Blue paint under black

[Tom Bickerdike]

    Working on my ARQ Ruby black and original colour to what I know I keep finding blue paint under the black either by sanding/stripping back or behind trim such as the dashboard and door cards. Where the blue is exposed behind trim it appears not to be a finished colour and somewhat mat and looks quite thin. 

I didn't quite know what to think of this and one thought was it had the colour change in the factory? but today a friend suggested they may have used a dark blue base coat as general practice on black cars? Does anyone have any knowledge on this please. 

I had previously decided to spray the car blue and this feels like the car is agreeing with me! 

[Greig Smith]

I can't answer your question Tom but mid blue with dark blue or black mudguards would be a very elegant colour combination

Aye
Greig

[Parazine]

Don't forget, your car may have been sprayed many, many times and that's just since the 1960's! Unless you can find paint that's definitely original (and who's to say that it is?), paint it any colour that's appropriate and that you like.

[Peter Naulls]

Tom,

I would think that is paint from a previous re-spray. The original primer (etch primer?) would have been brown with the colour coat directly over it.

Peter.

[Tom Bickerdike]

The car was originally logged as black and beneath this blue paint is a grey (looks gray) primer and then base metal. The car has what I would say the original thin hand painted coach line around the body, but again possibly re done. If it was originally black and repainted blue then it would have had a full body strip to base metal before painted and then again later returned back to black. I guess I will never fully know for sure but I am intrigued!

[Peter Naulls]

The archaeology can be fun! Check that your coachline is the same width and design as the original. It should loop round at each end and be less than 1/8" thick. When they are re-done they are often different. I think the A7CA website has samples of the coachline for each colour.

[Denis Sweeney]

In stripping my Ruby body shell back to bare metal I found the colours had included brown, blue, grey, red and in certain areas yellow!
The colour noted on the earliest remnants of the earliest log book in my possession is given as grey, so that is why she is now painted Dove Grey, but cannot be sure that was as original.
Denis S