Silver

For a wrap you might have to be willing to trailer the body somewhere.  I know Charleston has at least one place that could do a job like that.  I know that's a lot farther than you'd want to go, but if a city this small has such a place, surely one closer to you will.  Maybe St. Louis or Indianapolis.  I've seen some pretty amazing wraps recently.  That said, a quality wrap job could cost nearly as much as a decent paint job.

@Lane Anderson posted:

For a wrap you might have to be willing to trailer the body somewhere.  I know Charleston has at least one place that could do a job like that.  I know that's a lot farther than you'd want to go, but if a city this small has such a place, surely one closer to you will.  Maybe St. Louis or Indianapolis.  I've seen some pretty amazing wraps recently.  That said, a quality wrap job could cost nearly as much as a decent paint job.

I expect it would.

@Stan Galat posted:

I'd still need a paint for the jambs and dash anyhow (unless there's some wrap wizard I don't know about lurking in the ether).

This ^ (and not the cost) is the problem with the wrap. I've watched videos on dippers that can do a "chrome" finish, but again - it's peelable and you still have to deal with the jams and dash.

As much as I’ve tried I can’t come up with a better color to paint my 356 than Porsche GT silver. One of my spyders was Bmw sterling grey metallic. My current silver Spyder just looks better. So my, hopefully, 2023 356 Conv D will be silver. Not sure yet about interior. I’m not quite sure what a total car wrap is, but I’ll be doing a clear coat bra on the front of the car.

Our tastes in silver are similar. I like your description of the color you want as like mercury (for those who've seen mercury in the wild). I went with arctic silver out of a sense of frustration also and have grown to like it a lot. Of course, I also grew to like speed yellow, so my judgement may be questionable. I'll poke around over on the porsche boards and see if there are any threads on silver.

Stan,

You might want to look at Mercedes 735 (astral silver) and Mercedes 744 (brilliant silver).

There was long discussion and debate about the "right" authentic spyder silver 15-20 years ago.  It came down to single-stage Mercedes 735.

Back in the day, multi-stage mile-deep automotive paint finishes did not exist.  And, certainly, showroom quality paint jobs on race cars with a one-year (or less) life expectancy was not a priority.

Mercedes 735 is obviously not in the factory Porsche paint palette.  I think Porsche painted the spyders in a shade similar to this to be in association with the period's German racing color (like British racing green, French blue, etc.).

You can see Mercedes 735 on the road if you can find a Mercedes from mid 70's through 80's with original paint.  Chances are if it is silver it is 735.

You can see Mercedes 744 on their sedans from the 90's through mid 2000's.  744 looks to be derived from the same shade as 735 but with slightly more metallic and more "pop", and a more modern paint finish.

Now-a-days you'd probably want to two-stage either 735 or (for sure) 744.  And, lucky for you, you can side-by-side play with them for comparison pretty cheap:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/325094171582      astral silver

https://www.ebay.com/itm/325094171570      brilliant silver

Nobody on Rennlist or Pelican is talking about going off-original silver. There's a lot of jaw-dropping on BAT prices and most folks aren't thinking "outlaw." I did spot a few pics of cars tagged by google as "liquid mercury." Most looked to be custom paint mixes, although there's a production Toyota paint with that name.

Morgan - custom mix?

Concept - probably a custom mix

Bently

Saleen

Silver is iconic as a colour but, many of the P silvers in my opinion do not have the brilliance or the depth that I like except maybe GT Silver but then it is rather a dark leaning silver.   Brilliant silvers are all over the place but tend to be white ish in background.

Take a trip to the Chicago Jaguar and see if they have Lunar Grey that is the colour I chose it has more character to fit an older style body.  

IMO If you do not see it in a large enough panel the samples are deceiving.

I think that the Mercedes 735 is a really good bet!  When I was a teenager I used to ride around with my mother's cousin Claude on his work trips. Claude was an independent insurance agent for a large chunk of the Catskills. He bought a lightly used Mercedes every three years. I remember his '73 450SEL. It struck me as looking like the mercury in chemistry class. It had that indefinable solid-yet-liquid visual quality to it. I didn't look under the hood for a paint code, nor would I remember it if I did, so I can't say it was Astral Silver for sure, but it really left an impression. I'd put money on it being Astal Silver after looking at a few google image searches. It was available in that model and that year.

I guess I'm lost as to why I can get wheels in "hyper-sliver", but nobody markets paint for an entire car in that color.

@Michael Pickett posted:

That ^ would be really, really close to what I'm after. As Ray notes, the undertones are black, not white - but the brilliance is fantastic.

I've watched a process (on YouTube) that has a metallic paint misted over a black base (that's already been cleared, I think), several times. It's crazy, because you can't see the "metal" building on the car until the paint has flashed. Once the painter has enough on, the car is cleared again. It looks like there's about a hundred ways to screw it up, and only one shot at getting it right.

I cannot begin to imagine touching it up.

To be clear, such a process doesn't really interest me. I don't mind laying a color over a primer base of a certain color, but stuff like what I've watched makes me break out in hives. I know what I want is not "correct" by any metric - and I suppose that's why I like it so much. I'm looking for something special.

