Paint colour for 1948 Mk iv

Will do David,
But will have to wait until I get home towards end of November.
Roger

That’s ok Roger. I’ve probably a couple of months in preparation and repair work before it heads for the paint shop. Thanks. David.

Decades back, a friend summed up body work:
-2 years of disassembly
-3 years of stripping and cleaning all surfaces
-5 years of metal work
-2 years of primering
-2 MORE years, fixing all the metal work you fudded up in step 3, above
-1 year of guide coating
-1 year of fixing ripples you missed in step 5, above
-15 minutes for paint.

Fairly accurate…:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I hope not !! Started last November and have a deadline to get it back on the road June 2018 to celebrate its 70th birthday along with my wife who was born the same month and year it came out the factory. Promised a drive out in it for a celebration meal - if not it will be on the back of a tow truck when we go out. So far so good on my time schedule, and my experience is if you don’t do a time chart and work schedule at the outset the old rule of “slippage” occurs and weeks become months and months become years. That’s not to say I’m putting in some 12 hour days to keep up, and so far no major unforeseen problems.

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Thanks to help from this forum and other assistance I think I have resolved my problem. So here is some information that may be useful to others:

The paints used for the early cars in the Jaguar factory in Coventry, England were manufactured by The British Domolac Company Ltd of Abbey Wood, London - and were the Zofelac Celulose Enamel type. These were used on the SS, Mark IV, early Mark V, and early XK120. Initially 7 colours, but then adding a further 6 colours as “specials” or for the XK120. This type of paint seems to have been used up to 1952, when other paints were deemed easier to use and of better finish result (although some of the same colours carried on).

British Domolac produced for Jaguar a colour chart card (with sample paints set in panels) that often found there way into customers hands for them to choose their car colour, and they also made up some larger Colour Wheel Strips specifically for Jaguar Dealers to retain in their showrooms. The Colour Cards have been linked already earlier in this Topic by others, but below are the Dealer paint colour wheels. Some paints were allocated to specific car models only (as stated), and so not all paints were available for all production. The Paint Codes are the ones British Domolac used on their Colour Charts and on the backs of the Colour Wheel Strips - listed here above the photo sets in the order they run anticlockwise around the circle from the JAGUAR name tag for the first set, and clockwise on the second set of “special” colours.

Battleship Grey is shown in the top left picture at the top of the photo, and is clearly almost BLACK in shade (like I’ve found on my car). I can only conclude that those photos I’ve seen of cars of a lighter shade of grey may have started life in the factory as Battleship Grey but clearly have been re-painted or restored in a none authentic and none original car colour (but maybe still a Jaguar grey colour).

My next task is to find a paint supplier in England that can mix paint to this Colour Code D3103 as there is insufficient original paint left on my car of good quality to do a spectrometer analysis and a special mix paint. I’ve seen other Jaguar paint codes quoted elsewhere and on other Forums for other paint companies like ICI, etc - but having already sampled these other paint codes myself NONE appear to be the correct “black” shade to match the original Battleship Grey I need.

Thank you to all that have helped in my quest to find an answer as to what “Battleship Grey” actually was and is.

You need to consider that paints were mixed differently then, By volume[ and there was a set procedure. Now it’s by weight. and the tinters have changed

MY brother had battleship grey professionally match for a car he is restoring, got a sample sprayed and has the formula for it .
he’s usually generous but it cost him AU$ 180, so he’d like contribution for the formula n current brands of 2 pack.

And yes it is almost black. in the dusk with the light behind it.

Found a UK paint supplier that has matched the paint :grinning: Just tried a sample aerosol they made up for me to the D3103 Jaguar code and it seems spot on.

Can i find somewhere the factory body and interiour colour of my car? It is a MK IV 3.5 S from 1948. Thanks

If you know your car chassis number have a look at http://www.saloondata.com/ which might show your car’s original colours, if not try the Jaguar and Daimler Heritage Trust for details.

From that you should be able to get the paint colours from the colour charts on this forum.

Thanks. Yes, i know: 630107. Unfortunately, I can’t find a search option for this on the recommended pages.

Unfortunately I cannot find 630107 on the database either, so you may have no other choice than to contact the Jaguar Heritage Trust to purchase a Certificate from their factory archives, quoting the car Chassis Number - which should reveal the original body colour and internal trim colour. Their web page is: Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust

Torok, your 630107 is a Jan 1948 built car, and was originally BIRCH GREY with SILVER-BLACK interior. There were no colour charts produced by Jaguar for the Mark IV range, however BIRCH GREY was one of the colours that carried over from the 1938-40MY SS Jaguar. See a page out of an SS Jaguar colour chart that shows BIRCH GREY - note it is shown as being paint code 2023. This is the code as used by the paint manufacture British Domolac (who no longer exist) who then supplied Cellulose Enamel paints, which are totally different paint chemistry and thus formulas as modern Synthetic Enamel paints. Birch Grey is a colour that carried over to not just Mark IV and Mark V, but also used/offered for XK120s and indeed about 20 years ago I had all the XK paint colours properly matched using then modern GLASURIT paint (German brand, but distribute/available Internationally) - and back then an exact match was GLASURIT FIO624, with no need for even any minor adjustment. A good GLASURIT distributor should be able to give you an updated match for their older FIO624. Otherwise, I understand the Jaguar Heritage Trust will now sell you their version of modern colour matches, but I don’t know what brand paint they use, nor indeed how accurate their colour matches are… Colour matches are not an exact science by any means, and regardless of how exact or not you match the shade of the colour, the level of GLOSS has a major impact on the appearance of the paint colour. Modern paint is excessively glossy, and indeed the common practice these days of applying a coat of Clear over final Colour coat makes the appearance even worse. So if you want a good colour match, do not add a final coat of clear paint to be applied under any circumstances - painters will try to convince you otherwise as their goal is maximum gloss. And if you are really serious about an accurate colour match/appearance to what your car was originally in 1948, a competent painter can add a reducing agent to reduce the Gloss level back to something more 1948 authentic. But you need an expert and motivated painter to do that properly…

Note also in this SS Jaguar Colour CHart, that on the right hand side it shows you the standard available paint combinations - and for BIRCH GREY paint you only had two options for interior colour, RED and SILVER-BLACK as per your 1948 Mark IV.
SILVER-BLACK is a superb leather colour, but not readily available, but we had a local SS Jaguar expert who got Connolly’s (the original supplier of Jaguar leather) to make up a couple hides especially for his SS Jaguar matching their original SILVER-BLACK. So it can all be done properly, if that is what you want to do - the choice is yours…

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Roger, thank you very much for your comprehensive answer. Best regards, Laszlo