Mid 50s paint options

Maybe one for the historians.. specifically I'm looking at the 1955 model year, but I guess things didn't change much during the mid fifties.

So I've found scans of the original sales brochures and I'm seeing a few variations in colour schemes:

1. All one colour

2. Two tone, tops of the fenders, back in to the trim, hood and roof one colour and the bottoms of the doors & rear of the car another

3. Two tone, same as the above, except the roof is the same colour as the rear of the car, e.g.

4. Two tone, car body all one colour with just the roof as another, e.g.

What I'm interested in knowing is are any of these model specific ? for example, it seems that style 2 is common on the hardtops but not seen on the sedans, likewise style 3 seems to be sedans only. Were metallics only available on Super 88 & 98 models ?

For example would it be "wrong" or inaccurate to paint a hardtop in style 3 ?

Could a customer order whichever combination they wanted ? were there color combinations for the two tone cars, or could the customer order whichever combination they wanted ?

I've tried searching for order information or option list documents but I couldn't find anything.

Thanks for any replies!

You've pretty much nailed it down. All colors, metallics included, were available on all models. Single tone paint was standard. Two-tone (roof only) was optional on all models except convertibles, I believe at no extra cost - but I'd need to confirm that. Special two-tone paint was an option on all models at extra cost. Special two-tone paint had the hood and front fenders one color, and the trunk lid and rear quarters the second color. Roofs on Holiday models matched the hood color, roofs on non-Holiday models (except convertibles) matched the trunk lid. Naturally, convertibles didn't matter because there was no roof to paint. Oldsmobile had a list of recommended color combinations, but you could have a car painted in non-recommended color combinations, pending factory approval. I would imagine that would apply to roof color as well. Additionally, I'm sure a dealer would do any paint work a customer requested in order to make a sale.

Paul

Thanks for the reply Paul!

Breathing some new life into this old thread.

I recently purchased some old 1950's and 1960's color slides.

One of the slides has a two-tone 1955 Olds 88 (dark gray body/white roof).

The image is from a late 50's-early 60's undated color slide. The image is a little out of focus on the slide.

On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2014 at 10:21 AM, Oldsfan said:

Oldsmobile had a list of recommended color combinations, but you could have a car painted in non-recommended color combinations, pending factory approval. I would imagine that would apply to roof color as well.

I am sure there were a few black & white-painted Oldsmobile patrol cars that left the factory from those years with their proven V8 performance.  

Craig