When I was a kid the dentist would give us mercury to take home to play with.

They don't do that now.

Rhodium silver is all over in MB, Aston Martin, Jaguar P etc  and is quite shiny and Artic Silver is duller IMO.

@Michael McKelvey posted:

When I was a kid the dentist would give us mercury to take home to play with.

They don't do that now.

You were probably a heavy metal fan in the early years were you not Michael?

and for us old farts,,,mecurochrome antiseptic for every, cut, scrape...the shiny stuff in the little bottle with the glass dropper..

I think what Stan really wants is an aluminum car. It's understandable...

@edsnova posted:

I think what Stan really wants is an aluminum car. It's understandable...

Probably.

But what I'd really like is a fiberglass car that looks a lot like aluminum. Ham-fisted primates and easily dented bodywork are a combination headed for disaster.

... back to the paint...

I've looked at a ton of silvers in the last couple of weeks and feel like I'm no closer than I was when I started. There seem to be "finishing processes" out there to get what I'd be after, but I've found no base-coat/clear-coat paint that is shiny without being sparkly. I like silver a lot, but I'm kinda' over glitter.

Searches turn up very little. I remain convinced that Google's utility as an actual search-engine is very limited. The first two pages of any search I run are sponsored sites and Ads. It's maddening.

I know there are better silvers out there. I feel like I'm not going to get 100% of what I'm after, but would really like to get closer than I have in the past.

I'm pretty sure I've seen wraps like you want, but not paint.  Regarding the door jamb, etc., issue, maybe a contrasting color such as black or grey as a paint in those areas with a metal-like wrap?  Just a thought.

@Lane Anderson posted:

I'm pretty sure I've seen wraps like you want, but not paint.  Regarding the door jamb, etc., issue, maybe a contrasting color such as black or grey as a paint in those areas with a metal-like wrap?  Just a thought.

You, of all people, Mr. Monochrome, are pimping a CONTRASTING color?

If somebody just made a color called Aluminum.

@Lane Anderson posted:

I'm pretty sure I've seen wraps like you want, but not paint.  Regarding the door jamb, etc., issue, maybe a contrasting color such as black or grey as a paint in those areas with a metal-like wrap?  Just a thought.

I've got zero interest in that. None.

Factory Five

@DannyP posted:

You, of all people, Mr. Monochrome, are pimping a CONTRASTING color?

Just trying to come up with a solution.

https://www.paintcolourchart.c...058/718-boxster.html

Stan:  Here is a tool to make searching the web a better experience on the mac, trial copy available ... some learning to get max output.

https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/devonagent

Paint stores have a flattening agent they can add to your paint ,

it’s basically talcum powered ,

wrap the car in aluminum foil shiny side down

I understand what you're looking for, Stan. That Infinity concept caught my eye, too because of the depth and luster of the finish coats. The others look flat in comparison, although the Toyota pops a little bit.

While the color of silver is important, it seems like figuring out how they get the depth and reflection you see in polished aluminum is the trick.

@Michael McKelvey posted:

When I was a kid the dentist would give us mercury to take home to play with.

They don't do that now.

You can’t even buy carb meters with mercury anymore, either.

.

My take is that it ain't the color (pigment) that makes the show car special, it's the prep work and the final finishing:

After you've spent a bazillion developing a new car and you roll it out for the cameras at a major car show, and this is the car whose photos will get splashed around in print, an extra quarter- or half-bazillion on the paint is generally considered a good investment.

When I was a kid, my parents would take us to the big GM car show every September at Steel Pier in Atlantic City, where all the new models were rolled out.

The cars always looked spectacular - a lot more spectacular than they ever did at the local showroom or in your driveway. It turned out the show cars all got custom paint.

Those were the days when GM could have and would have bought, say, the state of Rhode Island if they thought that would help them sell more cars.

You can see this at high-end concours events, too - like Pebble Beach. The really high-end cars always sparkle in a way my car never will, no matter what color I tell Earl to use or how much Turtle Wax I slather on.

.

"Those were the days when GM could have and would have bought, say, the state of Rhode Island if they thought that would help them sell more cars."

Fortunately, neither did GM buy Rho-DiLand nor sell more cars......

@dlearl476, maybe me playing with mercury as a kid explains some things.  Mostly we would rub it on a penny.

Just saw a video on Rod Emory’s 356 coupe outlaw and he used a gray/white epoxy leveling primer, then 2007 Porsche GT Silver then clear coat.  The video is on Youtube as “How we made the 1959 Emory Outlaw RHD Coupe in GT Silver”

Saw this one on FB today and thought of you, @Stan Galat

Stan, Planet Color World had a color that I shot on this 1932 Ford Vickys that we built years ago. Even before the clearcoat,it looked like freshly minted aluminum. It is a fantastic silver without the silver sparkle.

@Derrek Johnson posted:

Stan, Planet Color World had a color that I shot on this 1932 Ford Vickys that we built years ago. Even before the clearcoat,it looked like freshly minted aluminum. It is a fantastic silver without the silver sparkle.

@Stan Galat

And I think we're done here. This looks EXACTLY like what Stan wants to me.

That's a silver I could get behind.  I love the way it glows in the sun.