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Cars and guitar colors

Cliff Gress

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Joined
Aug 26, 2004
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3,301
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moonweasel

New member
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Jan 20, 2004
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9,427
My favorite is Burgundy Mist and Cadillacs. In person, looks really great on a strat.

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BluesForDan

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Aug 31, 2002
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6,798
there's a color on a new BMW (X2) that currently being advertised that I'd love to get painted on a Stratocaster body, it's sort of gold-ish
 

corpse

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Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
4,876
Dave Davidson at the Songbird museum tells the story that when an artist came to Fullerton Leo Fender would go down to the local body shop and have them mix up a color from various OEM car catalogs. Hence these are Chevrolet Blue and Pantiac Blue Guitars. Close to exact mixes. Songbirds went to great lengths to collect all the paint catalogs.
I th8nk they have all but 8 original Fullerton colors.
 

Tom Wittrock

Les Paul Forum Co-Owner
Joined
Aug 2, 2001
Messages
42,567
Dave Davidson at the Songbird museum tells the story that when an artist came to Fullerton Leo Fender would go down to the local body shop and have them mix up a color from various OEM car catalogs. Hence these are Chevrolet Blue and Pantiac Blue Guitars. Close to exact mixes. Songbirds went to great lengths to collect all the paint catalogs.
I th8nk they have all but 8 original Fullerton colors.

My 1965 Fender price lists mentions "Available in custom DuPont Duco finishes - 5% extra cost."
I had heard that all you needed to do was give Fender the Duco color code number and they would by that paint and paint your guitar that actual color. No need for a body shop to mix the finishes, just buy the same paint as used by the car companies.
It appears they offered Lucite colors also.
 

Pellman73

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Joined
Aug 9, 2016
Messages
1,762
Tom you are completely right--

ok fellas here it is straight from the horses mouth (george fullerton), from his book "George and Leo"

One day I went to a local paint store and told the man in charge "I would like to have a special color mixed." I didn't really know what color I was looking for, except that it should be some shade of red. He and I went into his back room where he had hundreds of shades of colors. But after looking through the samples I didn't see any like what I had in mind.

The man mixed several different samples, until I finally picked out a certain color that was like what I sought. He mixed a can of paint for me to try out on a guitar body.

The prototype Jazzmaster guitar was dismantled and the raw wood body was used to test the color. A light colored undercoat was sprayed on the body and then lightly sanded. Next, the special red color was sprayed on the body. After drying, another coat of red paint was applied. After this dried, the finish was sanded with 500 grit sandpaper, and the body was polished to a high sheen. After being polished, the red color seemed to Glow. The light colored undercoats were the reason the red looked so special. The workers in the factory referred to this as "Fullerton Red" since the paint did not have its own name.

When the red prototype guitar was completed, it was sent to the sales office to get the salespeople's reactions. They got a big laugh from this. "Who would want a red guitar." And they sent it back with a very negative report on its appearance.

This discouraged me, but continued to believe that there must be a color that would appeal to musicians. Finally I got the company to allow a few of these red guitars to be built and sent into the field. When this happened, to everyones surprise and disbelief, they were well accepted by the musicians who were excited to play the red guitars.

The sales company ordered only a small number of the red guitars at first, and immediately sold every one. This prompted them to pursue the color a bit further.

In order to get enough red laquer to complete a run of these instruments, we had to get our regular paint supplier to mix it for us. When the supplier sent the new red laquer to us, it was called, "Fiesta Red". It was amazing how fast Fiesta Red became one of the most desired guitar colors.

After the incredible acceptance of Fiesta Red for instruments, the company started experimenting with other colors. We relied on Duco colors, which were basically automotive colors. These were paints that could be purchased almost anywhere, so the customer could easily touch up or completely refinish the instrument.

These were some of the colors eventually accepted

Dakota Red
Candy apple red - metallic
Lake Placid Blue-- metallic
Sonic Blue
Daphne Blue
Fire mist Gold-- metallic
Shoreline Gold -- metallic
Inca Silver -- metallic
Charcoal Mist Frost - metallic


(I had to look this up... never heard this one!


http://www.hi-guitars.com/VG1730.html


Olympic White
Black
Teal green-- metallic
Foam Green
Shell pink

The original 1957 Jazzmaster guitar with the special Fiesta Red is still in my collection. I will always cherish that instrument. It meant a great deal to have had a big part in introducing color to our guitars.
 

RocknRollShakeUp

Active member
Joined
Jul 7, 2006
Messages
766
I just noticed that this was a Fender thread...all the Fender guitars ought to have been a clue, :##

OK, here's my EJ Strat in tropical turquoise, and the car it was inspired from:
Q7rs9j6.jpg

BrOwcMf.jpg
 

Pellman73

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 9, 2016
Messages
1,762
I just noticed that this was a Fender thread...all the Fender guitars ought to have been a clue, :##

OK, here's my EJ Strat in tropical turquoise, and the car it was inspired from:
Q7rs9j6.jpg

BrOwcMf.jpg


The bound neck is the white wall tires of that guitar! looks awesome

those are two things are so iconically american... great.
 

fireboy

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Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Messages
1
Thank you for sharing valuable information. Nice post. I enjoyed reading this post.
 
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