Colour advice please.

[Bobby]

Hello.

My car is a 1975 260Z.

The original colour appears to be a goldy looking brown.

At some time in its hard life it has been resprayed an iridescent green.

I have been getting rust cut out and unfortunately due to the amount of rust (that was well hidden) I am up for a full respray. (and a serious amount of money)

I don't really like the green and was going to go for a solid green like "British racing green" but a friend advised me that the colour should be one of the original colours available when new.

My wife really likes 918 Orange and I am now keen on it as well but the problem is that was not a 260Z colour.

My question is am I destroying the value of my car by going for a non original 260Z colour?

[ScottyD]

Are you re-building this car for YOU or resale ?

[Bobby]

Hello Scotty. I am 69 years old and with the total outlay currently way above what I could sell the car for you have to take these things into consideration.

I have tried to keep the car "period correct" in all that I have done.

I am not rebuilding the car to sell but at my age you have to think ahead.

[theremm]

I love the original british racing green and think it is one of the nicest colours on the Z. Not sure if it is an original colour for the 260z, though it looks great on the 240z in my opinion. 

If you are considering resale value then the best advice would be to choose one of the original colour schemes that you like the most and go with that. That's definitely a safe bet. Or at least a minor variance in an original shade.

I think its a fair observation that cars which don't have an 'original looking colour' generally don't have as wider buyer appeal, therefore limiting the number of people who would be prepared to pay the price you're asking for the car.

[Bobby]

theremm. Thanks for your advice. My friend who I mentioned above says the same as you said in your last paragraph.

[theremm]

In saying that if I were ever to repaint my car I'd only ever use an original colour  but it's all a matter of personal taste and opinion really.

[GongZ]

This is a pretty good guide to the factory colours

http://zhome.com/History/ZColorGallary/index.html

[gilltech]

Personally I'd stick to the original colour range. However, tastes are different today from what they were back in the '70s. Also, paint technology has moved on a great deal. 'Modern' colours often have more colour depth than those back in the day, and the paint systems are different too. So sometimes it's not easy to match 'old' colours closely and one has to experiment a bit.

Unlike American cars, the body colour is not recorded on a door tag but on a sticker on the radiator support. So if you pull a Zed apart and remove every trace of the old body colour then no-one subsequently would know what colour the car was originally anyway, except from some old photos.

At the end of the day it's your car rebuilt to your tastes. And if those are pretty much those of the rest of the car loving fraternity then on-selling the car later shouldn't be an issue. Some colours sell better than others of course, worth bearing in mind.

[Bobby]

Thanks for all the input.

The original 260Z colours were not as exciting as the 240Z colours and I feel these cars respond better to a bright colour like a lot of the 240Z colours.

For those that are old enough to remember there were a lot of bright colours in the 70's. I had a friend who had "granny smith" apple green shag pile carpet and Laminex on the kitchen benchtop.