Adriatic Blue gone after 24 years

[hotrodsurplus]

what color interior are you going to do with it? I'm going to tug on your Alfa strings and suggest a deeper red/burgundy. One of my dad's more repeated stories is the horror he felt when he saw a dark-metallic-blue Alfa with a red gut on the allocation sheet in the mid '70s. He said it was one of the handsomest cars they ever got and ordered more. Of course it would take the right darker red but I think it has potential. 

If memory serves Porsche used a bone white with colors like that. I bet that would look good too.

[Jim Ratto]

funny you brought that up..... 

[Neil Davies]

Jim, that looks REALLY nice! A shame that the old version of the car is no more, but exciting to see the new one!

[Dave Galassi]

Can't wait to see it Jim.  The color is beautiful.

[Sarge]

Cool to see you got your money's worth Jim... two shades of blue for the price of one!
Carlos and I will be over Saturday to help you out with those pesky window slot seals

[Jim Ratto]

BRING BEER

[Rocket Ron]

Looks cool

[Simpsonshoe]

That ramp shot looks suspiciously like that other car...And you know, I have always liked your color choice...The color on a 911 looks stud horse.. waiting to see what you end up with.. PS: Grey leather...

[Tim Walton]

Hi Jiim,
Your ride looking good. Can't wait to see it  once the makeover is complete.

Tim

[stealth67vw]

Cool to see you got your money's worth Jim... two shades of blue for the price of one!
Carlos and I will be over Saturday to help you out with those pesky window slot seals

Even with the new color, it still looks like Jim's bug to me. I can't wait to it put back together.

[Rick Meredith]

Assembly Party @ Jim's I'll bring the Chips & Salsa! 

[Lee.C]

I saw some posts on facebook...... Does this mean my bumper are almost ready to ship 

[Peter]

Lookin great there Jim!!!

[Jim Ratto]

I saw some posts on facebook...... Does this mean my bumper are almost ready to ship 

still behind boxes of stuff for this car. I'll let you know when I have time.

[Simpsonshoe]

That 038F car looks a lot like a Venetian Blue.. which, by the way, would look great with the right shade of blue leather.. And, Jim... white leather.. No. With the driving you do,. you would spend more time cleaning that stuff than you do thinking up new engines...Or replaying Alfa sounds, or Floyd, in your head. LOL.

[Jim Ratto]

I have a constant tape loop of Alfa motor sounds and Syd Barrett-esque Floyd playing in my head at all times. 
here's a pic of my boy with his future ride, taken last sunny Saturday. Wonder if he's any good at headliners?

[hotrodsurplus]

I have a constant tape loop of Alfa motor sounds and Syd Barrett-esque Floyd playing in my head at all times. 

Shine on you crazy diamond!

I have a story that links Floyd and Alfa. My folks and I started going to Yurrip at least annually in the mid 1970s. We'd frequently stay at a B&B in Calne that belonged to one of my dad's car-dealer pals. Well he comes back from somewhere all freaked out. As he was fueling up one of the car an Alfa pulled in. Not just any Alfa, either. It was a pre-war race job. He said the guy jumped out, topped off, ran out onto the road to see if anyone was around, jumped back into the car and tore off. My dad said all of this happened in the matter of like two minutes and the driver never paid, only had a quick chat with the station attendant.

He gets back and tells his pal and our host, Ron. He casually remarks something like, "...oh yeah, that's probably Nick." As in Nick Mason. He lived somewhere in Wiltshire.

Years later I bought a Mark Hales book about Nick's collection. There's a '31 8C in it. I showed it to my dad and he went ape all over again. He said it had to be the same car but at the time it didn't have a windscreen or a muffler--he said it was LOUD which might explain why he checked the road before he left. That car ran Mille Miglia numerous times and was the last racecar E Ferrari drove.

