Thanks winabbey your a champion mate

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1965 Riley Elf
1974 Ex Army Moke
1997 Rover Cooper
2002 JCW Cooper
2003 JCW Cooper S

For what it's worth,
When I wanted to repaint my car, PPG (old Dulux) said they could supply a colour to the old BMC colour code from the car in acrylic lacquer.
I eventually painted the car in 2-K from BASF (Baslac/Glasurit) and matched the colour from their colour chips because BASF don't have any references back to the early tinting systems or Australian colour schemes. The colour match wasn't perfect but as close as other mixes have been when using "factory" formulas.

The short answer is no, you can't really convert the old formulae from the 60s and 70s for use with current tinters.

I work for Dulux as a development chemist in the Auto refinish and Industrial business and have a large input into our colour service for the Automotive refinish business.

The original formulae for touch up and the OEM finish for that matter contain lead pigments and are usually single layer colours (no clear on base metallics). Lead has been banned from use in paint for longer than I've been in paint, so the original pigmentation is not available anymore. Also unless the whole tint system is copied over into the system you are using including the pigment contents of the tinters (weight %) you will struggle to convert the formulae for two reasons, 1. while you may have equivalent tinters (tone) you will always find one which you don't have an equivalent in the system you are using ( and that tinter you usually need), and 2 the relative tint strengths of the tinters are likely to be different (tint strength is the ability of a tinter to shift the colour, i.e how much black is needed to make white into a given grey).

These old solid colours are normally not that hard to match roughly to a sample, but colour matching is a very hard and dying art. This also depends on your expectation of the quality of the colour match, and what it will be used for, touch up or overall repaint. A rough match for an overall repaint will make most people happy, but for touch up the colour match must be much better, this is also dependant on the painters ability to "blend" the old and new colour. I should stress I am very fussy with colour and I can guarantee I drive the colour matchers crazy telling them to try harder because I am not happy with the colour.

I recently found Dulux do still have many of the original manufacturing standards for cars produced in Australia pre 1990s, we now will provide colour matches to these standards (if available and not gone missing) to bodyshops we supply in base coat or 2K on request. Please note there is a 2-4 week lead time on colour formulation and these products are only suitable for use in a bodyshop with a spraybooth and all the required safety equipment, DO NOT SPRAY 2K ISOCYANTE CURED PRODUCTS IN YOUR BACKYARD.

From memory the only Mini/BMC/Leyland colours we have done is Marine Blue, Snow White, and HiHo Silver.

When buying paint for older colour also please remember, we have matched a colour standard which was made when the cars were new and has been kept in the dark in a cabinet in a temperature controlled building, so it may look different to the 30,40,50,60 year old paint you have now which has faded/chalked/been polished to much thiner than it's original thickness/been repainted in a poor match, ect. Also some areas like under the dash rails only get a quick coat of paint at the factory so may differ to the outside of the car a little bit.

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Lindsay Palmer
06 Mazda SP23
80 Alfa GTV (weekend toy)
86 626 Turbo (daily drive, now stolen)
71 cooper s replica
69 cooper replica
76 clubman
62 english 850
68 Mini Auto

Thanks very much for that info. Very good to have this explained.

I reckon this should be a sticky.

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68 Morris Cooper S Mk1 (*ex 78 1275 LS 4th last built, 70 Morris 1500 OHC & 70 MiniMatic)

Top bit of info there Lindsay.

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1963 Morris 850 Smoke Grey
1963 Morris 850 Shadow Blue
1965 Morris Mini Smooth Van
1966 Morris Mini Van
1969 Morris Mini Deluxe Resto
5/72 Clubman Gt

Wow, what a great explanation Lindsay. Most of it is just common sense but having the story explained like that provides a nice perspective on the challenges in keeping an ageing car on the road in good 'original' condition.

Where are you located?

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ex-NSW Police 1970 MK II Cooper S
VMCI #43

Happy to help. I'm in melbourne.

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Lindsay Palmer
06 Mazda SP23
80 Alfa GTV (weekend toy)
86 626 Turbo (daily drive, now stolen)
71 cooper s replica
69 cooper replica
76 clubman
62 english 850
68 Mini Auto

There must be a certain level of discretion the colour matching scanners go down to, to prevent the mixers being called for a single cubic centimeter of a particular colour and so on. I imagine you could call in a dozen tints t omake a colour, or just a few if you had the choice.

Does this make a difference, and is it part of the problem of colour matching?

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking but I'll try to answer your question.

We currently don't have a spectro as part of our colour offer, we use colour chips (fan decks). A spectro measures colours and then will either find the nearest colour from the library it has or create a formula depending on the spectro's capability.

This means we must match the colours requested, the benefit for the customer is the Colour is not a near enough. But you do have a two to four week lead time.

As for the number of tinters used in the formulae, again it depends on the customers expectation. The number of tinters needed is more dependent on colour type (white, blue, ect).

If the colour is required for touch up (small volume of colour) painters will usually match the colour as the colour will have changed for the reasons I listed previously. For overall repainting we can justify the time as we are normally also supplying primer and clearcoat, thinners, ect. Getting a match from a standard is also a true representation of the colour when the car was new.

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Lindsay Palmer
06 Mazda SP23
80 Alfa GTV (weekend toy)
86 626 Turbo (daily drive, now stolen)
71 cooper s replica
69 cooper replica
76 clubman
62 english 850
68 Mini Auto