Hey Everyone, Just bought my first 'Vette a couple weeks ago. Its a '76 Stingray with T-tops, Air, PS, PB, PW, Tilt, L48 with Auto, even has map light and rear window defogger. The car is completely original with everything in good to excellent condition and everything works. Here the thing.....the car was paint code 13L (Silver) from the factory, somewhere along the way it was repainted black. Whoever did it, did a pretty good job, everything that needed to be black, is. If you didn't know any better you would think it came in black. Its time to have the paint redone, my question is would you re-do Black or go back to the original Silver. Going back black would cost about half as much as the Silver make over. And your thoughts Are?

 

Hey Reb The choice of color is a matter of YOUR preference unless you are trying to restore the car to original as it's numbers say. If you are going to drive it and not so much show it I would choose the color I would like to see my vette with me driving. Don't let others decide for you or you may not like the outcome. Either way you can't loose. Got any pics?

 

Amen Watwheel. Mine was white, then metallic dark green (kinda cool, but poorly applied), then white... Took a ton of time to get sanded down to original primer/gel, but after a couple coats of high build primer and alot of sanding... In theory it is now 2007 GM sport red metallic with 2 coats of hand rubbed clearcoat.

I say "in theory", because the 10 days that it was supposed to take in the body shop have now stretched to 7.5 weeks. Yeah... Oops. And this shop wanted to re-skin my Bricklin for me... 7.5 weeks without a single call. I have called them 4 times so far (usually the day after I am supposed to have it back). In theory, I get it back Wednesday night. Oh yeah, and I missed out on Carlisle, since I didn't have a Vette to drive there (and driving an expedition to Corvette weekend is just plain tacky).

bill.

 

If it were 72' or older....or had some super rare options or motor package,original would be the way to go. The 76's haven't taken off in value, so I'd agree with the "go with what you like" theory. At half the cost the black sounds like a good choice. That and black looks way better than silver in my opinion.(never really liked silver on any car, so it's a biased opinion)

 

Go with black for now and put it back to silver when the price of C3's takes off.
When you get ready for paint look into gettingthe car blasted with baking soda.
This is the new and best way to go. In NJ it cost approx $700. The soda doesn't hurt anything and makes the job much easier to afford.