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As a TR2 (TS765L) owner from Norway I find it extreemely dificult to find a modern equivalent for the original Ice Blue color, Dockers 4575. I have a half litre of paint made to this spec, bought 20 years back, but the small remains of original paint on the car seems to be greener. Can anybody help with a modern spec useful for mixing proper Ice Blue.

 

Best regards: Einar Marthinsen

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Hi Einar, my car, ts1067 was ice blue but much of it was grey primer when I got it. The bits of original paint viewable like back of battery box etc like yours seemed very dark, almost light olive in colour. Although my car is once again finished in a colour called ice blue, I know it is probably more bluey grey than the original, but I like it so that's ok with me. Mine seems very similar to the pictures I have seen of Lou's, but during my research I went to see the early tr2 belonging to Tim Collins, which is much greener than mine. If you contacted mike Ellis, the tr2 registrar he may well be able to put you in touch with Tim, who since he restored his car would know the paint it is. Bill piggotts tr book, the one with a close up of red tr4 on the front showcases a tr2 in ice blue inside, but this seems darker still to tim's that I have seen in the flesh.

 

Regards Bob.

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Hi Bob

 

 

Very interesting, I have the book, this color seems to be very close to the paint remains I have on the scuttle, on the edge facing the steering wheel and on the overspray on the wooden part just below, all normally hidden by trim. However on the front I have uncovered and polished up an even darker green. This is no easy match, but an interesting hobby.

Just to confuse things, the front innerwings and engine compartment under several layers of paint seems to have been painted bright yellow (as an undercoat probably.)

I will try to contact Tim.

 

Regards Einar

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Hi Einar, it does indeed get very interesting, unlike 2long I'm not a lover of the greener ice blue, which ultimately I believe to be around the correct shade of the original. Mine is called ice blue, by ici apparently, but as I have said, is generally more bluey. Even so at the right time of day, with car on grass, hey presto! It looks green! The early colour ways were bizarre, mine in ice blue, had ice blue weather gear, and grey interior. I gave a nod to originality with the blue paintwork, but mulberry interior for me to get some contrast! Anyhow, if you contact bill piggott he may well put you in touch of the owner of the tr2 in the book. From memory, when I spoke to Bill he told me the car was fairly local to me.

Menno, I'm fairly new to the forum and without a photobucket or Flickr account haven't tried the photo loading thing yet, but like most I'm proud of my car so will have an attempt.

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Hi all

 

Thank you all for the help, but I am still a bit confused due to the different shades that exist.

I am aware that Triumph made it complicated as they used another Ice blue back in 1973.

 

I will investigate further, have a test sample made from the color spec given by Alec and try to contact persons as advised.

If anybody has mail adresses to the persons that would be of great help.

 

Einar

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Fascinating thread. No blue cars to be seen. How to fix a colour just by talking about it. Brilliant.

Part of the problem is that no computer or photograph ever gets colour exactly right.

 

When I did my 4A in Royal Blue, the painter got three samples, thought be near the original, sprayed up a largish sample and let me choose.

 

Another problem is that you will probably use 2-pack or other non-original paint formulation. These catch the light and look different even if the colour is right. Ultimately you will have to experiment and choose.

 

Al.

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Hi Al

 

Of course you are right, I am prepeared for this. But if someone already has done the job and has the formula, I can test and compare with the small remains still on the car

At the moment I am thinking of using Celulose (my paint supplier says that he can supply this).

In the end I might very well continue to do practical comparison, I have done a lot already, but this is difficult due to the fact that there is more than one color on my car that could be calld ice blue!,

 

Einar

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Hi Al,

 

the difficulty with the early TR colours is pinning them down - most of the Docker's formulations were not published in a translateable format, and Docker's paints aged more quickly than the iCI paints which replaced them. Hence original samples are now of little if any value, they are no longer the original shade, not by some considerable margin.

 

60 year old colour photos, what few there are, suffer similar problems of ageing.

 

The original source inspiration of the initial range of TR2 colours has puzzled us all for a long time, but Dan (2long) has put a good deal of effort into researching the original spec for his own car, and is I think getting closer to the answer. He's been busy on the case of late, and I reckon before too much longer he might be able to offer more insight ?

 

Cheers

 

Alec

Edited by Alec Pringle
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Hi Al:

 

At the risk of boring everyone to tears, here is what I found. My goal was to research a match for Olive Yellow. The conventional wisdom is that Lady Black had a hand in the selection, and at least three of the first range of colors were really unusual - Olive Yellow, Ice Blue, and Geranium. I have gathered every sort of hard evidence I could find, including chips of unfaded paint supplied by Bill Piggott, photos of my own car before it was stripped and repainted in the 70s, and probably best of all, areas of unfaded paint on my original sidecurtain that I polished for examination:

 

PICT0001.jpg

 

Then I researched the dockers number for the color and the Standard Triumph color chart showing the color. but as Alec notes above the dockers number leads to nowhere and matching a color from a copy of a printed page (or even an original page) is not really very accurate. I then relied on the goodwill of every other owner of an Olive Yellow car to provide me with the precise formula they used when they went through their own efforts to match the color. These formulas differed slightly, of course.

