To make my recently purchased late N plate 28/05/06 4.6HSE look less dejected and unloved it's in need of either a respray to the bonnet and lower tailgate or preferably renewal with an original matching coloured replacement.
The first problem I have is determining what the actual colour is as the original vin plate on the headlight panel has been removed to mount an emergency EAS inflation system bracket where the new fill valves sit. Handy for a get it home EAS emergency but no use for me trying to sort the colour code.
Incidentally, the car is all 100% genuine so the missing plate is down to the unfortunate forgetfulness of the original owner, a good friend of mine who is suffering degenerative Alzheimer's Disease and never had plans to sell the car - I've known him / the car for years!!
If there isn't another place located on the car and in the absence of any original documentation with the car or original sales literature, is there a database where the VIN number can be inputted either online or through LR to bring the code up or is it purely reliant on a decent paint shop using their kit / software to analyze the current colour? My long gone local paint pro place is a casualty of the recession and I cannot think of anywhere else I could try.
Ideally I'd far prefer to unbolt the current one and bolt on an identical aged good bonnet from either a breaker or ebay seller - there's plenty of choice and price ranges out here online. To do this I still need to get the code or name though. Short of parking mine next to a similarly coloured car with a code available all I can try is posting a few pictures here and ask your thoughts!! That of course is frought with issues as a backlit RGB screen (probably LCD) will look different on everyone's computer and even under differeing lighting conditions the car can appear lighter / darker without even getting bogged down on the vagaries of cameras and digital software...
this it is what it is, just a stab at trying to determine just exactly what I've got to try and make as informed a decision as I can to maybe travel to see a seller with a bonnet, with maybe if I'm lucky, a decent lower tailgate too!
FWIW, I believe it's either Oslo Blue 644 or Biarritz Blue 965 as Monte carlo Blue 608 is too vivid and light and Oxford Blue is too dark.
Different lighting, same car:
The first problem I have is determining what the actual colour is as the original vin plate on the headlight panel has been removed to mount an emergency EAS inflation system bracket where the new fill valves sit. Handy for a get it home EAS emergency but no use for me trying to sort the colour code.
Incidentally, the car is all 100% genuine so the missing plate is down to the unfortunate forgetfulness of the original owner, a good friend of mine who is suffering degenerative Alzheimer's Disease and never had plans to sell the car - I've known him / the car for years!!
If there isn't another place located on the car and in the absence of any original documentation with the car or original sales literature, is there a database where the VIN number can be inputted either online or through LR to bring the code up or is it purely reliant on a decent paint shop using their kit / software to analyze the current colour? My long gone local paint pro place is a casualty of the recession and I cannot think of anywhere else I could try.
Ideally I'd far prefer to unbolt the current one and bolt on an identical aged good bonnet from either a breaker or ebay seller - there's plenty of choice and price ranges out here online. To do this I still need to get the code or name though. Short of parking mine next to a similarly coloured car with a code available all I can try is posting a few pictures here and ask your thoughts!! That of course is frought with issues as a backlit RGB screen (probably LCD) will look different on everyone's computer and even under differeing lighting conditions the car can appear lighter / darker without even getting bogged down on the vagaries of cameras and digital software...
this it is what it is, just a stab at trying to determine just exactly what I've got to try and make as informed a decision as I can to maybe travel to see a seller with a bonnet, with maybe if I'm lucky, a decent lower tailgate too!
FWIW, I believe it's either Oslo Blue 644 or Biarritz Blue 965 as Monte carlo Blue 608 is too vivid and light and Oxford Blue is too dark.
Different lighting, same car:
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