'72 Chally.

Back in '95 when I had my Challenger one of the gas jockeys had an original FM3 Duster his dad bought almost new. It was a 340/3spd and had a white gut. It was a bare bones car, AM radio and not much else. When I saw it it was half torn apart, motor and trans lying on the ground, hood leaning against the wall, and in really sad shape overall. He refused to sell when someone offered $1500 IIRC, that was good money for a 17 yo back then. I'm sure he sold it for probably 1/3 of that about a year later. Somebody told me he started drinking pretty heavy and got involved with drugs. Pretty sad.
 
Well, it appears the one with which I have experience is now fully restored:

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This was the second Panther Pink Mopar I should've bought. The first was a Challenger T/A, and the third was a '70 Swinger. All 3 were 340/4-speed cars.
 
As mundane as it was, back in '03-ish I had a '68 Dart 270 that was the darker blue with a light blue top and the vinyl top chrome.
As far as I was able to decode (Pre-69 tags are a PITA), it was factory built that way.
It was the one that I had stuck a 360 Magnum and 4 speed in, along with Barrracuda guages, console and bucket seats.

I kinda' wish I'd never sold that one. :(

Mark.
 
Dr.Jass said:
Contrary to popular belief, the only car ever offered by Chrysler in Petty Blue was the Superbird.
Click to expand...

Actually, the SuperBirds were "Corporate Blue", not Petty Blue. Corporate Blue was supposedly the color of the Pentastar in Chrysler's printed logos.
 
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After Chrysler's fragile relationship with Petty, he would not allow his name to be on the color. He really felt like he took one in the pooper over the 1969 debacle with the Daytona and didn't know how long things would last in his second go-round with Chrysler. The Superbirds were Petty Blue but not called it; a rose by any other name...
 
At the risk of opening up another can of worms, I'm thinking "Corporate Blue" was also what the engines were painted in 1970 and up.
Nowhere near "Petty" or even "Super" blue.

Mark.
 
Supposedly, when Chrysler asked Petty Engineering about the colour they used, the response was something like "It's just something we mixed up back then and ain't never had no formula for it, and no, you can't use our colour on your cars!"
I think Petty was smart enough to actually copyright the colour as belonging to them. Chrysler had to mix their own version, but not so close as to infringe on that copyright.


About 10 or 12 years ago I painted a '75/'76 Newport 4dr hardtop for a local guy, with a 999 paint code. The closest match I could get was a European Chrysler formulation that was remarkably simiar to the Bahama Yellow used on '69/'70. With a white vinyl top and white leather interior, that Newport is one sharp looking car. The local guy still has it.
 
"Corporate Blue" is a lot like "Hemi Orange"... what was used on engines is not the same color used on bodies.

From what I've learned through reading and second-hand accounts, Petty Blue was an accident in the first place--mixing a bunch of paint they had on hand, as Restoman said. However, the '70 Superbird color is extremely close if not exact. As far as copyrighting it, I don't know but the formula can be found much like the Michigan State Police's copyrighted blue. It's a fleet color, and yes--it takes some digging to find it, but it's there. Up until a few years ago, it was illegal in MI to have a car painted MSP blue.
 
I believe the color was called Trooper Blue. My ex's ex-husband is a Michigan State Trooper. It's half the reason she divorced him! :D
 
That may be what they called it informally, but its official name was "Michigan State Police Blue". It was not an easy formula to find in Akzo; I never tried in DuPont.
 
Dr.Jass said:
Up until a few years ago, it was illegal in MI to have a car painted MSP blue.
Click to expand...

I dissagree. How can it be illegal to own a car painted that color when they sell off the old cars? I had 2 ex state police cars. One was my winter car in the '90s. We called it the "caprice crash it" (It was state police blue right up untill I crushed it. Jeff Hot-O-Maki bought the engine from it for his brothers off road race truck) the 2nd was my race car. Also perchised in state police blue.
 
When Lance Marcell (Art's buddy) bought his Gran Fury/Diplomat at a State Police auction, every single car there had been repainted in a different shade of blue. It was more like B3; a light metallic blue. The door jambs, underhood and trunk were all MSP Blue. When asked why all the cars had been repainted, he was told "It's not legal for a civilian to own a car that color. It's police use only." That was in '90 or '91. I asked a trooper about it one of the myriad of times I got stopped, and he told me the same thing. I remember you having a full-size Chev when you worked at OK Auto with me, but had it been MSP Blue I'm sure it would have stuck in my mind for that reason alone.

I'm pretty sure they lifted the ban when they realized how much they were spending on repainting cars.
 
Are you thinking of the black one? I had that one first and replaced it with the Ex squad car.
 
When I lived in the Sault, there were a couple "retired" state trooper cars, now civilian owned and they were MSP Blue still. This was about5-6 years that I saw 2 of them. Both were Crown Vics.
 
As I mentioned previously, I know they gave up on that rule a while back, but it was definitely after the M-body (Diplomat/Fury) era. Every M-body I've ever seen that was ex-MSP had been repainted prior to being auctioned, usually in a different shade of blue but sometimes white.

There's been an ex-MSP Tahoe running around here for a few years that's still MSP Blue. Like I said, I think they realized what it was costing them in labor and materials so they just said "To hell with repainting all these cars."
 
doc..as you would say...find documentation or it didnt happen..i can see them not "wanting" the cars running around in that color and BSing about a law about it but i seriously doubt such a law ever existed on paper
 
Excellent point, 69.5. The problem with that is that if the law was taken off the books 20 years ago, it's going to be hard to do since it's no longer on the books abd very few, if any, Troopers still on the force would remember the law, much less the original subsection number. It's not like a build sheet or data tag that never goes away. But I'll see what I can find nonetheless. Outlaw that I am, surprisingly enough I have friends in the legal community through my Dad. I should be able to find something if they're willing to dig a little.

It was a "protected" color that did not exist in fleet listings. It's still not an easy formula to find. A customer called me for it a few years back, and I went through old R-M, DuPont, and PPG fleet books (some dating back to the '70s) trying to find a number I could cross into an Akzo formula. It simply did not exist. When we switched to DuPont, I never thought to check in the new computer. However, in the late '80s if one of the "approved" body shops had a bent squad in there, we'd supply a VIN and they'd send us a factory pack; we were not allowed to have the formula and mix it on-site. Body shops didn't have mix banks back then.
 
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I thought the color that everyone referred to as Petty Blue was listed as B5 Blue.
 
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