My paint code is 83 on a 79...dark metallic blue, what does the "L" suffix represent?
Novice here, just doin the thing....

 

Month of make, should be July I believe.

 

If under the 'interior' color code, it signifies "L"eather seats.

 

Oooooo my bad lol, guess mine didn't have leather seats

 

The L has nothing to do with interior materials. Our friend with the blue car must be hanging out with Rob Ford again.

If the L is directly after the 82 as you stated, this follows GM's standard practice of how the paint on two tone cars were identified. A 'U' after a code would signify what colour the upper part of car was painted and the 'L' would identify the lower part. Single colour cars showed simply 'L'.

Urban legend says that L was for lacquer and U was for urethane (false).

'79s with leather interior had a three digit code that ended in 2. Cloth interior have a three character code of two digits plus the letter 'C'.

 

Thank you Mr. Ward. It is not two toned...


Jerry

 

Mike is 100% correct! All 79 paint codes were made up of 2 numbers, followed by the letter "L". The "L" indicated the it was the primary color of the car.

Traditionally, two-tones were cars where the body of the car was painted one color, and the roof was painted a different one. In this case, the primary color was listed with the "L", and the roof color was followed by a "U". Since the primary color (or main body color), was indicated by the "L", on solid colored cars only one paint code was listed and it was followed by an "L".

Even though the Corvette was not offered in two-tone, prior to June 1981 (other than 78's Silver Anniversary & Pace Car), the 79 Corvette paint codes followed the same layout as other Chevrolet car lines.

Beginning with production of Corvettes at Bowling Green in June 1981, two-tone paint combinations, became a regular production option. The trim tag on Bowling Green cars, was changed to allow 3 paint codes to be displayed. All Bowling Green cars had a paint code followed by an "L" and a "U". This was the case for both two-tone and solid colored cars. A solid colored Bowling Green car, painted Charcoal Gray Metallic, has a paint code of 39L 39U. A Bowling Green 81 painted in the two-tone Silver and Charcoal Gray combination, had a trim tag with paint codes listed as follows: 39M 33L 33U. The primary color of the body was silver, as was the roof, while the charcoal, which was painted around the lower portion of the body, was considered an "accent" color. As such, 33L was the silver body, 33U was the silver roof, and 39 M was the charcoal lower accent color.

 

I love this place!
Thank you for the clarification...

Jerry