Percy Thrower

[Joloke]

Rhododendron Bush

[Tamworthbay]

Better to mix to the car anyway if possible. Do they have a paint scanner?

[Crusty Sills]

Is there any silver removable panels on the inside? (I know it's black currently) a decent paint supplier should Be able to mix it to a sample.

[danthecapriman]

Power wash it hard and it might blow the black off, then you could (hopefully!) find a patch of old silver to paint match.

[Guest Hooli]

Find an area you can't see & try a bit of thinners/stripper to wash the black off? If the black is as bad as you say it'd need to come off to get a reasonable silver coat on anyway so you've not lost anything long term. You never know it might just wash off & leave the silver ok if it's not been prepped properly.

[Crusty Sills]

Like Hooli says try some thinners in an out of sight area. If it's as cheap and shit as you say it may wash off but it will be a big, smelly, dirty job that your neighbours will not thank you for if doing it in the street!!!

[Guest Hooli]

Its had a few replacement panels guys so though I might get down to the colour it would never be able to run its original paint

 

 

The badly prepped black would still need to come off to blow it over in the right colour if you want it to stick & last.

[Crusty Sills]

Coming from an ex spray painter, the problem is that's bodge will always look bad. That's probably why it was Matt blacked to start with.

Silver is a hard colour to paint with out good prep work and prep takes time and costs money I'm afraid.

[JeeExEll]

UK silver for this period was Stardust Silver (1973 - 76), the name returned in the 1990s / 2000s but the later version may (or may not?) be a different shade.

After 76 Stardust Silver was replaced by Strato Silver which was a lighter 'brighter' shade than Stardust and used for many years.

 

These UK silvers readily available, it may be worth comparing paint chips to see if either is actually the US 1G code silver under a different name.

 

 

(The Ford silver which came off in strips on late 60s and early 70s cars was called Silver Fox. Am not sure if the problem was with the original paint from that period or with preparation but this shade 'could' be another early 1970s Ford match if you can't get 1G. Just a guess).

 

Thinking about it again, the problem at the moment is really just finding the info on 'the ingredients' to make a 1G code colour mix.

 

 

Bit of info here on the 1G paint codes but I think it probably duplicates what you have already.

http://mustangattitude.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?code=1G&manuf=Ford&rows=50

 

Paint chip for 1G on this pdf around page 29 (pdf size is 10MB).

https://www.sherwin-automotive.com/pdf/1976_Domestic_Color_Manual_pdf.pdf

[Junkman]

The same shade of paint usually had a different name each year and a different name for each division, i.e. that same silver was called differently in the Mercury and yet again in the Lincoln paint charts. Speaking of which, I have a vast collection of those still from my restoration days.

One thing I've learned is that the authentic American paint colours do not give the same impression in Europe as they do over there, which has to do with them having a much more 'southern' light than we do. After all, NYC is approximately on the same latitude as Napoli. Therefore I usually approximated the 'impression' by choosing a colour that looks like the original in our much more northern light. It's no mean feat and often took me weeks of juggling paint chips. For example, to replicate 1961 Imperial Teal Poly,

 

 

I used VW Montanagrün metallic.

 

 

I had it painted in original Teal first, but it just didn't look right.

 

At least you won't encounter the issue of having to key the colour to the interior, which often is the case with Sixties yanks. You would then have to approximate the paint to the interior as seen through tinted windows.

 

Besides, silver is the last colour I'd paint it in. I'd actually go for a blue metallic keyed to the interior. If that sounds challenging, it's because that's exactly what it is.

[PhilA]

Erm, the paint job on my car was redone by MAACO. Have you seen my car lately?

 

Despite what you say, that crappy paint job has probably saved the car, tbh.

[danthecapriman]

I had trouble getting paint for the Mercury over here. The code for mine is 3S ‘light green’ which was used on all Ford Mercury Lincoln cars of the era but over here the code meant nothing and nobody I tried could get the paint ‘recipe’ to mix it.

In the end I had to either use a panel to match it, best idea as the paints old and faded/weathered so the new paint would match.

Or, as I did, I happened to have a tiny tiny quantity in a bottle of old touch up paint which I sent to the paint guys who used that to mix a sample. I tested it against the car and had him lighten it a shade and send me the order.