Which Chevy Engine Orange?

[Wayne Kever]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but the archives are down and my engine builder is about to paint. He wants to know which brand of paint has the correct orange, because the Chevy Orange varies from one brand to another.

Seems like people on the board recommended Plasti-Kote before. Is that the good stuff? It looked right to me on an LT-1 he painted recently.

- Wayne

[Joe L.]

Re: Which Chevy Engine Orange?

Wayne-----

I've sampled about 20 different brands of Chevy orange paint and compared them to some original painted engine parts that I removed from my original owner 1969 and stored when they were about 2 weeks old. None of the 20, or so, that I tried were EVEN CLOSE to the original. However, the closest were the Bowman's brand sold by Paragon, Quanta's Chevrolet orange, and Plasti-Cote. Most of the paints are either too orange (like GM's paint) or too red (like Krylon).

Bear in mind, though, that the original "Chevrolet Orange" varied quite a bit, too. In particular, through about 1966, or so, the red in the orange was more pronounced. After about 1966, the orange color became more dominant, but there was still appreciable red in it.