 

But what of the original inspiration? On a tip from Alec, I learned that the British Color Council was an industry standards organisation which was fairly influential in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Their original publication was in 1934, the Dictionary of Color Standards. The next publication, the Dictionary of Colors for Interior Decoration, came out in 1949 and was much expanded. It had 378 color samples in matt, gloss and a carpet like material. These standard shades were used in a very wide ranges of industries. I contacted an old-time paint matching expert in London who was able to look through a copy of the BCC dictionary and lo and behold, there was Olive Yellow:

 

photo_zps770efa80.jpg

 

I thought of a clever cross check and asked if the publication also had Ice Blue and Geranium in it, but it did not. Here is the fellow's reply:

 

I've had a look through the BCC dictionary and there is a 'Geranium
Pink' not 'Geranium'. It is an original B.C.C. colour with ref B.C.C. 174.
It was standerdised in 1934. So this could well have been the one she used.
The 'Ice Blue' was not in there though. To be honest, by the mid 1950s the
BCC dictionary was one among a larger range of colours like the B.S.381C
etc. I have cross referenced against a lot of our 1950s cards like Archrome
and all the BS colours but nothing of 'Ice Blue' comes up. She could well
have got this from another source or it has been misnamed since then.

 

So, my cross check was not definitive. But the Olive Yellow entry in the BCC Dictionary was intriguing, because to me, it was the absolute best match of everything I have seen. I had a color card made of the gloss version, and that is what I will be using to match when I am ready to plunge into repainting my car. I learned also from Alec that soon after the early to mid 1950s, the BCC Dictionary became supplanted by other color standards, so I don't think the BCC Dictionary is helpful for much other than the earliest range of colors. So, there it is.

 

Dan

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Hi Einar:

The BMIHT on my TR2 (TS981L) states that it was born with Ice Blue with Geranium hood and trim and that is the way it lives. At the time I bought the car in 2000 it was black, primer, yellow and of course rust coloured! During the dismantle stage we found on the inside of the passenger door a two foot square section of unfaded Ice Blue. We scanned that section to produce the colour the car now wears. All panels were taken down to bare metal and refinished useing the following formula:

801J HS White 91.9

806J HS Black 3.2

830J HS Fast Green 2.0

881J HS Yello Oxide 1.2

827J blue 0.2

150K B/C Balancer 137.4

175K Binder 55.5

These are Dupont part numbers with the paint called Chromabase. The combination will total mix size SP(7.41% of Gal) or 9.5 oz.

 

We show the car at 8 / 10 British car shows per year and since its completion in 2003 we have accumulated just shy of 35,000 miles! The high mileage for a single day was last June when we drove 710 miles to the Triumph Register of America's national. The car gave no complaints the entire distance which is more than I can say for my co-pilot! I might add that the entire distance was via our Interstate system at a sustained 75 - 80 MPH.

 

I wish I had even a single pence for each time the car has been photoed over the years. Depending on the amount of light determines how the car will look in the resulting photo. Bright sun shows it as white, shade says green yet a dappled sun shows the true blue. In the flesh it is a very light lime green.

 

Personally I am very fond of the colour as are those who see it. I don't understand why it was supposedly discontinued in September of 1954.

 

Enjoy and let me know the results

 

Lou Metelko

Auburn, Indiana

USA

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th_Einarstelefon14112010074_zps7f96b0ce.

 

Hello Louis and you all.

Thank you for all help.

Here is a picture of TS765L taken one year ago, coated in red primer. As you see still a way to go. Original color ice blue and interior Blackberry, originally fitted with wire wheels (no adapters) and radio instead of glove box. Glove box made and installed by me back in 1970. Black hood belived to be the original one (not very pretty). I hope to start some painting this summer.

 

Best regards Einar

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi

 

I have today received a 1/4 litre with Dupont Chromabase Ice Blue sent from Seattle onboard a brand new Boeing 737, as

being unable to get Chromabase in Norway. The color matches some small remains left on parts cut away, it is greener than the other paint samples obtained earlier on but it is much nicer and very special.

I will now have the color analysed and I will go for it.

 

Best regards Einar.

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Einar:

Glad your small remains of original Ice Blue matches the results of my formula. I promise you will not be disappointed with the final results. Feel free to pass that formula around to anyone who wants to duplicate the true Ice Blue!

 

Lou Metelko

Auburn, Indiana

USA

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello

 

Just an update. A piece of steel has been painted with the paintsample brought from the states. An analyse of the sample has been made but so far the new collor sample produced in celulose does not yet match the original to near 100%, it is still a bit on the blue side.

As I have the time, more collor adjustment will be made.

 

Best regards Einar

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