Can anyone tell me where the engine colors came from? Did they auto makers choose their own or what???????
yes they did... now don't forget Buick green and Buick blue and Buick red.... and Pontiac Blue... and...
iN THE 60'S Mopar's were usually blue or green but the performance models were orange. All the early engines were silver.
An interesting trivia tidbit is that Chevy used orange in 55 but switched to red in 56, then back to orange in 57... "chevy orange"stayed til switching to blue in the late 70s.
Also Chevy supposedly used chartreuse on the 283 in the first part of the run in 1957 before switching back to orange. Thankfully I've never seen one. Alden
my 61 235 is blue, and have seen a stock corvette with a blue 235 as well, 54? so chevy used blue before the 70's. also, my 50 ford six was bronze, cool color, hard to find though. so i painted it pontiac metallic blue when i rebuilt it.
was actually thinkning about this the other day. im in the process of cleaning up my 302 and im not sure what i want to paint it. i still dont know what color my truck will be ( leaning towards a flat gold ). im not a fan of the ford blue but not sure if i should go black because you know what they say.... once you go black you never...um ill stop there. any suggestions? while the 302 isnt "traditional" to be in a 52 ford i dont want the motor to stand out and say hey that definetly came out of an 87. what color black would a flathead in a 52 be anyway? thanks and sorry bout hijacking the thread.
I like Ford Blue. NASCAR reaserch seems to show black sheds internal heat better than any other color, white is the worse.
No newsflash there... "blue flame" 6 cylinders date back to at least the early 50s... i was speaking about the V8's. No Chevy V8's (small or big block) were blue prior to the mid/late 70s.. not sure of the exact year they switched from orange to blue, but I know by 77 they were blue. The switch may have came in 76 though. Anyone know what color GMC truck engines were painted? I seem to think it was a light gray, but not sure.
That's the color they painted leftover 265's from 1956 and before the 283's were into regular production that went into '57 Chevys after model year changeover. It was done so the dealerships could identify the engines when doing warrantee work. I ended up with one '57 that had the "yellow" 265 and an engine out of one that I replaced with a 283. Eventually ended up boring out both of them to 3 7/8" to make 283's. That same deal on a 283 produced the awesome (at the time) 301's. Chevy would eventually copy that move to make the 302 for the '67 Z-28 (same bore and stroke). Frank
. From...1955 through 1957 Chevrolet JUDGING OUTLINE All 1955 V8 motors are CHEVY ORANGE with BLACK valve cover stencils. All 1956 V8 motors are CHEVY RED, with BLACK valve stencils. A few EARLY 1957 265 V8 engines (standard transmission ONLY) were painted chartreuse (lime green) by Chevrolet, and they had BLACK stencils on the valve covers. After about November 1956, all 265 engines were CHEVY ORANGE (as are the 283 motors), and the valve cover scripts were SILVER. AND At the start of the 1957 model year, Chevrolet offered the 265 CID V-8 with a 2 Bbl. carburetor which were left over from the 1956 model production year. The engines were painted Yellow instead of Chevrolet Orange. (Great trivia Questions).
In 1925, the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) held a meeting in conjunction with all the major auto manufacturers regarding this topic at the request of the Big 3's marketing departments. Color charts were reviewed and as I understand it, they ended up drawing straws, due to competition for the most popular shades, e.g, bright orange, blue, green. All manufacturers agreed not to copy each other's colors, so as to provide continuity to the consumer in the years ahead. By the way, all of the above is pure BS. Merry Christmas.
I had read somewhere that Chevy chose the orange color to 'showcase' the then new in '55 motor's in thier engine compartments. It had stated that the design team wanted the 265 to stand out because they felt it was a break though design.. I don't remember if anything was written about the color change to red in '56, then back to orange..that in itself is interesting to me as well.. I read this a while back and remembered it because i just thought it was interesting, but i obviously have no proof as to it's authenticity. There were so many different color's back then, i've always wondered how they chose them.. Tony
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