What could be the story

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shep76

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For a special ordered car is it possible they would have started painting it then switched colors? My 69 dart has a fender tag that says it’s B7 (blue) but behind the rear door panels I see green overspray. I’ve uncovered green in the quarter panels as well. The rest of the interior is blue. I know it’s been 55 years so I suppose anything is possible. Just curious what the story could be. I guess it’s possible it was in a really bad accident and the whole back half of car was replaced but that seems like it would have just been junked…
 
I think anything is indeed possible. We went to school with a friend who had a 1969 Road Runner. Big deal. But it was plum crazy. There was no evidence anywhere that it had ever been repainted and it also had the correct color code on the fender tag. Although the paint was needing help, it was purple everywhere. The trunk, under the seats, behind the door panels and even under the dash and on the inside of the firewall. So yes, I think a color change is certainly possible.
 
I was a finish painter at Mack Trucks on the cab line. There were many times I was spraying one color and when I got up to do my half of the roof I saw we were spraying 2 different colors. The worst was when we sprayed one side white and the other side red and the color was white. Try and cover red with white. We only got 7 1/2 minutes per cab for full color The line was moving through the booth at that rate.
 
CFD244 said:
Maybe a re vinned car? Do all of the body numbers match?
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I thought that too but the fender tag and the vin tag match. Are there any other tags? The pic is odd though right?

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Oldmanmopar said:
I was a finish painter at Mack Trucks on the cab line. There were many times I was spraying one color and when I got up to do my half of the roof I saw we were spraying 2 different colors. The worst was when we sprayed one side white and the other side red and the color was white. Try and cover red with white. We only got 7 1/2 minutes per cab for full color The line was moving through the booth at that rate.
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That’s the kind of thing I was wondering about….
 
All sorts of weird stuff happened back then. I would imaging the insides got painted before the outside. Also, if they had a run of green cars and switched to blue, it took a while to clean out the paint guns and lines with the new color.
 
toolmanmike said:
All sorts of weird stuff happened back then. I would imaging the insides got painted before the outside. Also, if they had a run of green cars and switched to blue, it took a while to clean out the paint guns and lines with the new color.
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All the colors were in pressure pots in a paint room . You would just grab the hose for the color that was grease penciled on the firewall and hook up. The guns were electrostatic . The paint would wrap around corners on its own. The paint room guy Walt was incharge of keeping the pots full of the colors and marking the hoses. There were two sets of hoses on each side and pairs of painters would do every other truck at the same time. Then they would go up hill into the oven.
 
shep76 said:
I thought that too but the fender tag and the vin tag match. Are there any other tags? The pic is odd though right?

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Re-vinned means taking everything from a wrecked or rotted car (including the fender tag and dash vin) and installing them on another shell. There are stamped numbers on a body shell that are supposed to match the tag and vin....I am not sure where these are on a '69. Mine are on the rad support and under the package tray. This is just one possible explanation.
 
I had a 70 Scamp that was metallic orange...spots in the engine compartment showed the bronze color and then it must have been oversprayed with orange. probably a Monday morning Oops!
 
Oldmanmopar said:
All the colors were in pressure pots in a paint room . You would just grab the hose for the color that was grease penciled on the firewall and hook up. The guns were electrostatic . The paint would wrap around corners on its own. The paint room guy Walt was incharge of keeping the pots full of the colors and marking the hoses. There were two sets of hoses on each side and pairs of painters would do every other truck at the same time. Then they would go up hill into the oven.
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That's good to know. How many different colors did you paint?
 
CFD244 said:
Re-vinned means taking everything from a wrecked or rotted car (including the fender tag and dash vin) and installing them on another shell. There are stamped numbers on a body shell that are supposed to match the tag and vin....I am not sure where these are on a '69. Mine are on the rad support and under the package tray. This is just one possible explanation.
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I would guess this is the most likely scenario. I suppose its not all that scandelous, a green /6 car rebadged into a blue /6 GT.... I will take a look at those places.... although now I'm not sure I want to know. :) Regardless, the green/blue/0.25" of bondo are all going to wind up in my trashcan anyways.
 
Same thing here. 69 Roadrunner 1 owner.We knew the car from day one. The guy died 40 years later. The wife sold the car to us. It was green. When we started taking the car apart removing the rear window moldings we find blue that faded into the quarters. Our thought was blue was the last paint in the gun/lines before the green started to flow. Maybe ?
 
My Dart is white with a green interior. There is green showing under the white on the doors, for sure, where some chips are. I think they painted the entire door the interior color earlier in the line, and then final body color at the end. That way the interiors can all be done in a batch for a specific color but still be tailored to the final car color without having to keep track of 'specific' doors.

E.g. Blue interior got a blue door, no matter what the final color was, because it's done later
 
Very seldom was there the same colors in a row. When you would hook your hose up you would spray it through the grate in the floor into the water. The correct color was already at the end of this hose.
toolmanmike said:
That's good to know. How many different colors did you paint?
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Well there were the Mack straight fleet colors. White, Red, blue, green, Yellow, orange , black, Then there were special order and that could be any Metallic colors, two tones, We would paint the full cab. Then they would go down the cab line to meet the frame they would go for any custom paint work before setting on the frame
 
Back in the 70s and 80s I know of a couple of body shops that would take 2 wrecks and cut them apart and weld them back together. 1 with front end damage and 1 with rear end damage. Kim
 
oldkimmer said:
Back in the 70s and 80s I know of a couple of body shops that would take 2 wrecks and cut them apart and weld them back together. 1 with front end damage and 1 with rear end damage. Kim
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Helped do plenty Mopars in my day at Mikes auto body in Whitehall. I remember a Coronet R/T with a Coronet 500 back half. Left the quarter chrome on the side scallops. Saw the car at Carlisle 46 years later.

Just had this car here look how this rear clip was installed. This could not be seen until we started stripping it. I had to get a picture.

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Pretty sure the primer under the soft yellow on my '67 was very similar to that green.
Exception was the tan racing stripe which had a red oxide primer showing through. IIRC stripe was painted first.
One day I'll look through the prints and see if any show this. We thought it was interesting so pretty I took pictures of it.
 
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