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jonwvara

Does anyone have a Pantone number, color name, or any other info on a fair match for the purple paint on my 1971 Tour de France (or maybe it's a 1970, not sure)? I'm actually thinking about powder coat because there's a motorcycle guy near me who does wonderful work pretty inexpensively. If the bike were all original I'd probably stick with paint, but it's already been modified quite a lot--derailleur hanger and assorted other braze-ons added--so I figure it's too late to be a stickler for originality.

Kinst VonSterga

My two bits.

I've had a number of the early Gitanes resprayed and its a tricky proposition (and I definitely wouldn't go with powder coating), or you'll loose that beautiful color effect that the candy-lacquered semi-translucent coat has on top of the base white coat. For some of my early 60s Gitanes (which were more base-color paint jobs by Gitane) , I actually took the frame in to Napa Auto Parts and methodically went through 100s of paint-chips to find the closest match (which was almost spot on) and provided this paint code to my painter. Though be sure you're looking at the colors under natural (or at least non-fluorescent) lighting. For a simple white frames, I was amazed on how many hues of white there were. If you still have your frame, I would take this approach as your the color code of the paint is different if its the only opaque/purpose coat being applied.

ps. And women's eyes have more color-cones in them, so take a girlfriend or wife (but preferably not both at the same time) and recruit their help!

verktyg

Gitane used a white primer with a lot of solids to smooth out the sand blasted finish of the bare metal.

The bare finishes on the Reynolds 531 frames were a lot smoother than on the entry level bikes like Gran Sports which used rocks to blast away excess flux and braze material.

Sometimes the white primer was very thick and chipped or scratched easily especially on some of the purple frames.

Most of the Gitane colors from the early 70s were "candy apple" or "flamboyant" transparent tinted lacquers.

Purple was one of the colors that had the most variations. When the purple paint was thick the color was very deep, when thin it was a much lighter tint.

There was also an element of inconsistent paint thickness which resulted in light and dark colors on the same frame.

Another variable, these colors were not very light resistant and faded easily.

So, find a color that you like and go with it. There is no right or wrong.

BTW, I doubt that any of the European bike makers during the bike boom era ever heard of Pantone colors. They were more interested in pushing bikes out the door as fast as they could box them up.

There's a tendency for modern collectors to expect more from production bikes these than they were intended for. The "street life" of a production bike boom bike was no more than 5 years.

Most of the bikes from this era were turned into Datsuns and Toyotas 30 years ago!

The better quality bikes were spared from this fate becuase they cost more and held in higher regard by their owners who kept them in the basement or garage for many years. That's why they survived.

Many are hitting the market because their owners are down sizing their living arrangements and a significant other with finger pointing and shaking saying "Get that thing out of here!" Laughing

jonwvara

Thanks to both for the useful advice. In general, I agree that powder coat is inappropriate on a vintage bike. I've been thinking about it only because money is tight and I have better access to a high-quality powder coater than to a painter. On the other hand, there's an auto guy I know who paints an occasional frame with decent results. He's probably a good choice, given that the paint jobs of the bike boom were seldom models of the painter's art.
I'm thinking of purple for old time's sake, basically--the bike was media blasted to bare metal and reprimed and painted years ago, so there's no original paint visible. Now that I think of it, though, I bet there's still some purple on the steerer tube. I may take it to an auto paint shop and see what I can find.
JV