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My restorer is to the point where he is priming and block sanding my 68 Corvette in preparation for paint. According to my tank sticker the car's original color is International Blue (978 / WA3743) and my restorer uses PPG paints.
Does anyone have any experience with repainting this shade of blue (International Blue), or more specifically experience with PPG 13550 blue and if so, how satisfied were you with the results/color match?
DuPont shows 3 variations of color for you. Standard, light, and dark .
not uncommon even at oem’s. I think whatever local computer spits out today with current raw materials ppg is what you get without having working master standard to reference.
it would be cool if there is a thread to compile available standards..
keep an eye on ebay too. I found my 79 red there.
...I think my '68 conv was painted with that PPG paint back in '93 and yes, to me it's alot lighter than the original '68 International Blue, especially out in the bright sun. Then, it looks closer to LeMans Blue. For the first four years I owned the car when it had the original paint on it, a friend had a Dark Blue '73 Corvette and when we parked them side by side, they looked super close in color.
...yeah, I wish it was darker more like the original '68 color of IB, but it is what it is. A friend completely repainted it in '93(I stripped all the paint myself)and he painted it back then for $1400 and still to this day it's got a gorgeous paint job. When it's a dark or cloudy day, it looks more closer to the original color, but it's still not dark enough.
...my '04 F-250 with 17k miles & original paint looks very, very close to '68 International Blue
while I cant comment specifically on PPG international blue, I have used PPG to match 2 factory colors in the last year for a 70 GTO and a 69 Chevelle. I used their Shop line JBP base/clear. it has finer metallic in it which is a better match for the older paints.
on the GTO we shot the car with a paint match camera and it actually came back with the shop line as a closer match than the more expensive stuff.
I did get some of the last PPG international blue lacquer a few years back, and it was a dead nuts match for my car.
beautiful color car..
you can buy lacquer still? or did you match enamel single stage or base clear?
i bought my international blue paint from PPG in 2017. it is lacquer. however its my understanding they have now discontinued it. at the time i got it, it was being dropped shipped from a PPG distribution center or something, none of the local stores had it.
the other cars Ive painted are base/clear. the GTO i sprayed last May. it is a vinyl top car, so we removed the vinyl top and saw the original paint that had never seen daylight. the PPG was about as close as you could get to a perfect match. its also a tricky color- Palisade Green, which is a gold/green. its another one of those colors you see a ton of different shades of
1968 International Blue (978) paint code?