[/threadbust]
[/nostalgia]

[Jim Ratto]

cool story, not only the Nick Mason bit but the fact that was the last racecar Enzo drove.

funny note... a friend of mine and I were joking around... making up silly names for the new blue hue... "I call it Echoes Blue" or "Crazy Diamond Blue"

and a historical note... maybe not that funny... maybe 20 years ago, my friend Sheep and I were at some VW show/drags , being the snide and smug asses we are, waiting in the lanes, just baking (prob Sacaramento). Some obnoxious guy starts jabbering on about his expertise and his car and so on and Sheep's just letting the guy hang himself... and finally the conversation leaves the axis of this guy's self-centric universe and asks Sheep "so what color is this car anyway?" As straight faced as a corpse... Sheep replies "it's called f*ck you blue". I just stared off into space behind my Ray Bans but wanting to die.

[Simpsonshoe]

I like one of the quotes attributed to Smokey Yunick.. When confronted by a couple of high paid  College degreed guys from Detroit... " Just keep talking, it's not often I get to listen to a genius"   By the way. "San Tropez", or " Any Colour you Like"

[javabug]

f*ck you blue

That may be more relevant now than ever.

How is Sheep? I'd love to drink beers with that guy some time.

[Jim Ratto]

I like one of the quotes attributed to Smokey Yunick.. When confronted by a couple of high paid  College degreed guys from Detroit... " Just keep talking, it's not often I get to listen to a genius"   By the way. "San Tropez", or " Any Colour you Like"

Interstellar Overdrive is a little wordy but.... how about Cymbaline ?

f*ck you blue

That may be more relevant now than ever.

How is Sheep? I'd love to drink beers with that guy some time.

;Dhe's....Sheep.
getting his eyes worked on

[hotrodsurplus]

For the color tell them it's Maldivian Sapphire from a Zephyr Wombat.

Then tell them the truth. Because people who get cagey about the colors on their cars are douchebags.

interviewing car owner:
Me: Say, what color did you use? It looks a lot like Guards Red.
Owner: Uh, it's a custom mix. I wanted something special.

interviewing the painter:
Me: Hey, the owner said you custom blended the color for him.
Painter: Huh? It's Guards Red--he couldn't make up his mind so he made me pick one.
Me: What a douche.
Painter: Yeah, f*ck that guy. I gave him a dozen free hours and even complained about the bill.

[j-f]

A grey interior would be nice and easier to live with. White is nice but you can get bored rather quickly.

The car looks awesome and you should be good for another 25 years of happy ownership 

[hotrodsurplus]

As someone who shoots interiors for a job I can say this about gray: it's right up there with tan and black as the ultimate "I'm afraid of making a mistake or standing out" choices. That's not to say that a gray, black, or tan interior can't look good; it can, especially with a real polarizing color like red. But there's almost always a color that looks better. You just have to work to find it even if it requires consulting a color specialist.

There's a whole rainbow of colors out there that work if you find one that has common ground with the body color. Two years ago I shot a metallic green car that had an interior about the color of a basketball. Sounds gross, huh? It was pretty awesome. It took a color specialist to make the combo but it's super distinctive and good looking. It's not for every car but it's perfect for that one.

And I'm not making a further case for the bone white but I will defend it by saying it's not white. I have a white interior in a car and I wouldn't wish it on most people. But the bone is a 'dirty' cream that lands at about 15 percent in the grayscale (for reference, stripping the color from green grass on a sunny day yields an 18-percent grayscale). Again, Porsche used/uses that bone color. A major manufacturer won't use a nightmare color for a production car.

Don't be afraid to stand out. Pick the right color and it'll be awesome.

[Jim Ratto]

Don't be afraid to stand out. Pick the right color and it'll be awesome.

Yup, which is why I went with the 993 color, beyond my 5 yr old picking it. Most everybody I ran it past, before it was actually on the car, raised an eyebrow. But I saw it in my head and stuck with it. And now everybody who has seen it digs it.

I'm actually thinking a color for interior, but that's down the road of freed up $.

[Zach Gomulka]

I can say this about gray: it's right up there with tan and black as the ultimate "I'm afraid of making a mistake or standing out" choices.

