Distan27

After about a year of fixing up my vette, I'm ready to think about getting it repainted. At first I decided to just repaint the car the same charcoal metallic, but now I'm having second thoughts. First off, how do you guys feel about completely changing the color of your car? I understand some of you would want to restore it correctly, but I realize my 1981 isn't exactly a collector's year, so I'm starting to think I might as well change it up if I like another color better (also the grey doesnt shine as well in sunlight as other colors ). I've been looking around some profiles to see pictures, but I was hoping if anyone has a custom paint job or switched colors they could post some pics (before and after possibly)? Right now I'm looking into yellow. Also I forgot to check, is it going to cost more to have the color changed, and about how much? Thanks a lot.

SkunkApe

I imagine so, due to the extra prep work involved. If re-painting same color, you most likely don't have to worry about the "nether regions". I had three quotes to change my color to silver and all came in around $5k.

cosmicvette

Unless you are willing to outlay quite a few more dollars or spend a fair amount of time it will be hard to change the color completely and get a perfect job, than it would be to get a very nice re-paint of the original.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

markdtn

Charcoal is a nice color. If you don't mind it is easiest (cheapest) and will probably retain the most value over time. If you change to a reasonable popular color it will hurt you some at resale time, particularly on a very original car. You will find some who don't care about that. If you go with wild color changing type paint it may hurt the value a lot. Most of your target buyers will automatically deduct the cost of a repaint when they look at the car.

$5k is not an unreasomable estimate for a color change done right. Good luck with it. Enjoy the car how you want it.

AGVI

Go silver, it looks great and easy to keep clean.

fast idle

i changed the color on mine ,but i had a crap orange peel flame job to get rid of. i did the work myself wich included removing some of the interior, the hood and doors to get the neither regions, the interior door panels, took the power window motor covers off, there is no way other than the door tag to tell what the original color was. if you aren't getting this good a job, do most of the work yourself and they won't skin you for the price.
I don't think the 5 thousand dollar paint job will get you near there.
the picture in my avatar is electron blue metallic pearl with 4 coats of clear, the camel dung interior was swapped out for white leather buckets from an 80 something c3 , the console is white as is the face of the dash, along with a white leather strip to replace the carpet strip on the door.
once you change anything you supposedly ruined the resale value of the car, well,it's my car, i intend to keep it.if you are fixing up cars to sell them you would be better off playing the stock market with your money .
do whatever blows your hair back...

texaswilkins

It's your car do what makes you happy!! Even us NCRS guys enjoy a vette built the way chevy should have.

I am going through this now. I changed from Silver/Red to Yellow. Everything had to come completely apart. Door's, Hood, Bumper's Mirror's, Handles, Locks and ALL trim. A good painter will want that anyway but it's more important if changing color. Price isn't as important as quality and guarantee. I spent 6,000 for the painter and it would have been the same for two tone. I took it apart but he put all the yellow back together before buffing. Now I am trying to rebuild the car that I took apart 6 months ago. It would have been faster for the shop to rebuild it but it would also have been much more expensive. If you are thinking about Yellow you need to know that new vette Millenium Yellow is a very expensive paint. $800 per gallon. I chose a very close color that wasn't quite so much.

The interior is going to cost almost as much. I changed that from Red to Tan. Everything that gets touched regularly I tried to buy in original color molded parts. The dash and trim parts got painted. All the soft stuff is new. The new Kenwood cd player wasn't a factory option either.

My first vette was a 78 Silver Anniversary car that I restored and then earned a Top Flight award from the NCRS. It was a beautiful car but an awful lot of trouble. All the things that the factory did that I didn't like had to be rebuilt into it. I could't upgrade anything for fear of loosing points. I finally sold it so I could get one I could play with.

Bottom line; it's my car and I always wanted a yellow/tan vette.

Hope this helps.

Bill

JungleCat

My car was originally silver with black interior. I had it painted black, not because I didn't like silver, I think silver is classy. The guy that painted my car was having a hard time matching up the original color and I always liked black Corvettes so I told him to turn it black. Since then, people have offered me more money for the car than I paid for it so I don't think I hurt the value of it. It is an '80 after all. The down side is black cars can be hard to keep clean and get hot in the summer but they sure look good when clean. If I ever decide to fully restore my car to it's original condition I can always paint it silver again. I'd say do what makes you happy and have fun with it. To me, that's what Corvettes are about.