1963 R2 exterior paint color

[Leo B]

11 hours ago, Dwight FitzSimons said:

I have a 1963 Avanti Color & Upholstery Selector book.  According to it Avanti Gray was available with upholstery combinations 6, 7, 8, 9.  6 = black, 7 = red, 8 = orange, 9 = turquoise.  A cool color (gray) and a warm color (orange) certainly do go together.  Looks good to me!

I have to admit. It looks great in the picture.👍

[TerryR2]

Thanks Dwight! What a great resource book. The decision is in....Gray with Orange interior. Thanks everyone...

 

 

 

 

[Dwight FitzSimons]

2 hours ago, TerryR2 said:

Thanks Dwight! What a great resource book. The decision is in....Gray with Orange interior. Thanks everyone...

 

 

 

 

I am looking forward to seeing pix of it.

--Dwight

[64studeavanti]

According to the production data as complied by the Studebaker National Museum, there were 24 1963 Gray Avantis with Orange interior. 

Edited January 3 by 64studeavanti

[TerryR2]

25 now! Thanks again. I'll send some painful before pics soon....Terry

[Avanti1963!]

Good luck Terry.  It will look awesome.  

Edited January 3 by Avanti1963!

[South Shore Motors]

On 12/21/2023 at 7:08 PM, Dwight FitzSimons said:

Avanti Gray is a beautiful color.

 

I believe that's the Gray Avanti that sold recently on BAT. It was a beautiful car, but from the pictures, I didn't think that gray was a very good match to Avanti Gray. I have an identical car which I'm restoring. Mine was originally Avanti Gray and it had areas of factory paint that were in good condition for matching. The original Gray was more of a blue-gray as opposed to this color, which is warmer. The pictures of the BAT Avanti confirm the difference. Compared to the exterior shots, the original paint on the underside of the trunk lid appears bluish-gray. It's evident again, when comparing the original underhood finish to the fender top.

I make the point not to knock the BAT Avanti, but to help someone trying to pick an original color for their car. IMO, the BAT car's current color looks better than the original Avanti Gray, which I'm not a fan of. I struggled with changing the color on mine, knowing that a Gray exterior/Red interior was a fairly rare combination. Ultimately though, I chose to use Avanti Red because I really didn't care for the original Gray but wanted to stick with an Avanti color option. To assuage my guilt, before painting the car, I made an aluminum plate which I attached to the firewall, covering a well-preserved portion of the original Gray color. Should a future owner wish to return the car to original color, they'll have a sample.

Matching colors in modern paint systems is difficult. I was a product designer (now retired) who did it a lot and I still spend an inordinate amount of time getting it right. My brother is in the automotive paint business (represents Axalta--formerly DuPont) and he's a great resource. We have a copy of the DuPont Spectramaster chip book, which has thousands of color chips. Even with this excellent reference, it's usually not possible to nail a match without additional tinting. Depending on the project, we sometimes find it easier to just go with the closest "stock" color in the Spectramaster range, rather than custom-tinting and worrying about having to match it again in the future. After a lot of sampling, I think we landed on a good match for both Avanti Red and Avanti Gray, in the Chromapremier line. Bad news is Axalta is phasing out Chromapremier, so the formulas will change again soon. I'm happy to provide formulas for what I matched in Chromapremier, if that would be helpful.

[Leo B]

It is really difficult to show the colors of cars in photos. Especially in digital photography and and taken with phone. The only way to try to get close to the actual correct color is to adjust the image so that the original object is same time visible. The difficulty is highlighted especially in iridescent colors, which are greatly affected by light. My Avanti Gray looks way too blue in the latest Avanti magazine photos. I don't know if the color shade of the BAT Avanti Gray is correct, but I remember that there were many pictures of that car and the shade was different in different pictures. Of course, it's a matter of opinion, but some colors go well with one car and some with another. It's about the whole design. Often the original is the right one because it also describes the history of the vehicle which will remain for the next generation.
In attached photo you should see quite well Avanti Gray. A bluish gray with a hint of purple.
Edit: It should also be noted that the lowres jpg compressed image changes from the original, and on top of that, we each have our own uncalibrated screen.

Edited January 17 by Leo B

[South Shore Motors]

Leo B- Great photo! I agree it's hard to judge paint color accuracy from a photo. For example, in a photo of an automobile, the relative color value (light/dark) can range from almost-black in shadow areas to almost-white highlights. Trying to make a color sample chip from a photo would be impossible.

My point about the BAT Avanti was that while it may be difficult to judge absolute color accuracy, a color mismatch is evident in a number of photos that show exterior (repainted) surfaces adjacent to original surfaces-- such as the underhood shot. There were other shots as well, where new paint did not match the old (below). That's not meant to be a knock against the car-- it was a beautiful example.