So true. IMO, grays and tans are great for a complementary neutral tone, but that's all. There's a reason why so many new cars have all gray or tan interiors, it won't piss anyone off.
I did interiors for a few years, and still do in my spare time. I'm not usually a fan of red interiors, it seems like it's the obvious choice if you're going bold. But with that shade of blue, since I see so much purple in it, I don't think there is a better choice than the proper shade of red for the seats and panels. I can see it coupled with "black" Porsche Haargarn carpet, factory mats, and a charcoal perforated vinyl headliner.

White interiors remind me of Pulp Fiction.

[hotrodsurplus]

There's a reason why so many new cars have all gray or tan interiors, it won't piss anyone off.

Yeah, consider the car-buying public. According to a recent Forbes piece, "For a second consecutive year, white is the most popular color for new cars, according to the 2012 DuPont Automotive Color Popularity Report. Black, silver, gray and red round out the top five." People are afraid of committing to things that deviate from the norm.

I'm not usually a fan of red interiors, it seems like it's the obvious choice if you're going bold. But with that shade of blue, since I see so much purple in it, I don't think there is a better choice than the proper shade of red for the seats and panels.

Red has its place for sure. A really searing red looks fantastic in a white or black '60s car--think A-body GM with buckets, console, and stick. But a bright red can overwhelm another color. There are exceptions, though: in the '20s and '30s Bugatti painted a lot of Type 35s and 37s in national blue and trimmed them with bright-red guts. But I think that darker metallic blue calls for a 'bloody' dark red/maroon--one with a bit of blue in it. The purple overtone is the common ground. A color specialist--think someone with a degree and not just a salesman--would really be worth the few bucks. 

I can see it coupled with "black" Porsche Haargarn carpet, factory mats, and a charcoal perforated vinyl headliner.

I say proceed with caution if you do a charcoal headliner. A really good trimmer once told me that a dark headliner will make a car feel like a coffin. He's right; I had a black headliner in my car in my '66 and he was installing a camel-colored one in my girlfriend's '70. Once he finished, the contrast between the two cars was extreme--even though the rest of her interior was really dark brown her car felt good to sit in. Mine just felt forbidding.

I could still see a white headliner working in that application. It could really bring out the white ticking in that Haargarn. Plus white was the headliner color of choice from the '60s through the '80s on most Euro cars. A friend of mine has an '80s 911 that has dark-blue interior and a bright-white headliner. It feels almost cheerful inside.

White interiors remind me of Pulp Fiction.

Yeah but a white interior in the RIGHT car has no rival. I just don't want to deal with it myself.
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Actually I just remembered this one. This is a car that Steve's Auto Restoration recently finished. That's a great example of a not-so-safe tan--it's BOLD. Like almost orange. The color is a bit punchier than yours--it's a late Lexus code that I can't remember offhand but it sort of flops red under hard light. I don't know if it would go well with that blue on your car but it's a good example of contrast. I DO NOT recommend light-colored carpets like that unless you drive in your socks or you want to clean them all the time. I don't understand the obsession with light carpets. Ugh.

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[Jim Ratto]

sort of off topic, sorry (my topic anyway ), my good friend is putting his hot rod 914-6 GT together this summer. We're friends so he tends to thumb his nose at conventional opinion too. Anyway, about 5-6 years ago the car went in for paint. He wanted a red, but not Guards, Signal or India Red.
He went with an ox blood "Rossa Barchetta" Italian red (he says it's Alfa, I think it's more a Miura color, by the hue). Anyway his interior color? A dark wedgewood-royalish blue with Perlon carpet. Like Chris has mentioned above, it sounds "off"... but it isn't. he was thumbing through a Miura coffee-table book I have and fell upon an ox-blood (Bull's?) SV, with a similar blue hide interior. It's outtasight.

[RFbuilt]

wow... nice  change

getting to talk to that fellow Jim Ratto via pm's  years ago..  he cool


im glad Lucas signed you a permission to change the color on his car 

[58vw]

looks awesome!