1957 Chevy Belair

[spawndude]

I'm building the AMT 100th Aniv 1957 Chevy Belair.

It will be done in a showroom new condition.

What color should the undercarriage be? Rust, black, body color?

Also I'm confused about the body color.

I selected the Turquoise/India Ivory combo which is listed as one of the original color combos.

India Ivory appears to be almost a beige color.

I've searched the web for photos and all the Turquiose 57 Belairs are combined with a regular white.

Is this just the effects of photography and screen colors?

[1930fordpickup]

Go by what the GM options say for colors . There has to be a web site on these cars.

[slusher]

India Ivory I believe is off white...

[Art Anderson]

I'm building the AMT 100th Aniv 1957 Chevy Belair.

It will be done in a showroom new condition.

What color should the undercarriage be? Rust, black, body color?

Also I'm confused about the body color.

I selected the Turquoise/India Ivory combo which is listed as one of the original color combos.

India Ivory appears to be almost a beige color.

I've searched the web for photos and all the Turquiose 57 Belairs are combined with a regular white.

Is this just the effects of photography and screen colors?

On the undercarriage, all the frame, along with suspension parts, were painted GM Chassis Black, which is a semi-gloss black. The entire body was painted in red oxide primer before going to the finishing department. There, the body was mounted on a roll-around cart, rolled into the paint booth, where a team of two or three painters used hand-held production spray guns to apply the body color. When they came to the firewall, they painted that down to the "break" where the toeboard (slanted forward part of the floorboard) met the vertical firewall--but there would have been some overspray onto the red oxide underside of the body in this area. The same was true with the rocker panels--factory painters ducked down, sprayed the undersides of the rocker panels, which left a band of body color overspray along the sides of the floorboard underneath. This same overspray was also evident around the sides and end of the trunk floor, but not so visible up inside the rear wheel wells.

As for color availability, Bel Air's could be had in any color from the Chevrolet color chart, including solid, one-color paint jobs. India Ivory is a very light ivory or cream colored white. The wheels were painted the lower body color, and on a model having full wheel covers, the very lip of the rim will show, as well as the back sides of the wheels between the tires and the brake drums.

Art

Edited March 24, 2014 by Art Anderson

[spawndude]

Thanks for the info guys. This can get me moving on with my paint job. The undercarriage color had me stalled out. I'm saving the body for last.

I may go with regular white. I just don't visualize Turquiose going with a cream colored white. I will test first on an old car body.

[Doug Bowen]

Johnathan...check out ScaleFinishes.com for your paints. Click on Chevrolet, then 1957 and it will list all the correct (I assume!) colors for the car for that particular year.

I just got '56 Ford pink and white colors from them. (somewhere around $12 for 2 oz. bottle.) Worked great.

D

[Doug Bowen]

I just looked it up on my favorites list...also check out PaintScratch.com for actual color names, etc.

[Art Anderson]

Thanks for the info guys. This can get me moving on with my paint job. The undercarriage color had me stalled out. I'm saving the body for last.

I may go with regular white. I just don't visualize Turquiose going with a cream colored white. I will test first on an old car body.

Actually, India Ivory looked a lot better than a stark "refrigerator" white back then--as all white paints tended to "yellow" somewhat in the sun. If you look at a paint chip chart for any make of car back in the 50's, you will see that most of the colors we tend to think of as really "brilliant" were in fact rather "muted", which apparently was to minimize UV fading.

Art

[Bill J]

I just painted a 57 Chevy Black Widow this week, the tape is still on it, so won't know if my masking job worked until Wednesday or so. The very white used on 57 Chevy's was called Imperial Ivory. That is what went on my Black Widow.