Ugly Copra Drab

[Tom Wesenberg]

Originally Posted by H. L. Chauvin

Hi TerryH,

Very neat looking car ...... thanks for taking time to post same.

I agree, those are beautiful colors.

[George Miller]

I like it also very nice.

[zzlegend]

Excellent Terry.

[mshmodela]

Terry, your car is awesome, great colors

[Cool Hand Lurker]

I painted a few cars in my early years and found that using different colors or shades of primer can change the color of the top coat, especially if you spray a different number of coats or thin the paint differently. And this is when the paint comes out of the same can!

[Marco L.]

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Originally Posted by BadgerA

I too was challenged by these paint colors as the spray outs of the stated color formulas are not correct. Indeed, the vast majority of cars painted these colors are either too gray or too green. I expressed this concern to Ken Ehrenhofer. He had been working on this with his "paint guy" for years. He\we have finally come up with the right formulas for PPG concept single stage that very closely matches the paint and finish guide. I have attached a file with these formulas. I painted my Victoria accordingly and am very pleased with the results. Much better than what is generally out there. If you are thinking of trying these formulas, I would strongly suggest you have your paint supplier do some spray outs so that you can check for yourself and decide if you like them.

Cheers

Hi, My name is Marco I live in California. I am currently in the middle of having a car painted and I fell in love with your cars paint. I know it's Chicle Drab and Copra Drab but I am confused by so many people saying that the colors may vary from green to brown. I already have the formula that you posted, this has been the most helpful post on the paint so far, thanks. I am hoping that you can send me or post a pic of your car in daylight to make sure that this is what I'm looking for before spending any money on paint that I might not like.

Thanks,
Marco

[ModelA29]

Cars are sensitive to color. A guy up the street was in love with Fords Springtime Yellow. It looked right on his Mustangs, OK on his 70s Ranchero but totally ruined the look of his Lincoln Continental.
All the materials have changed since the cars were first painted. Manufacturers used the same paint on different models/years and called it different names - conversely they modified the colors over the years while using the same names. Taking the MAFCA paint guide to the store and matching to their chips is probably the best bet. If their guys is good he'll be able to add a little of this or that to get it exact.

[wwirz]

My car is these colors. With a Tacoma cream pin stripe,Tacoma cream rims and wide whitewalls, you cannot beat the color combinations. Very popular color choice

[Kingo]

I really like the copra myself.

[Chris in WNC]

From my observations, there are three versions of chickle/copra repaints-
greenish, greyish and brownish.
Depends on when and where the paint was sourced, I suppose.
I prefer the brownish, which seems closest to original.

[Kingo]

My colors were matched from original paint found between panels and trim, where the sun would not have effected them, and they definitely were not brown hues. I think ford used large quantities of paint that varied in hues from batch to batch. So, whether it’s a brown, grey or green it still could be a factory hue.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by Kingo

My colors were matched from original paint found between panels and trim, where the sun would not have effected them, and they definitely were not brown hues. I think ford used large quantities of paint that varied in hues from batch to batch. So, whether it’s a brown, grey or green it still could be a factory hue.

This has been discussed in the past here by ones that have researched this enough to know the facts. Ford owned a LARGE paint manufacturing operation that blended ALL their own paints used for the production of the Model-A. There are M-Specs (-Engineer's Material Specification) for each & every ingredient of each & every component that made-up every item used in the manufacturing of the Model-A. Paints were no exception, ...so to suggest there were hue differences between batch lots really is not factual. The employees in the paint laboratories (there are pictures of this lab at Benson Library) were held to strict Q/C standards. When the ingredients were ordered that made-up each of these different paints and bonderizers, those were held to strict standards also. Buyers or employees in the lab did not have the latitude to substitute ingredients or alter ratios to suit their own likes.

Furthering this mindset, because many (-i.e.: most) Ford Agencies during the Model-A era did not have Body Shop spraying capabilities, when a vehicle was damaged, a complete new piece (door, hood, deck door, fender, apron, etc.) was ordered direct from the depot already painted in the matching color. This happened because the factory applied paint matched the replacement part paint.

One other thought on this, is that many of us have seen unmolested, all-original Model-As that were painted in Copra & Chicle. All of them that I recall have ALWAYS been with brown tones. Never were they originally green. How this color went off the rails goes back to the Ditzler days when they first began offering chip books to assist restorers. Many do not realize that Ford manufactured their own paints until the mid-1930s when a Ford-vendor named Pittsburg Plate Glass (-who had purchased Ditzler Paint in the late 1920s) offered to be Ford's paint supplier. The present club's joint Paint & Refinish Guide originated as a PPG/Ditzler book. In the 1960s, Ditzler offered a paint book followed by the PPG version. Somewhere along the way, some formulas got mixed-up where the colors became greener and later when the chips showed grayer when the clubs produced it. Again, these were mistakes by the paint manufacturer long after Ford had produced the Model-A. So I tell all of this so we all understand that if being authentically correct is the goal, the correct color hue really is Brown, -and not Greenish or Grayish in color.


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[Ernie Vitucci]

Damn! Ernie in Arizona

[Ron Blissit]

I painted my 1929 roadsterpicup comercial drab as it was when new. Some people think it is an ugly color.untill they see it in the sunlight