68 69 Paint

[Verle R.]

This is a question seeking historical information...

68 and 69 Corvettes had serious paint problems from the factory. I don't remember 67s having such bad paint.

Can anyone shed some light on what happened that caused paint quality to suffer so much. My October 68 built 69 paint showed signs of factory touchup when it arrived at the dealer and the paint was still terrible. The dealer did some buffing but that could not help the thin splotchy paint.

It looked so bad I actually wrote a letter to Zora. Didn't do any good. I put up with that paint for many years before I finally put a nice paint job on it.

Verle

[Jack H.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

I don't think this was isolated to the years you mention... These were 'kit' cars built with UAW labor and the Big Three were ALWAYS fighting quality/workmanship issues. After doing a frame off restoration on my '71 SB, I found and talked to the original owner. We'd suspected the car was hit and repaired in the RR fender because the panel bond was obviously different from other panels and, when stripped to bare glass, the paint and primer was different in that area.

The original owner reflected and then GOT ANGRY! The car was a present to him from his father on his graduation from Ohio State University and when they went to the dealership to take delivery they both FREAKED as there was NO PAINT on the RR fender and the forward panel bond at the rear of the door had popped loose.

He remembered his father hitting the roof and YELLING at the owner of the dealer... Why did this happen? Why did you attempt to deliver the car without fixing the problem(s) in the first place?

Two days later the car was 'fixed' and he took delivery. BUT, he remembers the RR panel NEVER fit properly (always protruded from the door seam collecting wind/rock damage more readily than the LR panel did in that area). Bottom line, the factory had its good days and also had its bad days regardless of the year of production...

[Dick W.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

Take it for what it is worth, but George Bartlos and Phil Hawkins told me many years ago that during the '60's and extending on into the mid'70's virtually every car ended up in the paint repair line. I think that this may be an exaggeration, but I have seen quite a few new cars of that era that had evidence of such.

[Jim B.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

When I took delievry of my late 1968 Corvette in August of 1968 I had many paint issues with the dealer. The bottom left and right rear quarter panels had only a hint of the british racing green paint. You could literally see the undercoat thru the thin paint. It still looks that way today as I have yet to paint it. The dealer took me back to the shop and gave me the age old dealer excuse "they all come like that, its supposed to be that way"

I could not get them to fix it. At the time 68's were in such demand that they didn't have to. Just getting a corvette back then was an adventure. They sold so few of them (even the high performance dealers) that the dealers though they were a pain and would rather sell camaros or chevelles.

Times have changed??? or have they?

Jim Boudreaux

[Alan S.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

I remember well when I took delivery of my '71 Red Coupe. The next morning was a Saturday so I washed it and really had a chance to check it out. I was amazed how shiny it was, how free of dirt and debris it was (except for the front valance panel) and how little paint there was on the lower part of the body. Based on what I've learned since I would guess that there was between 2 and 3 quarts of paint on it. I still loved it even when a few months later my wife to be asked if it was a Mustang. Still have both.
Regards,
Alan

[Anthony S.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

Was paint quality one of the reasons black was not offered for many years during the 70's?

[Jack H.]

Well...

in painter 'parlance'...black is a (*&^ to shoot! It tends to show up imperfections more than other colors. But, if a given color was popular with the buying public, GM offered it. So, there are probably two reasons for the short term discontinuance of black and one HAS to be relative demand.

[Patrick H.]

Re: Well...

I've always, always heard that poor body fit, waviness, bonding strips, etc was the reason for not offering black for much of the Shark era. I've never yet heard that customer demand was a reason.

Just my thoughts.

Patrick

[Jack H.]

You gotta be kidding!

It's not rocket science... Just take production numbers (Black Book) and the trend away from black is obvious. In 1957 it was the top seller and by the late 60's black had become the lowest selling 'dog' color. Here, I'll do the math for you black as % of total production..

1957 34.5%
1958 23.2%
1959 16.5%
1960 12.4%
1961 12.2%
1962 N/A
1963 N/A
1964 8.5%
1965 5.0%
1966 4.3%
1967 3.5%
1968 2.5%

Gee, do you see a 'trend' that Chevy's marketing folks might have caught?

[Chuck S.]

Engineer: 1; Sawbones: 0 ROFL

Sorry, Patrick, I just had to needle you a little. Wow, Uncle Jack is a little cranky today, ain't he?

[Patrick H.]

Re: Engineer: 1; Sawbones: 0 ROFL

Yeah.

Next he'll make some comment about used diesel motor oil.

Patrick

[Chuck S.]

Re: Engineer: 1; Sawbones: 0 ROFL

Patrick, you're a really good sport! ...and REALLY smart about Corvettes, too.

But...Uncle Jack ...He's about as smart as they come about Corvettes; you'll probably never catch him "bent over". ROFLWTSDMF!!! (Rolling On The Floor Laughing With Tears Streaming Down My Face!!!)

[John H.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

Verle -

The St. Louis paint shop was a broken-down old facility that was one notch above medieval the day it was built in 1953, and never got any better; Chevrolet never spent a dime on it they didn't have to unless it broke down, and those were band-aids, not cures for the root cause. They didn't even have powered conveyors in the spray booths until 1957 (they pushed them by hand). That's why the Final Paint Repair system was sized for 125% of production volume - every car got some level of paint repair after coming off the line. It's no surprise that some cars looked like they were painted with Kem-Tone and a roller.

[Loren L.]

Re: 68 69 Paint

Verle, I seem to recall that John Neas' '69 (original owner) had 4 or 5 locations of factory touchup and overspray - when we checked the Boston Nationals form (where John just missed the Duntov), found that all of these had received a deduction - on the day before its next National judging appearance, we got the rubbing compound and 1000 grit and went after it; in some ways it seemed stupid; but if you want to play, it's time to read the rules. Result? One Duntov award! (I haven't checked, but I would NOT exclude the possibility that John got a painter and
"reinstalled" the overspray and the touchup....

[Jack H.]

Hey, I get 'bent over' daily, guys...

Had to have a little fun with ole Pat. BTW short of going through the % of production figures for black paint, there's more than one reference to it's decreasing lack of popularity in the various Corvette restoration books.

Funny how tastes change over time. Back in the mid/late 50's this was the TOP selling color and ten years or so later you almost couldn't give away black cars!