I agree, color correctness is impossible to determine from photos, but mismatches can be more easily spotted. Looking at the BAT photos, it appears to me that the exterior (repainted) color on the car is a warmer gray compared to the original paint on the adjacent inner fenders. I'm assuming that the inner fenders, door jambs and trunk lid (with weathered jack instructions) are likely still original factory paint. If my assumption is correct, I'd judge the mis-matched exterior to be an inaccurate representation of Avanti Gray.

Even given the inaccuracies of digital photography, your photo looks like a much truer representation of the factory gray color, based on the example of my own car. Your description, "bluish gray with a hint of purple" is exactly how I would describe it.

[Leo B]

Thank you South Shore Motors.
I'm going a little off topic. I also want to highlight the images used in the sale. I have often wondered about sales announcements where there is a car for sale for example over $60,000 or even more, but the pictures are bad and taken with a cell phone. I have recommended that in these cases you should clean and polish the car well and use a professional who has good cameras and knows how to photograph the car and the details. If this costs a few hundred dollars or even a thousand, it's worth it. You get even more back (with experience). Pictures and information are the only things the buyer sees in the online store.

[TerryR2]

Thanks for all the great guidance here. I now have 2 Avanti's and two different posts. Thanks Dwight for the interior orange color swatches. I am planning on using an orange leather instead of vinyl. Is it possible to send swatches to you to try and match your swatches, I'm trying to get as close as I can without having your book in front of me. If this is too much of an inconvenience I get it. I don't want to set precedence either or you may be inundated with Avanti restorers requests. Also trying to lock down the color. I am attaching photos that I think may be closer to factory grey. 

[Dwight FitzSimons]

21 hours ago, TerryR2 said:

Thanks for all the great guidance here. I now have 2 Avanti's and two different posts. Thanks Dwight for the interior orange color swatches. I am planning on using an orange leather instead of vinyl. Is it possible to send swatches to you to try and match your swatches, I'm trying to get as close as I can without having your book in front of me. If this is too much of an inconvenience I get it. I don't want to set precedence either or you may be inundated with Avanti restorers requests. Also trying to lock down the color. I am attaching photos that I think may be closer to factory grey. 

Sure, I would be happy to help.

--Dwight

[TerryR2]

Thanks Dwight, how do I get ahold of you outside of here. Here's my number 805-698-3072

[Paul K.]

I have a partial can (1/2 qt.) of Studebaker factory pack Avanti Gray and its still liquid. Avanti Gray being my favorite color, I've always wanted to do a spray-out. I'll dig it out from the garage this week and post a pic of the can.  

[TerryR2]

Great, would you be interested in selling what you have left? My paint shop is in Valley Center, not far from you. 

[Paul K.]

Hi Terry, I'm going to keep what I have for a my next Avanti project. Its been a while since I saw the can last. When I have it, I'll spray a small sample.  

[Billy Shears]

I acquired a gold 1963 Avanti about twelve years ago, also in need of total restoration.  I am about 99.9% done with it now -- just a few minor details left to square away.  Boy has it been a long and arduous journey.

The gold paint the car was wearing was not original, and was darker than the original Avanti gold, which is kind of a champagne gold.  I didn't care for it at all.  Not only was the paint on my car old and ugly, it was chipping off, and a large amount of bare fiberglass was showing around the radio antenna -- whenever that paint went, it took the previous layers of paint, and the primer with it.  I really hope there isn't something in the fiberglass that will migrate to the surface and lift the new coat of paint off one day.  Stripping the car (with a razor blade and an air file), I discovered the original color was Avanti gold, but it had been painted white at some point, and then gold again in that incorrect, darker gold color.  I took it down to bare fiberglass, which I needed to do anyway to repair a small number of cracks.

All the while I was stripping the paint off, I was seriously torn between Avanti red, and Avanti white.  In the end, I decided to go with white, even though I don't generally care for white as an automobile color.  But Avanti white is an off-white, sort of an eggshell white, and very close to Ford Wimbledon white.  It really has grown on me, and I think the car looks fantastic in that color.  Other people seem to agree, since I've been asked by more than one what color that is.  I decided on Avanti white in the end because it and black were the only two non-metallic colors Studebaker offered the car in, and black, as others have noted, requires a lot of extra work to make the body perfect, or it will show every wave, ripple, and imperfection in the fiberglass.  I decided I wanted a non-metallic color because unlike with metallic paint finishes, you can make invisible spot repairs -- a non-trivial consideration with a car that has that flat, grill-less nose panel, just inviting itself to be chipped by pebbles flung up off the road by the tires of other cars.