Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Howdy folks,

Just a at the point of the restoration where my painter is looking for a color code for the silver roof on the Puls2 S-130 restoration. I understand that at the factory this was done in the Gelcoat but I am hoping that there is someone that has found a good result with modern paint products. From what i have gathered the metalflake in the roof is more pronounced than the metallic in the Lagoon Blue of the rest of the body. I am looking to replicate as accurately as possible the look of the original finish. Please let me know what you all have found.

Thanks in advance !

I took mine to a boat place and they pretty much visually matched the metal flake that was in the clear to what they believed it was and eyeballed the density and then mixed those metal flakes up in clear and shot it but no color code because there’s no paint pigment anywhere. Gordon Sauer

Unfortunately the car arrived to me with all the paint removed...

Have no color codes, but trying to be helpful by posting a picture of an S130 with a metal flake roof:

Note the finish is much more "disco" than modern metallic paints...

The original factory metalflake roofs were produced using:
A036B6355V Silver paint, and...
A036B6222V "Metallic Jewels"

Yeah, I know, that's not the 'paint codes', Just Lotus part numbers. I download a copy of every Lotus paint code list that I run across, and I just reviewed the full folder. Many of the lists include the silver base color and the "metallic Jewels" with Lotus' part numbers, but not one of them gives a paint manufacturer's color code. Sorry, but I don't have anything for you.

Your best bet might be to go to a body shop or paint supplier that has a color scanner to get the basecoat matched. That's the easy part. And they 'might' also be able to come up with the jewels. But as metallic paints go, the Plus 2's roof used 'big' flakes. That was NOT very common in the automotive market, but was used on boats for awhile back in the day. A marine specialist might have something. Otherwise a hotrod/ custom car specialist.

There's a custom paint specialist near me, Kosmoski's House of Kolor. That's the type of shop that might have the best chance of finding the jewels in the first place, and then having any clue how to propperly apply them.

https://www.houseofkolor.com/homepage/
(800) 321-0672
[email protected]

I can't help by driving over to House of Kolor for a color match, since I'm not aware of a single local Elan Plus 2 in town that has an original metalflake roof to match.

Good luck,
Tim Engel

Tried to do a couple close-ups of pictures that I had printed from photographs of my roof in 1989 when I got the car and before I had it refinished. Maybe you can get some idea of the metal flake there but beyond that you might be best to try to come up with somebody nearby who has one although when I’ve been around others they seem to be all quite different and everybody, like me I suppose, swears it was done to match their original roof and some of been very sparkly and even with some iridescent hues-I think only silver flake. Gordon Sauer

Of course as I think about this, since the original metal flake was in the gelcoat, having all the paint removed shouldn’t do away with the silver metal flake. In 89 my car had been shot in all yellow but using paint stripper for fiberglass I was able to take the yellow off the metal flake gel coat and see it as it was. So you still are to have the metal flake under there and even if they ground off the paint and wrecked it there is overrun of the gelcoat on to the areas around and just in front of the bottom of the windshield frame and the same a little bit at the back since when they’re doing it in the mold, they overspray the necessary metal flake and gelcoat to be sure they get full coverage, and again that’s what I found on my car when I stripped the yellow entirely. Gordon Sauer

It's difficult to tell from photos but there are two things I have seen that don't work, metallic rather than metal flake finishes and paints that are too silver, on my car, the original was a clear lacquer with flakes like Gordon's paint. It may well be down to the photos and the angle but pharriso's car looks very 'silver' in the photos.

Even back when the cars were made the factory had trouble with the metalflake roofs. Often as not the metal flakes themselves started to go rusty!

I've posted this several times, but paint codes as attached.

Tim

mikealdren wrote:...... but pharriso's car looks very 'silver' in the photos.

Not my car (wish it was...), the phot was taken from https://paulmattysportscars.co.uk/lotus-elan-2-s130-5/

Metal flake is a bit hit and miss.... It's not just the colour and size of the flake thats the problem, the base colour changes the cast on the flake and the clear you use on top can make the Flake really bright or duller (it can also add a yellow hue if you use the wrong clear)

Best off starting with the correct Metal Flake and find out what colour it went over on your car, then do LOTS of spray out cards until your happy (it's not a cheap procedure)

You can find the original Flake supplier and product number in the thread below, last time i approached them a year ago the flake was still in production

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=31926&start=

Mine had the factory Silver metal flake. It's a medium sized bright silver flake. About 17 coats of clear to smooth the flakes. Track down a Custom Rod shop as they're most likely to have experience. It's pretty much the same as the original in the gelcoat.

I've not done that much Metal flake but from my limited knowledge you want to dry apply it with a proper Flake gun, applying it in the clear is wasteful and expensive (not to mention it's a pain to get good coverage)

Look up the difference between wet and dry flake application, i'm sure there are loads of Youtube videos on it. Doing it dry has a lot of advantages mainly dramatically cheaper in materials to do, takes a lot less time and your not overapplying clear (which has it's own set of issues). I mean Wet applying flake is a pain but if you can't bake it between coats it's going to take days/weeks to do that way.

The problem you will have is finding a shop that is willing to do Flake properly, they add it to clear to reduce the risk of flakes showing up in other jobs down the line. It's why it costs so much to do right.

Thank you for the valuable replies. I will update this post with my results.

Hi There

Metalflake do still exist and can still supply the correct product. They're in the US but will ship worldwide. They can be found here: - http://www.metalflakecorp.com and the product required is Micro #1 Silver ref 011018.

As has been said, the flakes are mixed with clear lacquer and then sprayed onto the car before being buried under many more coats of lacquer. Data sheets are available form Metalflake on this process but I found it straightforward enough. I don't think professional paint shops like to spray this as it tends to bung up their spray guns.

There are a couple points to note though when painting the Plus 2 roof and they are these. While conventional practice would be to apply silver flake over a silver base coat, Lotus, actually applied it over a white base. The second point is that the "clear" gel coat was actually very slightly yellow/orange (even when new). Both these together mean that, although very subtle, they do difference to the finished roof looks.