Modern colors on older Mopars

My '69 RR is finally at the point where we're only a couple weeks away from paint. This is not a resto so and painting it the original Y2 yellow is not an option. I have an orange picked out (not an original Mopar orange) but lately I've been thinking about that the newer "battleship blue/grey" seen on many makes would look pretty awesome on the car. Here are 3 options - keep in mind these won't show any metallic in the photos

So two questions:
1) what are your opinions on that color on an old B-body
and
2) is there anywhere on the net to get a photo of the car colorized to get an idea of what it would look like.

I like PPG Classic Clay, but not sure what it would look like on a B-Body.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/street-rodderpainless-performance-top-100-at-back-to-the-50s/

There was a member here with a '68 RR drag car that painted it a light grey, and it was interesting.
There's a new Honda sedan nearby that's an interesting shade of a light greyish blue.
In the early '50s, there were some really nice pastel greens, blues, and teals/turquoises, too.
Given the expense of painting a car these days, consider the car's theme and take your time deciding.
To my eye, grey is pretty industrial, but tinted towards green or blue, becomes more interesting.

Never been a fan of the greys but I do like the newer Dodge color "Destroyer Grey". I have nothing to do with "Driver'sWay" it's just a pic I found lol.

I know this does not answer your question but i would stay with a 69 mopar color. you should have a look see at another thread where he just painted his 69 x a4 silver, looks awesome. Q5 seafoam turquoise is awesome also. i did a 69 rr with white interior in Q5, looked incredible.

There's no doubt the designers knew what they were doing when they chose the colors back in the day - right down to which models suited them i.e. a 68 or 69 RR just does not suit Plum Crazy or Panther pink no matter how much you might like those particular colours!

However, its 2023, times have changed, time to think outside the box, step out of the comfort zone. lop off the mullet, ditch the high tops, slip into more comfortable jeans, buy tee shirts that give some breathing room, face the reality that 20 year olds don't find you the least bit attractive and get rid of the "bass boat" paint scheme on your car in favor of a more current color. Change is good!

Personally, I think any of those 3 colors would look good on a '69 B-body.

C'mon you computer guru's...someone knows how to photoshop those colors onto a '69 Road Runner. Help him out!

Go to cruise night in a 69 RR in battleship gray and get ready for the finger pointing and snickers from the crowd.

Whoa! Lop of the mullet? That's a bit extreme!

20 year olds Heck i would be happy ifn 40 year olds took a second look! and mullets are hip again by the way. and where im movin they never went out of style. im a firm believer that its your car so if it suits your fancy do with it what you choose. i cant wait for the mopar "numbers" guys to see my 6 pack challenger and what i did to it, well its all under the hood and underneath, outside and inside looks mostly stock. factory 70 color by the way.

Had this discussion with a buddy when he ordered a Ribicon in white. My question was...isn't there any other colors? Drive down the freeway around here and 90% of the cars are black,white, silver or grey boring!!! IMO that grey on the Charger above is even more There's a big ole color pallette to chose from, new or old...find a color that makes the car pop, not blend into the ordinary daily driver blah land!

When I first started seeing all these bland grey cars, my first thought was, pigment must cost more.
This has to be a cost saving strategy.
My 2nd thought was they look like someone didn't paint it and it was primer?

What's next the dull rust primer color?

Put me on the list of "Not impressed with the grey."

Years ago I had a grey and white 35 Dodge, the white set off the grey, had it been all grey, I would have had to do something else with it.

My 49 Dodge pickup is painted with a 2012 -2016 Jeep blue. It really pops, and I get a lot of comments about how the people love the color. Most are surprised it is a modern color.

I'm with the camp that says pick something that is bright and pops, not something boring.

Red oxide primer looks pretty good when it's rubbed down and waxed.

There were a couple of those around when I was in high school.... about 50 or 60 years ago.

Why not do a google search and find a car with the colors you have in mind? These squares all show dull boring colors that might show better if you find automotive examples.

Trying to find the thread I started a while back asking the question if Destroyer Grey will eventually become the GREEN of back in the day in ten or twenty years from now where it is a love it or hate it color? It once again seems like a love it or hate it color and didn't take as long as back in the day GREEN . When I first saw the Destroyer Grey on a friend of mine's car I asked him what color he was planning to paint his car after the primer settles.......not funny he said.

That wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, I used to hold the flashlight for my father !!

I've never wanted to please the crowds with any of my car colors or interior, I don't really give a big rat Frick what they think
As long as my cars are faster and quicker than theirs, I'm happy

good one, remember the story

I had a LeBaron coupe that was a charcoal gray metallic that I liked, but I think these new machinery/battleship/industrial grays are just boring, but great for making a car disappear. Man, you've got a '69 Road Runner; make it pop!

