Where does one find official color paint chips?

[IXLR8]

Hi--

I read somewhere that the Mercedes dealers have a heritage catalog that shows all the heritage paint chips.  My local dealer today told me that he had a color book dating all the way back to 2007.

I found an old paint chip catalog at the local auto paint shop, but all the colors have darkened significantly so that Light Blue, for example, was dark blue.

The tech manual is great, but the colors in the "chips" and the photos of the cars don't always appear the same.  Monitor issues, etc.

I'm trying to decide between Light Blue and Horizon Blue, but ....


Thanks in advance for your help.

Joe

[66andBlue]

Joe,
even looking at a chip may not give you more assurance than looking at the colors on your screen.
If you cannot decide between "light blue" (334G) and "horizon blue" (304G) then ask your painter to mix up a small amount and spray it on some clean metal. Gives you a better impression of the end result.
My car was painted in 334G again during the restoration (my wife insisted that I do not change the color , otherwise ....   ) and I know for sure that there is a tiny amount of green pigment in the mix which makes it a lot more appealing to me than 304G which is indeed a sky blue.
Paint chips from the 70ties are not longer available and when they show up on Ebay may cost you 10% of a new paint job. 

[john.mancini]

I have not seen a 334G light blue in person. I have an original 1969, 304G Horizon Blue 280SL. Horizon Blue looks very different and it's a spectacular color in person. Almost all photographs of Horizon Blue make it look too much like light blue. If possible, have an automotive paint expert mix both samples (334 and 304)for you, they are quite different.
John

[Jonny B]

There was a color brochure produced for the 230 SL that showed a profile view of the car in about eight(?) different shades. These were art renderings and not photos. I am not sure that there is a single source from MB for the chips (original) other than the dealer order book, which is quite difficult to find.

I like Alfred's idea about getting a shop to shoot you a small sheet of the color so you can see. Even a correct and unfaded color chip is still only going to be an inch by and inch size, which is very difficult to gauge to the whole car.