with the B2Z option package. Red, blue and black seem to have been popular. A buyer could also opt for cloth.
I always liked the Silver Anniversary paint scheme, but not so hot about it with a dark blue interior. If you want to keep it the same as factory built, fine. Otherwise, go with a blue exterior to match the interior or change interior color with good brand of vinyl dye (SEM ColorCoat liquid dye mixed to your requirement would be the best; spray with your stuff of with Pre-Val bottle/gas sprayer will work great) to recolor it as you want.
Somewhere on the forum a guy painted a B2Z inverted. Darker on top, lighter on the bottom. Looked sharp.
Also recently there was a post with a blue top and bottom silver 78. Looked good as well.
My B2Z is a original color repaint. But I painted the tops dark. It's different.
This? I think it looks great.
To the OP- My car was originally silver- and red when I bought it...I did paint it back to the original silver-only because I like the color...as that's about the only thing "original" to my car!!!
Having substantially modded my one-owner SAE over the years, and given there were well more than 15K of them built, I have no qualms with the notion of moving away from the B2Z scheme. What I'm really torn by is whether to go blue (modern LeMans, Laguna or Electron) or to stick with a single-tone silver such as was on the Blade Silver C7 Z06 I was scoping out at the dealer yesterday (for the second time now). That said, if my SAE were still fully matching numbers correct after this many years I'd probably leave it alone and find another shark to tinker with. Just my $.02
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Last edited by TheSkunkWorks; 05-29-2016 at 05:37 PM.
If I had to take that decision on an "original" car I would go for the original paint scheme... silver over charcoal also with the blue interior. If I was not keen on originality I probably would go for silver over blue metallic (incl. a matching blue pin stripe in between) which should also look great in combination with the blue interior!
To the OP- My car was originally silver- and red when I bought it...I did paint it back to the original silver-only because I like the color...as that's about the only thing "original" to my car!!!
05-28-2016, 11:36 AM
Should I paint different?