Viper Stryker Purple on my '71

i still got sideburns................... ['course, they have [WAY] more to them than the top of my head. ]

If the OP isn't dead set on grey, but just wants a modern color, besides what I previously suggested, there's the following:
GM blue on new pickups that looks like the '68 Q1 but on steroids.
They - and Mazda - also have reds like candy-apple red; the Mazda color pops from 200 feet away.
FWIW, Steve Strope @ Pure Vision likes Aston Martin metallic colors, and his builds are generally attractive.

The color doesn't need to be bright or metallic to "pop". Case in point ... black cars !!

Well, my initial plan was to go with orange. Then I went to the Detroit Autorama ... seems orange of one shade or another is like a bellybutton ... everyone has one !!!

and ...

and ...

How many vehicles, at the Autorama, were painted Destroyer Grey?

Mike.

1968 Chrysler B9 blue is super nice. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...along-with-hemi-power-158630.html#agal_3

1969 B7 blue is also great. https://hot-cars.org/2016/12/14/rare-jamaican-blue-1969-plymouth-road-runner-a12/

This 1969 Dodge F6 green is amazing in the sun. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...-everyone-go-green-with-envy-194031.html

If you want something different Bahama yellow is it. It's a love it or hate it color. https://www.sportscarmarket.com/profile/1969-plymouth-road-runner

Always wondered what this color would look like on a '69 Road Runner. A neighbor had this color on his car and it always grabbed my eye when I saw it especially on bright sunny days.

No B9 in 1968. It was coded EE1 in 68, and was available as B9 on C body Chrysler's only in 1969. My 68 Road Runner is EE1, and looks very different depending on the sunlight. Love the color.

B7 is another very nice color. Lighter than EE1. I plan on painting my 69 Sport Satellite in B7, when I redo it.

Like this ??? Not mine.

Nope, nope, nope and definitely NOPE!

Car was originally Y2 Yellow. The only "original" color I care for is orange. But if I do go with orange it'll be this one which was on a Dart at Carlisle last year and as you can see matched my spray-out almost perfectly. I didn't meet the owner to as them any questions.

Whatever color makes you happy, go for it. To hell with what anyone including me thinks!

Orange looks great. Doesn't matter to me which one.
Even the original Omaha Orange/garbage truck orange looks really good to me, and all the more modern variants
are great. There is a reason so many of them are painted orange. It just works.

Destroyer grey and other brands' equivalent (seems the Subaru version is alot more blue?) has been done, I've seen two or three, and looks really good.
If you love it, do it!

A 1969 Plymouth Road Runner is simply not boring in any color (unless you hate 1969 Road Runners or think they are inherently boring).
Even Sandpebble Beige looks badass to me.

None of the legit supercars are boring, in any color or even in primer.

Just imagine any of these without the metallic and there's destroyer gray.

Just say NO to millennial gray! Maybe that lovely shade of baby poo brown that toyota has now should be a consideration

his car. What ever trips his trigger.

I fail to understand why you guys post the question of what people think, then argue with them about their opinion.

Paint your car the color of your choice, then ignore any comments someone may make (unless they are agreeable to you), and enjoy life.

He asked the question looking for answers and OPINIONS...And he has gotten them, although he seems way less thin skinned about the opinions.

Want my opinion on a color. Orange is nice of 68-70 B bodies, but I like orange. I also would consider the original yellow(even though I dont like Yellow) and possibly some of the late model reds, particularly the Mazda ones mentioned. I have had a couple 68-69 B bodies and usually gone with an old Mopar color but not necessarily from that year. For example Plum Crazy and GoManGO.

Now he has my opinion and an answer to the question.

Anyone who knows me or has seen some of my cars knows I like COLORS...Usually in multiples.

The only comments that bother me are from the "original factory color" purists. And if I didn't reply to some of the comments, how would you know I'm even reading them. But honestly, there are quite a few people who just can't think outside the box. And FWIW, "Zippy" has probably provided the most valuable comment of all. Those photos really do a pretty good job of showing what it might look like.

Nothing worse than a 69 b-body painted limelight or plum crazy, well if it has a wing along with one of those colors i guess that would make it worse, sorry but its just does not look right to someone who has been around these cars for most of there lives. now some other generic color i could live with. again its your car so you have the choice, just like my challenger, i had the choice, i chose the color it came with.

