One of my childhood memories was that of an Aston Martin a friend of my dad used to drive. What made it special was that it looked as a black car if you didn’t pay attention, but in every higlight and reflection, there would be this highly metallic glint of green. Under bright sunlight, the car looked green enough that you could call it a green car, but just barely and you never saw a fully green surface, just the edges of every highlight and reflection, as I mentioned.
We are talking 70’s here (when I saw it, the car might have been older), so this is long before candy colors and iridescent paints. Where Aston Martins really painted like that? (maybe it was a custom job, maybe it is a bad memory).
How were they made? Why aren’t they made like that anymore? This was really a thing of beauty, not something that falls out of fashion and is forgotten.
If it is a bad memory, could that effect be achieved today with modern paints?
Candy paints and metalflakes date from the late Fifties, so the car could have been painted with either. But my guess, based on the fact that it’s an Aston Martin, not a car make associated with fancy paint, would be that it was just painted with a very dark green solid-color paint.
I think if one wanted to do it today, one would use a coat of candy green over a black base coat.
Interesting that candy colors and iridescent paints go so far back.I would never have guessed.
Although my memory is running through two heavy filters, that on the eyes of a child and that of memory, I would be surprised to learn it was just a solid color. I am not ruling it out, but I would be surprised. We had a dark green car not much later (of the Chevy Nova variety, not the Aston Martin one). This was not it.
Chances are slim that it was a custom job. The question then is, did Aston Martin use such a technique at any point in history? Did any other brand?