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 Ford: M, WT, MX codes |
GM: WA, WE codes
Chrysler DT codes
International IH codes
 Looking for automotive paint? What's the name of a color? Remembering the first car you ever owned? These questions and more can be explored on PaintRef.com. We do not sell paint, but we do try to help you find the paint codes so that you can order them from a paint company like the ones we have links to on the right. You can help us, consider becoming a member. We own original copies of everything on this site. This, plus web server fees, costs a lot. Consider becoming a member for a few dollars a month to support us. You will get access to an additional database and more high resolution paint chips. What makes our paint database different than all the rest?
(1) We have a method to easily cross-reference the use of a paint formula on different automobile models, years, and paint manufacturers from the 1,372,953 paint codes in our database. (2) We show the model/year paint code as well as the longer GM/Ford/Chrysler manufacturing paint code (3) Wherever possible we try to use the model/year promotional paint name which comes from sales brochures which we also have available for viewing (45,159 pages and growing). (4) We show the corresponding codes of all major manufacturers of paint (OEM and touchup paints, we try to avoid alternative or complete repaint options because they don't match well) (5) We not only show scanned in paint chip pages (85,202 pages, the largest online paint chip collection anywhere!) but we also link them to the names and codes in in our database (ever try manually searching an online jpg image for a color name? Well, you can do that automatically in our site!) (6) In many cases we show examples of the paint, even on real cars. If not, check out the Google/Bing/Yahoo image search links for each color listed. (7) You can also search on generic color shades such as Orange or Red Corvette or 1969 Blue or Chyrsler Green, we even have summary lists which show the use of these color shades on a specific model throughout the years (i.e. Blue Mustang or Orange Camaro or Green Chevy Truck. Why do we do this? To understand the history of color usage as well as how codes and promotional names for the same paint have changed with time. For example, did you know that Green is dead, Gray/Silver came back, and White and Black are growing. There are yearly reports on the most popular colors by cars purchased, but the number of offerings in each general color category each year is just as telling. We have world-wide automotive color choices by year going back to 1930. And this is what it says. Green and Blue was the most popular (with 20% each) until the mid 1950s when green started to fall, and it is still falling today (2% today). Blue started to fall in 2006 with its all-time low today at 13%, which is still pretty good. Grays and silver, especially dark gray was popular till 1950 and stayed low until a rise began in 1978 with more silver colors with it being number one since 2002 with 22%. Black has always been offered but in just one shade until the last 10 years. White has been offered starting in the late 1940s but always with nearly 2 times as many offerings as black. For the last 10 years both are tracking equally with 10% each today. Other colors? Red has been holding steady at around 10%, Brown was high until the 1940s and came back during the late 70s and early 80s as beige, Yellow and Orange reached 5 to 7% between the 40s and early 80s but has fallen to 2% since. Pink was high during the late 50s at 3% but after fell to zero.
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