<VV> What Paint Color Goes With a Red Interior? (No Covair)

[Bill Elliott]

>My favourite has always been a dark blue exterior with a red interior. And 
>there are some really great mica and pearlescent dark blues around nowadays, 
>if you want to depart slightly from stock but still have a 'nearly stock' 
>look.


This is an interesting "British taste" thing! When I bought my first British car, a bright orange MG with a black interior.... at my first British car show, a 
guy said "you can tell that was made for the American market, in the UK that would be a blue interior". I thought he was deranged!

Then a year or so later I saw my first UK-spec Midegt.... bright red with a dark blue interior!

Fast forward a bunch of years... I go to buy my first Mini.... UK spec (though assembled in NZ from a knock down kit)... advertised as red with a black 
interior.  Which is how it looked in the guy's storage building with the sodium lights. Out in the sun it was the same bright orange as my first Midget.... 
with a very dark blue interior! And I love it!

http://fnader.com/images/Mini/Mini2003.JPG
http://fnader.com/images/Mini/73am4.jpg

But you just never see that sort of thing over here.... and my '73 Bond Bug (orange) and my '74 Hillman Imp (orange) both have black interiors. So 
which is actually more common over there?

http://fnader.com/images/Hillman_Imp/Imp.jpg
http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/bondbug.html  (Mine was not quite this nice.... "heap" is the more technical term for the actual condition)....

Finally, my Berkeley was a Motor (UK car magazine) project car in 1976. The owner had installed a high dollar red leather custom interior and red wool 
carpets and red hood (top) and side curtains... and the exterior was bright lime green! I don't have any color pix from the era (the magazine pix were 
B&W), from the places I can still see green I'm sure it was striking! The first US owner immediately resprayed in Old English White....

http://fnader.com/images/Berkeley_T60/berkeley001.jpg
http://fnader.com/images/Berkeley_T60/berkeley004.jpg

VBG

Bill Elliott