Hey what the heck is wrong with Y2? (just joking) I like the Pontiac (G8?) orange color I posted, mostly because of the "flop" to a sort of burnt orange (like on the fender flare area) and other areas it highlights. Back in 1980 when I was kind of pushed into selling my '69 Road Runner in F5 that I ordered new in 1969 (long story) I sold it to a friend that worked at a body shop. It was pretty cool what he did to it. The F5 had sort of a gold metallic in it (IMO) and he took and misted the front fender and rear quarter raised body lines in gold metallic and slightly or subtly the C-pillar and a few other areas but you had to look closely to spot where he had done that. It was real nicely done as it popped at times and at other times you barely noticed what was done. Anyway, here's my Y2 GTX and I did have for a while a '69 Y2 Road Runner project that maybe I should have kept and painted that G8 ORANGE metallic.

Wasn't '69 F5 named limelight (iridescent)??? I'll only agree on the plum crazy then

yeah your right limelight green metallic was a 69 color which i think is a great color,, i should of said 70 sublime or lime light fj5.

They put orange on some of the Dodge Vipers if I recall so perhaps one of those is acceptable?

The HOK oranges that street rodders and chopper bike guys tend to use are more exciting than any 60's shade of orange by far.

https://www.66autocolor.com/collections/house-of-kolor-orange-shades

It's hard to tell on a monitor so color swatches if you can get them for the colors you are considering are worth your time. Here the nice people at the local PPG store will mix up a small plastic bottle with a few ounces of paint in it for cheap so you can go home and do a small test spray out.

Google images can be your friend if you choose to look.

You might think you’ll never sell the car, but life can have a way of sending vastly different outcomes at you than you’d dream up today. A no stock color will be a hard sell, no matter how many people tell you they love it when you do it. Maybe it’s my screen settings, but those swatches in the first post look not much off B7.

This car, I was told, is painted a mid 90s dodge truck gray. I know it fell kinda flat and it never got any comments on the paint. I wouldn’t have done it this way for sure.

I happen to love white cars. I’m also the only one as far as old mopars. I actually had more than a few negative comments about bland colors on a mopar.

Just throwing out there what I’ve seen and experienced in 30 years of doing this stuff. Not downing your idea, just laying out there what I’ve been apart of, at least some of it.

Do what you want.

This is Ford Performance white. I didn’t do it. I bought the car about six months after it was listed on eBay. I got it way cheap, nobody wanted it and guy was blown away when I called the number I saved until I had the cash. It’s brighter than Alpine white. I would love to paint another one like this. I’d be keeping it forever and my kids wouldn’t be amused if they wanted it gone.

The is Y4. It looks more yellow and better out in the sun, for some reason I don’t have any pics on here without people so you could see it that way.

Gets more comments than any color I’ve had. Not one I ever considered before. It fell in my lap one day. I’d absolutely paint a car this color without hesitation. Gets more thumbs up than any one I’ve had. Had a guy hang out a window of a passing car to tell me how awesome it was when I was bringing it home. Got first comment about half a mile from seller house sitting at a light.

That gray charger looked as nice. It got less attention by far if you can believe that, I do because I lived it.

This is R4. People love this color. My 69 rr vert that I lost the pictures of in a hard drive meltdown was popular with the passerby too.

I had this car bought, but title wasn’t in the guys name and that screwed the deal. I showed it to people and said it was one I was close to getting. Car people. Regular people, mopar people, they all loved the look. I could just tell. That’s a seldom seen factory pinstripe btw.

<-------My '69 A12 Road Runner is Y4 Spanish Gold Metallic and the only RM21 A12 coupe/post RR in Y4 in the registry at the moment. It's an oddball in that going back to the second owner in '71 there are photos of it with GTX bottom trim. Y4 is nice but the OP wants a current color. Neighbor's daughter has a nice Omaha orange Jeep Renegade the OP might look at like this?

Well, I tried. Glad you found it useful.

I'll be the first to admit it was with a fair amount of personal bias, as I've been prepping the GTX for 3 years and shot it myself last week here at home.
After alot of vacillating and research I went with the original color, but it's obviously a modern formula+process.

In the timeframe of these cars when they were new, a metallic silver was absolutely not a color I'd want unless I intended to pamper the car.
The single stage leaded enamels faded terribly and it was not long before they looked like gray primer........which isn't far from Destroyer Gray, so....here we are.....it s not super hard to connect the dots and imagine.

Good luck with whatever it is you decide, I do have opinions, specific likes and dislikes but most of my ideas don't relate to your question at all, so they're pretty useless in the conversation.

I have a picture of my Road Runner when it was 5 or 6 years old, and it was BEAT, and the paint was faded. Looked like a beater then. The factory colors are completely different when new, and sprayed in Base/Clear. My EE1 has a tint of green in it when the sunlight is right. The factory colors are stunning when new and done right. When they were crappy original paint from the factory, and faded, not so much. Thankfully paint technology has come a long way, and the cars are taken care of better now, than 50+ years ago.

