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Hello my new neighbor just moved in on my street and just so is a retired GM corvette Assembly line worker from the late 60’s to the 80’s . He told me things I never knew about corvette’s.. he explained to me that the quality of the paint was so bad that the customer could order the car just primed (at a lesser cost) and paint it themselves according to the trim tag color they picked .. 😮😮 did anyone ever hear about these
I wouldn't be too surprised if this is true, I've never heard of ordering the car just primed, it does seem like something I could see GM doing. It seems like most c3s have been resprayed at least once.
I believe there was a special order paint code for primer.
I think it was only available on a couple of year models with special order performance packages.
I’m sure someone here will chime in who has all the details.
...the quality of the paint was so bad that the customer could order the car just primed (at a lesser cost) and paint it themselves according to the trim tag color they picked .. 😮😮 did anyone ever hear about these
Yes, a car could be ordered with a color override for a non-Corvette color for that year or in primer. If they ordered primer or a non-standard color, the car did not come with a color called out on the trim tag. It would say SPL, SPEC, or another such designation. These cars aren't particularly rare but they are uncommon.
As to the quality of the paint, when I became aware of Corvettes in '78, the new cars at the dealers did not look poorly painted at all. The Silver Anniversary models and the black Pace cars looked great. They weren't show quality paint standards and they weren't comparable to paint quality today but they were respectable. My '72 still has its original paint which is now crazed, faded, pitted, and worn through in spots but the coverage is good and still shines. I know others here have original paint cars that also look decent. Keep in mind that these cars were painted by real people, not robots, so coverage variation existed.
Yes, a car could be ordered with a color override for a non-Corvette color for that year or in primer. If they ordered primer or a non-standard color, the car did not come with a color called out on the trim tag. It would say SPL, SPEC, or another such designation. These cars aren't particularly rare but they are uncommon.
As to the quality of the paint, when I became aware of Corvettes in '78, the new cars at the dealers did not look poorly painted at all. The Silver Anniversary models and the black Pace cars looked great. They weren't show quality paint standards and they weren't comparable to paint quality today but they were respectable. My '72 still has its original paint which is now crazed, faded, pitted, and worn through in spots but the coverage is good and still shines. I know others here have original paint cars that also look decent. Keep in mind that these cars were painted by real people, not robots, so coverage variation existed.
paint quality was poor in the 60’s to 70’s by the 80’s it did start to improve . But back then they were God awful 😞
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In '76 there were nine Vettes built in primer, special paint code 400XA. One of them is for sale right now.
I can't get the link to work, but it's at Hemmings. It's the 1st '76, black, asking $36,300.
Factory paint was far from perfect.....but I think mine's held up pretty good....yours too 71 Green....
GM was pretty liberal with things like paint choices in the 60's and early to mid 70's. If you had a friendly dealer willing to take the extra effort to make the sale, you could generally order a GM car, in any other GM color, or even primer. It usually required corporate approval through a Corporate Office Production Order (COPO), but it was really just a formality. I don't think there was any discount for this, more likely a slight up charge.
The quality of GM paint jobs had nothing to do with this either. The reason color changes and primer were offered was mainly so corporate fleets, police departments, fire companies, municipal services, etc, could tailor the color of a vehicle to meet their needs, but it was never really restricted as to who could place such an order. Can anyone really imagine GM, or any automaker admitting their paint jobs were so crappy that they'd sell you a primered car, so you could get a better paint job on it from someone else?
For the most part, the practice went away toward the end of the 70's, as GM became more computerized, centralized and uniform in their order and production process, making it much more difficult to deviate from standard colors and options. Today GM has a palette of about 20 colors that are not part of the regular colors offered on any model, that can be ordered for fleets, etc, but it now requires a 5 vehicle minimum order.
It wasn't all that common, or even well known, that you could special order a color, and generally no more that 10 or so Corvettes were ordered each year in either primer or a special color. Probably the best known Corvettes with special ordered paint are the Shriner's Corvettes, in particular the dozen 62's painted 60 Cadillac Eldorado Heather metallic (a purple metallic color).
GM's paint jobs weren't that bad, and certainly no worse than other US automakers were. GM used lacquer paint, so GM paint jobs could usually be buffed up to a pretty nice shine, though you had to be careful because they were sometimes a little thin. The St Louis Corvette plant's paint shop was old, limited on space, and limited as to what they could do, which was the main reason a new plant was built in Bowling Green in 81. Bowling Green got a modern paint shop capable of doing two-tone paint (quite popular in the late 70's & early 80's), and designed to do two stage paint jobs (something not possible at St Louis). This allowed GM to switch from the Corvettes single stage lacquer, to two stage clear coat enamel.
Glenn the special paint was not a COPO just a trim over ride in the FS&O group it still had to be approved by the central office mainly to make sure the dealer got paid so someone wouldn’t be stuck with it if the person ordering it backed out. COPO gets way over used and miss used
paint quality was poor in the 60’s to 70’s by the 80’s it did start to improve . But back then they were God awful 😞
i totally disagree with that. GM had the absolute BEST paint finishes of the big three. Mopar had the worst. Find an original paint 1960s GM car and compare it to today’s bc/cc paint with the horrible orange peel under the clear coat.
My 75 had a terrible paint job when i picked it up in 1974, gun steel blue, real bad orange peal, i complained about it, they repainted the car two times and was still bad. They cut me a check for $1,200.00 if i would never bitch about the paint again, used the $ for the Ecklers ZL1 flares.
So yes, they had bad paint back then.
Hello my new neighbor just moved in on my street and just so is a retired GM corvette Assembly line worker from the late 60’s to the 80’s . He told me things I never knew about corvette’s.. he explained to me that the quality of the paint was so bad that the customer could order the car just primed (at a lesser cost) and paint it themselves according to the trim tag color they picked .. 😮😮 did anyone ever hear about these
Im sure I’m not alone in hoping that your new neighbor has more St. Louis stories to share with you. If he does please pass them on to us. Good stuff
In '76 there were nine Vettes built in primer, special paint code 400XA. One of them is for sale right now.
I can't get the link to work, but it's at Hemmings. It's the 1st '76, black, asking $36,300.
Factory paint was far from perfect.....but I think mine's held up pretty good....yours too 71 Green....
i totally disagree with that. GM had the absolute BEST paint finishes of the big three. Mopar had the worst. Find an original paint 1960s GM car and compare it to today’s bc/cc paint with the horrible orange peel under the clear coat.
Totally AGREE!!
My 2008 Jetstream Blue and my 2014 Torch Red were full of orange peel under the clear coat. Especially the Red one. When I traded it in, the salesman swore that the car was in an accident and repainted due to the poor quality of the paint. My current 1982 Bright blue has good paint but thin in some spots.
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I believe it really depended on the time of day and the day of the week...there was alot of pics around from members here of the lunch time at the GM factories ...It looked like a keg party with the bottle and smokes getting passed around...so any car after that lunch was probably pretty suspect as well as anything made on friday or monday morning...
^^^^ A lot of truth to that. Here's a thread I did 'way back in 2015' when a lot of C7 owners were complaining about paint quality. May be of interest. Or not. https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ange-peel.html
Factory paint
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