1940 Dodge Colour Question

[Andydodge]

This is the only colour pic I can find of my 1940 Dodge in its original colour, this pic was taken in 1971 just after I bought the car.......I repainted it in the mid 1970's an Oz Chrysler colour Mahogany Metallic, see pic which it still is ................I know that its not real accurate to go on a photo, let alone a computer scan of a photo but does anyone recognise whether this metallic gold/light brown is a US 1940 Dodge or maybe Plymouth colour and its name.............thanks, Andy Douglas 

[JerseyHarold]

Andy,

 

Try this link:  http://www.autocolorlibrary.com/aclchip.aspx?image=1940-Dodge-pg01.jpg

 

Scroll  towards the bottom of the page and you'll see a (USA) color chart for your car.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Harold

[Andydodge]

Harold, thanks for that....only problem now is that there are three light browns..........lol.........andyd

[dpollo]

 and Canada used its own colours.      Horse hoof brown   is one.

[Andydodge]

But the Oz assembled cars like mine which is a D15 were supposedly Detroit Export RHD cars, not Canadian ........lol...............so who knows for sure where the cans of paint would have come from.........lol........andyd 

[bobostski]

There has to be a bit of original paint somewhere on your car. it's time to play "hide and Seek"...

[40phil41]

Andy, when you repainted your car did you remove the inside firewall insulation pad? On my '40 this is the only place someone in the future can find the original colour of my car.

 

Phil

[Andydodge]

The only place that had any original paint on my car was the roof.........I had a vinyl top put on around 1975 and when it was removed about 8-10 yrs ago to renew the windscreen rubbers we found the original paint under the top as shown by this pic........."Vinyl roof to go here" is my writing 43yrs ago......llllol..........my 1st go at painting the car was with a "Vatrix" unit, a glorified vaccum cleaner thing in about 1973/4......after a few yrs I then stripped the paint off the car with paint stripper, sanded it back to bare metal after doing various rust repairs and repainted it in 1978, this repaint is still on the car now except for the redone roof which went from rain gutter to rain gutter and cowl/hood edge to the trunk lid edge at the front..........there maybe some original paint here & there but certainly not under the dash/firewall area as that firewall pad went very early after I got the car was repainted/changed and the engine bay side of the firewall was completely redone when the V8 was installed...........the trunk may have some areas with the original colour but as you can see most if not all of the trunk has been covered with upholstery..............and when I was looking at the attached trunk pics I realised that the trunk lid hinges and the lid brace are still the original colour.............might have to give them a bit of attention...............lol............andyd. 

[B-Watson]

 

Big thing to remember is that Chrysler Australia Limited did not come into being until 1951, and thus all Australian-built Chrysler cars and trucks prior to 1951 were a mixture of Chrysler and Australian designs.   The chassis and powertrains came from North America but the bodies were Australian.  And thus the colours and paints would probably be Australian. 

 

In Canada prior to WW II Chrysler of Canada used lacquer paints on the cars and enamel paints on trucks.  Colours were either unique to Chrysler or some U.S. manufacturer, including Chrysler and General Motors.  The main auto paint suppliers were Canada Paint (which became part of Sherwin-Williams) and Canadian Industries Limited.  CIL was founded in the 1920's when E.I. DuPont (USA) and Imperial Chemical Industries (UK) joined forces and "sold" all their Canadian holdings to CIL.   CIL marketed DuPont paints and used the U.S. DuPont paint codes. 

 

Attached is Sherwin-Williams of Canada paint chart for Chrysler of Canada.   Each colour that has five codes are colours for the passenger cars.  

 

Colours with a single code, such as Commercial Red, code 1832, are for Dodge and Fargo Trucks.   And the colours are listed with lacquer and enamel types.

 

CIL (aka DuPont) codes :

Royal Maroon - 246-8498

Coral Blue (Metallic) - 202-32537  (US make unknown)

Ottawa Beige - 246-32683  (1939-1940 U.S. DeSoto - Williamsburg Tan)

Chateau Green 246-51252  (1937-1941 U.S. Buick)

Strathmore Blue - 246-37342  (US make unknown)

Harbour Grey (Metallic) - 246-36382  (US make unknown)

Gunmetal (Metallic) - 202-32542  (US make unknown)

Commercial Red - 93-236 / 246-8528

Regal Maroon - 93-350 / 246-8544

Commercial Blue - 93-8097 / 246-8847

Black - 93-86 / 246-8708

Thistle Green - 93-8098 / 246-8848

Silverwing Grey - 93-8099 / 246-8849

 

Desert Beige - (not listed on Sherwin-Williams) - 246-8937

Colours with prefix "93-" are enamel, "246-" lacquer and "202-" lacquer metallic.

Four digit codes starting with "8"  (246-8498) are Canada-only colours.

Edited January 12, 2018 by B-Watson