I recently purchased several 1:43 scale diecast cars for use on my train layout, including a couple of '41 Ford Tudor sedans made by Fleer Collectibles. Fleer offers the models in authentic 1941 shades - black, Capri blue, Cayuga blue, Cotswald gray, Harbor gray, Lockhaven green, Mayfair maroon or Palisade gray. All of these colors are awfully unexciting by today's standards. People forget that the paint technology of 60-plus years ago was pretty primitive. Most production cars used baked enamel paint. Colors tended to be fairly bland - pastels and earthtones - which were resistant to the elevated heat of the paint curing process and offered fairly decent outdoor weatherability.
Deep colors were limited to lacquered paint jobs - a costly, temperamental process usually used on custom-bodied or low-production vehicles. Wild colors, like purple, lavender, etc. were not generally offered because pigments were expensive and unstable outdoors. The loudest colors in the '30s and '40s were taxicab yellow, fire engine red and bright green. They weren't very popular car colors and were generally found on convertibles. Driven by loose blondes with Veronica Lake hairstyles (and a predilection for sloe gin fizzes) or roguish, Camel-puffing playboys with David Niven-like pencil mustaches who had a tendency to begin each sentence with, "Say, my good man ..."
Two-toned color schemes didn't become popular until after World War II. Brighter colors began to appear on 'everyday' automobiles around 1950 or so. Improved paint technology made such changes possible. The 'foot-deep' clearcoat finishes common on today's cars were introduced in the 1970s on luxury cars. Early clearcoats had problems - paint adhesion, whitening and poor weathering to name a few. But those have been solved.
Twenty years ago, older cars with 'dulled-out' paint were a common sight. Such sightings are much less common today. Now, the cars often wear out before the paint does! (posted 7/24/04)
