When I did my training, we used the ICI mixing scheme. It had all the colours, catalogues full of them, including some really odd ones, and car manufacturers I'd never heard of. Shweppes yellow, Coca-cola red/white, it had them all. It was quite interesting reading, in a funny kind of way. I became something of a colour-nerd, I used to love guessing the colour before I read the colour code, it became something of a game.

Ford's 'Oyster Gold', anyone?

The ICI scheme also had some general purpose colour chips. I only ever found one colour we couldn't match, so I'll bet money that whatever colour your car is, it could almost certainly be identified that way. Dunno if they still do it like that, but it's just a suggestion.

I think they do something like that these days but with a scanning machine. The lady who spent a whole load of time mixing something for me said it was an OK starting point but seemed to use witchcraft to get the colour match after that.

Here's a few things I've learned so far =>

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/attac...1&d=1517046415

The two samples on the left are custom made efforts that for different reasons can't be used (one for a very obvious reason)

Then the third from the left code 70 which is often called red turns out to be an orangey gold!

Code 46 as shown in the pictures on the previous page is a deeper red - almost burgundy

Code 155 signal red is a bright bugger and could very well be the original colour my PV was repainted in but after being left outside for a few years may have changed shade a bit.

I don't have much faith in scanners. They need to be extremely calibrated to work properly, the cameras are affected by lighting conditions, etc. Took our dog to the vet the other day, and loved the shade of yellow in the consultation room, I want it for our kitchen. But I coudln't photograph it accurately enough to get anything more precise than "some shade of yellow".

The colour chips are either exact or not, and a good eye will spot the difference, as you've noticed yourself a slight difference is quite visible. And there's no voodoo involved with the mixing either, the chips have a specific recipe from about a hundred pots of various colours, properly mixed there is no error. I suppose today they'd use digital scales, in my day it was counter-weight scales. The recipes were on a microfilm thing that slid around under a screen.

I did indeed hear the dulcet beep of the digital scales as the kind lady in the shop was making the first colour tester for me. She too seemed to have a bit of a low opinion of the scanner.

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I'm in a bit of a sticky position now.

The local paint shop who made a decent match for me can not supply a product that doesn't need a clear coat.

Guessing what it could possibly be based on Volvo paint codes is proving to be expensive and confusing. That code 70 for example is meant to be red but has turned out to be an orangey gold - I'm still not convinced that's right.

I think I'm going to have to find someone else locally who can match and mix paint - take off one of the wings for a decent match because there's nothing smaller on the car that's a reliable colour - bit of a bugger really: It is like in the old days where you place a random finger in the yellow pages and just hope for the best (meaning I usually stick with the "reliable" people I know and I'm not to enthused about finding new folks)

I'm afraid you're stuck with that situation. There's not really any such thing as a solid colour anymore. We call them solid, meaning non-metallic, but in truth both terms are now depricated. Whether it has a metal element or not, all colours are now 'basecoat's, and will need laquer to finish them properly.

Luckily I know of a place that can supply a single coat solution - if that wasn't available I'd be stuffed. I'd have to repaint the whole car.

The 46 sample is a close match,not sure if Standox were original suppliers to Volvo, but that is what I used for my repaint in 46