Cool picture.

I'd have to concur, and might even stick my neck out and take a guess that some of the bias against original colors,
could be due to memories of the original materials' poor performance, severe fading and so on.

I think the new colors on older cars look very nice, for some reason they make the sharp bodylines stand out more. I think the new colors are very eye appealing.

I have to join the hate the battleship grey group. Right up there with taxi cab yellow. But never really been a fan of plum crazy on anything except a 70's car that came with the color.
your going to have to look at it and I might also consider resale time that color could be a costly + or -. Unless really done well with other changes to compliment it I'd be thinking real hard before loading the paint in the gun

Factory Bright Red/Rally Red is a prime example of the downfall of the original factory paint.
Car's painted that red with "modern paints" all actually look Bright "RED".
Many original paint cars lean more towards orange than red, and did so within just a few years and it had nothing to do with the sun.
I had 2, a Scamp that my Aunt bought brand new, & the road runner I still have, both turned the exact same shade of orange everywhere. The outside, under the hood, under the deck lid, and even under the clear section of the sticker on the inside of the door. You would have a hard time convincing anyone that either car was originally rally red & not some shade of orange/red, In fact when I repainted under the hood & touched up the rear quarter on the road runner 35yrs ago, the paint shop used one of the rear tail light housings to match the paint, and the guy said he basically had to tint an orange, red to match it, as the official mix for E5 wasn't even close. No idea how true that was, as I was around 25 at the time as was just happy it matched. The only time the car actually looks red is when it's a misty cloud-covered day... but in the sun or under lights it looks orange. The Scamp was the exact same way & that happened by the time I turned 16 in 78.

As to the original poster... paint the car whatever color you like, who cares what the color snobs think about it.
Back in the late 80's I used 1986 Corvette colors on 2 Challengers, just because I liked the pearly look of the modern(at the time) base coat clear coat GM paint.
Turned a factory B5 4sd U-code Challenger "Flame/Dark Red (code 74)", and an Aztec Gold 74 Challenger, Nassau Blue (Code 20)

I am a big fan of black, But in my opinion there are a few cars that don't look good in it. And you can make black pop with a little metallic in the clear coat. What i found interesting is that in 71 you could have gotten a Road Runner in black but it was the lowest produced color. Go to a paint shop and look threw the color chip's. There are so many colors that are not reproduced threw a monitor and will look different. Look at some of pearls and metallics in the same color and see the difference. You will find something to your liking.

Those grey colors have always screamed 'shiny primer' to me.

I remember back in the 1980s a friend's sister bought a new Volvo in light, non-metallic grey. I recall thinking at the time that I've just seen the most boring car of my life. After all these years I'm still thinking that...

Sometimes the wheel selection, sidewall height & the interior colors can add or detract from the body color. What looks great on one car may look hideous on another. Some of the tire & wheel websites have photo generators to see what the tires & wheels look like on cars. I do recall one of them had classic car options but not sure if they allowed color changes & can't remember which site it was. I'll see if I have it saved somewhere.

The interesting thing is that you say you don't want to use a factory color, but the pictures Zippy posted are of a factory color--A4 silver metallic. I know because my car is that color--the PPG 1969 version.

As has been said, paint it whatever color you wish. It is your car. But you asked for opinions so here is mine--IMO there is such a large number of good looking factory colors, I feel no need to get exotic. To me non-factory modern colors on an old car just don't look "right" unless it is on an obvious radical custom or resto mod. Can't explain it, but they just don't. And if you ever go to sell your car, you'll find I'm not alone. A factory color will often fetch more $ than a non-factory color.

Good luck on whatever you decide!

Well after a weekend at both Carlisle and Syracuse and 1000 miles on the road I've come to the final decision of painting it a metallic orange. Its very close to the current orange found on Mopars but the metallic makes it pop a little more. If you look back at the photos I posted its very close to the color on the Dart on page 4.

It'll look great!

FWIW, back in '73 I ordered/bought a '73 Z28 in code 97 orange metallic; gorgeous, bright color, and the metallic had a gold pearlish effect where sunlight hit body contours.
That said, most every time I've seen a car repainted that color, they look murkier and sometimes almost brownish, so I guess the formulas differ from different paint manufacturers.
The places that make/sell hot rod & custom colors likely have an orange metallic that'll look great.

Tire Rack

You mean kinda like hemi orange? which has silver metallic in it. although it is a very fine metallic, you could use a heavier metallic in hemi orange to get the extra pop you want.

Saw this and made me think of this thread and this color