Does anyone know what SPEC on my body plate means? I am guessing this means Special Order? Trying to figure out the original color of my car. Any help with is would be greatly appreciated. Car is in the shop for fresh paint and it appears the original color was Cascade Blue
That question has Duane written all over it, SPEC is where your paint code should be, so my total guess is it was customer ordered in a color not offered.
Duane, If your out there, I would love to hear what you have to say. Was Cascade Blue offered on a skylark custom in 1971?
It would say 24 if it were Cascade blue, Google isn't even helping, nobody has ever even heard of SPEC on a data plate. Whatever you value your car at, raise it by 25% its one of none.
Cascade Blue was a 1971 Buick color but they would have just used the code then, something had to be unique about the paint.
I give up, I can't find a word about any SPEC paint code on any make of GM car, I saw some others GM models with special paint but they weren't denoted with the SPEC like you have. So you found the original paint somewhere on the car and to you it appears to be Cascade Blue?
Yeah not sure what to make of that we have been trying to figure it out.. I can imagine it was painted a color that was offered that year.
It was probably painted a GM color of the era, just not a color offered on the Buick Skylark. If you found a nice section of the original color try matching it up with all the GM colors for 70-71 and see if anything seems to match well. I find it hard to believe they put SPEC there by mistake.
I am not satisfied with that answer, paint the entire car Hugger Orange, and then tell me you found Hugger Orange on the underside of the trunk lid.
'SPEC" is indeed an abbreviation for 'special'. It doesn't denote a specific color, only that the color was not a RPO Buick color that model year. Buick/ Olds/ Pont/ Chev shared the bulk of their colors in a given year, with each Division having a few uniques. Cadillac had their own palette. 'Z' is Fremont, which built all 4 Division lines there (not Cadillac). Maybe look at all those Division's paint chips if you're convinced it was originally a blue.
I will have to do some more research on the car tomorrow when the shop opens. Thank you for the info.
Good, topical info : http://phscollectorcarworld.blogspot.com/2018/09/pontiac-special-order-paint-codes-1966.html
I have found that shop manuals sometimes has paint codes that can give hints. Not sure if the 52-151 means anything in this case, but check out the image with the Rinshed codes.
