DB350 Mittleblau(Medium Blue) paint

[Shvegel]

Hi,
After 10 years my car is finally ready for paint.  The problem is we can't seem to find a reasonable single stage(No clear) paint to paint it with.  We have 3 different paint systems but none are actually that close to the original color.  I am sure this is due to the elimination of certain pigments like Cobalt, Cadmium etc.  If anyone can point me in the direction of a close match I would be very grateful.

Thanks,
Pat

[waltklatt]

Hi Pat,
I have a piece of the door from a 1958 300D adenauer in DB350.
Original paint that was protected under the large chrome trim on the door.
I cut the sheet metal out to save.
But to save for??? 
Guess I can mail it to you for the cost of postage.
Then you have the original paint and they can match it.
Walter

[Shvegel]

Walter,
Thanks for you kind offer.  I just dug my glovebox out of storage and the inside is in great shape.  They scanned a good sample and the results are just not quite right.  Unfortunately most companies are going away from single stage(no clear) paint so it narrows down the options quite a bit. 

[mdsalemi]

Just out of curiousity, have you tried a paint supplier (or a painter with access to, I don't know if you are trying this yourself) with Glasurit-BASF refinishing systems? They usually have the coloration formulas, and their 22-Line is a single stage. If this isn't in your consideration, perhaps you could or should contact the local rep and find a local supplier and speak with them.

If you are painting the whole car, this is less of an issue than if you are painting part of the car of course. I'd expect it to be quite difficult to match 45 year old paint particularly if there are metallics in there.

[Shvegel]

Michael,
I really hadn't though about Glasurit which was one of the original suppliers of our paint with the other being Herberts/ Standox.  My painter picked up 2 different formulas in Northern Minnesota from 2 different companies but neither was really "Close enough" so I went to a store here in Cleveland thinking they have a much greater volume of paint sales, their color matching equipment might be in better condition and PPG is headquartered here so it might be a little more accurate.  We scanned the glovebox door and came up with a Bluebird bus formula that is very close to a dead on match.  I will post a picture from my phone.

[Shvegel]

Here is the current best match.  The left is a sample and the right is the factory paint.

[mdsalemi]

I really hadn't thought about Glasurit

The BASF/Glasurit system will have, without scanning, a built in formulation for all the MB colors. From there, the astute painter will fine tune the mix, because more often than not they are not repainting an entire car, but refinishing part of a car, and making things match is critical.

Last year, I had a little sill work done but that required painting the entire front clip. 568G, Signal Red. They mixed the formulation from the paint system, and then the painter fine-tuned the mix to compensate for slight shade variations. Even with that, they said that painting a single panel would yield, in the right light, the difference. Thus, they couldn't really paint just the sill, or the sills and the hood (with any measure of quality, or be proud of their work) but had to do the entire front clip and even blending it into the doors on either side to prevent a contrast. They did a spectacular job, but it all started with the factory spec paint mix for 568G, not a scan of the car's paint. When I say spectacular, that means there is no evidence that there was any [additional] paint work done on the car since its original repaint during the restoration 15+ years ago.

Again, I'd suggest finding a BASF paint mixer and see how that goes. They can mix up very small quantities (I have a half pint can, by the way) just for the purposes of testing.