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1972 Porsche 914Introduction - Part 3 - What is the original paint color?8/27/2005What color was the car was initially? Part of this was just pure curiosity and part was part of the process of determining what color to paint the car when I am done. The PO had painted the car a bronze color. While the bronze doesn't look that bad, I have no intention of keeping it that color. When the PO had painted the car, he had also painted over the Karmann tag. I had tried to read the paint code and as far as I could tell, it was "L63E". The problem is, there is no "L63E" that was used (as far as I know on a 914). You can see the original color in the hood and front trunk and the original color was a dark green. For 1972, I believe there was only two greens offered. That would be the "L60E Irish Green" and "L63K Willow Green". The best I can tell, my color looks more like the "Irish Green". I don't know if mine is incorrectly marked, a custom color or a valid color that just doesn't show up on the 914 resources I have looked at. I suspect it is incorrectly marked. I am eventually going to send off for a "Certificate of Authenticity" (COA) from Porsche. It should list the color as indicated by the factory records. Since I couldn't tell for sure what was on the label, I used some paint remover to take off the paint that was over the Karmann tag. As you can see in the photos below, it does in fact look to be labeled "L63E". The stamp in on the high side of the area it is supposed to be stamped in. So the top of the "6" and "E" is not really visible, but it pretty much is clear that it is "L63E". The paint remover also left behind some of the original paint as well. So that gives you something to look at. If you look at the excellent 914 paint web page at http://homepage.mac.com/markd/914/colors.html you will see that it looks (to me) to be the "Irish Green".
Shot of the Karmann tag after using some paint remover. You can see the original green under the bronze.
A rotate and sub-set of the above image. So that you can see the "L63E" much better.
Another shot. 3/8/2007I posted on Roadglue.com a question about obtaining some color chips to match my paint color... http://www.roadglue.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280
Here is a photo of the small metal brace that is located under the cowl in the hood next to a color sample of the two potential colors. This brace is a good item to use for color matching as it is sort of buried behind stuff an doesn't get a lot of abuse (i.e. sun, etc.) an is easy to remove from the car. It looks to me to be original paint and matches the rest of the car. While what I am holding this up to is a scanned image of a vintage Porsche color chart and it is on a monitor (not color correct, etc.) I think it is clear that it is closer to the top color ("Irish Green") than the bottom color ("Willow Green"). This is counter to the evidence (such as the color chart above) that says that "L63E" is actually a mid model year change and it actually a late year 1972 color code for "Willow Green" which is usually "L63K". 4/12/2007My Certificate of Authenticity (COA) showed up from Porsche yesterday. It lists the color as "Irish Green". There is still the discrepancy between what the color charts say and the actual color of the car (as well as the COA information), but I think it is pretty clear at this point that the car is actually "Irish Green". |
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