The Official 356Talk Forum

I have cab 60240 and wanted to confirm the color scheme for the dash and related areas. My window garnish was maroon as was the dash, but is the inside of the window frame also supposed to be that color?

Yes, inner frame, defroster tubes and firewall behind the dash, and dashboard ends the same maroon color.

The split of the exterior color and the dash & window frame color should be along (near) the screw holes for the aluminum retaining strip & window weather strip. This is 60238 in Shane East's spray booth in Orange, CA a couple years ago. My defroster tubes and firewall were exterior black (with some strawberry red overspray) when I took the car apart so we went with the same. Front, back and ends of the dash were maroon. Perhaps the same birthday as your car - 08/17/53?

And does anyone have the PPG paint formula or other paint company formula for the maroon color?

The original color on my dash ends was scanned and the paint was mixed to match them. No color code or formula information on the can of touch-up paint I got from Shane, and I got the impression he was adding a drop of this and a drop of that to get the match.
It could be the '50-'52 Maroon color (Reutter No. 503), but I have nothing that documents this.
If you don't have clean dash ends, backside of dash or inside glovebox door to scan I can dip a piece of cardboard in my touch-up paint and send to you to use.

I would appreciate that greatly, Spencer. My dash was media blasted and what I have left for paint color on the door tops and dash ends is suspect. You can mail to my address: 630 Pemberton Rd., Grosse Pointe, Mich 48230

Thanks!

Color sample cards are drying. I'll have them in tomorrow's mail.

Hey Spencer, revisiting this thread, and it looks like the firewall and defroster tubes (and inner window frames on sides) are all maroon in the picture of your unrestored car. It is most obvious in the area where the washer pump bracket was attached to the defroster tube. That doesn't look black.

If this is the case, then it would be consistent with Alan Hall's '53 cabriolet as well, which also has the panel above your knees (below fuel tank) painted maroon as well. See viewtopic.php?p=242988#p242988

What think you?

James Davies wrote: ↑Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:26 pm Hey Spencer, revisiting this thread, and it looks like the firewall and defroster tubes (and inner window frames on sides) are all maroon in the picture of your unrestored car. It is most obvious in the area where the washer pump bracket was attached to the defroster tube. That doesn't look black.
If this is the case, then it would be consistent with Alan Hall's '53 cabriolet as well, which also has the panel above your knees (below fuel tank) painted maroon as well. See viewtopic.php?p=242988#p242988
What think you?

I can see the reddish tinge in the photo above, but I think I would have spotted a different color at the time. Maybe the lighting/flash?
Pity I don't have better quality photo documentation of that area. Perhaps I was shocked at how different it looked compared to the day I brought it home Here are a couple of snapshots from a similar angle. The base of the defroster outlets are clearly black to my eyes. The stripe you reference is where the handbrake was attached (maybe some surface rust giving a reddish tinge?) My cheapo European delivery 1300 didn't have windshield washers. After media blasting only traces of black, but of course that's the idea. Could have been body color under maroon I suppose. At least I got the dash braces the right color - sort of. Different subject: I sent you an email a couple days ago with a download link. Did you receive it?

Here are a couple more shots of the defroster tube assembly. Again, this is after media blasting, but no trace of maroon paint.

These are under the dash shots of '53/'54 Cab 60441 which show the color differences.

Thanks for the extra photos Spencer. Yeah, that really does look maroon. Maybe if you're on a windows box try changing the gamma of your monitor? Or bring the photo into a photo editing suite and brighten up the dark areas. You'll see the difference between the black areas and what I see as the maroon ones in your photos.

And thanks for the photos of your car Daryl. Yeah, looks to be the same as Alan's, except now at this point (almost a year later in production) the panel above the knees is painted black.

I also notice that your dashboard seems to have originally been painted black (body color) but then the final dash color (dark green). This was common on coupes, but I wonder how common it was on cabriolets?

My fish silver coupe dash has fish silver paint front and back, and then the dark blue dash color painted just on the front. Same is true for most other '53-55 coupes I've seen.