My effort in the previous paint code thread was to track down the paint mix recipes for the original colors. BrisBellett seems to have confirmed my worst fear (it's hard to say thank you for bad news), that the information (at least in Australia) has been lost for 30-40 years.

Suggested by BrisBellett and some others on the Japanese Nostalgic Car site, the alternative seems to be to find a piece with the original paint on it, and have it optically scanned by a paint shop so that they can provide a list of close matches from more modern colors in their database.

The problem I am encountering is that every single exterior panel and logical piece that can be unbolted from the vehicle and used to scan for paint color, has been thoroughly and completely painted with another color, very poorly. Even the inside of the front fenders.
None of the brackets in the engine compartment appear to be bolt in, all appear welded.
The doors appear to have been masted around the panel and sprayed without disassembly, but, the left door shows construction adhesive was used to glue the bottom to the door. Also, I am very nervous with the idea of damaging the stainless window frame, which is very expensive and/or not available any more.
One really good possibility is the underside of the hood, where the original Japanese stickers were masted around. Based on pealing back a corner, the paint underneath may be in perfect condition. But, I don't know if the hood will fit into my little hatchback for a ride to the paint store.

I notice the seat mounts peaking through the carpeting are painted the original color. Another thread seemed to mention that these are bolt in, and that the Bellett/Gemini seat mounts allow the seat to be moved farther back. Is this true?
Or is there another piece under the carpet or behind the dash that is removable, and would have been painted with the original color?

Hi JT191 which colour in particular are you after. I own some original paint swatches which I bought off e-bay a long time ago and they seem to be a very acurate example of the original colours. If you need may be I could post them to you and you could have them scanned, alternatively some one on the forum may have already chased the details of the colour you are after and may know what the modern day equivalent is called and who it is made by.

It is a sort of medium metallic blue-grey. The problem is that the Duco/Dulux book lists six or seven different shades of blue. It might be the same color as Dave Maurice's car (depending on how oxidized the exposed paint in the engine compartment is). Glenn's car looks more grey with purple pearl.

If you have a look through the load of brochures in the Bellett History section of the forum I know alot of them have the paint swatch on them. If you narrow it down I have no doubt we can get it sorted.

The good news is that the floor pan and seat mounts are painted the original color.

The bad news is that all of those pieces are welded in place and nothing I can find unbolts.


I did notice earlier that the stickers on the underside of the hood had been taped around when the car was painted, and pealed up a corner to find that the original paint is still under those stickers and in good condition.

Another possibility I thought of today is the trunk lid hinges. If they were not removed for the repaint, the original color might be under those hinges, and the trunk lid is a little less of a problem to haul around in my little hatchback compared to the hood.

when you wrote about Dave Maurice's car and then compared it to Glenn's car, was the Glenn you refer to Glenn Percy??
reason i ask is that they are the same car. Glenn restored it in about 1993, and Dave bought it from him in 2005. the car has always been (since resto) a very nice car, but Dave has spent many, many hours detailing it, and it now looks better than ever.
it's a credit to both of them.

where did you read that the seat mounts are bolted in, as that is completly incorrect.
they were all welded into a Bellett.

sometimes the small water deflecting panel that is screwed in behind the scuttle grille (the vent at the bottom of the windscreen) is left in the original colour, especially on the underside.
also, the underside of the scuttle grille itself is worth a look.
i've seen quite alot of Bellett's with these grille's chromed over the years, but they were originally painted.
another piece is the blanking plate for the right side handbrake. it's under the carpet, between the RH seat and the door opening. this plate is on all GT's as well as sedan's, as they use the same floorpan, and Isuzu just bolted a small plate over the hole in cars that had a centre gearshift. the plate was removed for the handbrake on column shift sedan's, as they used a bench seat opposed to 2 buckets. these column shift cars were RH drive only. i honestly can't remember if the plate was body colour as well, but the underside of Bellett's were body colour, so the underside of the plate will be correct. it might be covered in 40 years of grime and dirt, but it's worth a look.

hope this helps.

PR91, thank you for the information.

I tracked down pictures of Glenn's and Dave's cars on the internet. I did not know it was the same car. The lighting is different in the two pictures, which makes the paint color look a little different. I found two pictures of another blue car that were taken the same day, one picture overcast, the other sunny. It looks like two colors of paint.

One of the salvage car threads mentioned seat mounts that allowed the seat to move farther back. I guess that meant longer seat rails, and not brackets that moved the seat back...

I looked over the grille covering the ventilation air intake, but did not remove it and look at the back side. I can't remember if the screws had been painted too, but for some reason it looked like it had been removed and sprayed on both sides.

I will look for the panel next to the hand brake. I looked only at the driver's side yesterday.

no worries mate.
let us know how you get on.

I decided to look for a patch of original paint under something this evening.

The vent at the base of the windshield did not seem to have any of the second color on it, but did not have any of the original paint left on the underside either. That does not look like a part that was painted very well at the factory.
The screws holding the trunk hinges had been painted, which reassured me that they had painted around the trunk hinges, instead of removing them to paint. Unfortunately, someone used Phillips head screws to attach the trunk hinges, they won't budge, I'm afraid to strip the little X off the heads, and I'm not ready to drill them out yet.
They did remove the trunk garnish and license plate lights and made sure to spray the second color under those pieces.

Then I started looking around the underside of the hood, and read one of the hood stickers that had been painted around:



Perhaps it would have been better to read the sticker a few months ago...

This matches the information from the Duco catalog:


I would not have suspected the original color was as dark as royal blue, the exposed and weathered areas look lighter, more like a aqua blue.

I may have to try a long shot, and see if I can track down some information in Japan, now that I know for sure what the paint color is supposed to be because there were six or seven shades of blue on the Duco list, and I was not even sure if the color was on the Duco list or a home market color not used on export cars.

on the off chance someone can help with the following mix the panel shop asked today if i could see if we could get the mix for the 69 red sedan either the name or mix would be good.
paint code 02
colour 124-p1

Me thinks it is Roman Red.

hi guys roman red is a 65/66 colour number 8561 code 0092 as per imfo on forum ages ago madder red is number 10927 code0002and a 67/69 cheers davo

Thanks Chad..... I mean Davo, good info.