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Paint Matching in the US

PostPosted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:06 pm
by denicholls2
I second the difficulty of matching paint in the U.S. I bought my
Europa, which had been painted "Lotus Blue" by the PO circa 2000
using PPG Acrylic Urethane. As it needs retouching, I wanted to
cross-match the paint numbers to something less lethal for home use.
The PO supplied the mix numbers and I was under the (false)
impression that this mapped to a Lotus code. Not true in retrospect,
he had the color matched from a former car, but I've never seen its
like in Lotus-land.

Anyway, went to a PPG shop with the mix numbers. No, they didn't
sell Acrylic Urethane because nobody wanted to spray it. And no,
they didn't have a way to match THEIR OWN NUMBERS to something less
toxic.

So I'll be hauling to bonnet off to a matching shop someday... If
PPG didn't have pretty much a corner on the auto paint market here, I
could assure you it wouldn't be a PPG shop.

Like Gareth, I didn't think this should be rocket science. But it
does appear to be.

-- Doug Nicholls, 54/1822 Ma~