1930's Paint Terminology

Working on color codes for my 1929 Graham-Paige. I am not sure I understand the old color books correctly? Looking for definitions of…Lowers, Uppers, and Moulding. I was thinking Uppers is around the windows, lowers is the side of the car, and Moulding are the fenders and splash aprons? But I am not sure?

Moulding is the raised area around the windows or along the length of the body or down the length of the hood. Also called belt moulding. Upper would be any area above the belt moulding such as around the rear of the body. The depressed areas around windows are often referred to as reveals. Lowers would be the area on the body below the belt moulding. There may be mouldings along the bottom edge of the body. Fenders and splash aprons are usually listed separately. I suppose these definitions could vary among manufacturers.

The fenders and aprons are not listed seperatly, thats where I am stuck....

I would say "lowers" refers to fenders and splash aprons, "uppers" would be body and hood, "moulding" any raised detail on body, usually along upper side of hood and continuing down belt line ...... Sometimes reveal (inset area around windows) would be moulding color also......One clue would be black color, common then to paint fenders black regardless of car color, so I'd bet numerous "lower" paints listed are black....

A factory provided 1931 Cadillac chart listing available color combinations details several combos for the uppers, lowers, fenders & chassis. MANY of the listed color combinations say NOTHING about the fender color, but at the very bottom of the chart in small print is the following note: "Fenders/chassis black on all combinations where no mention is made." Perhaps a similar situation existed for your Graham-Paige, and a similar critical note is missing from the data you have.

Can you find a color picture of a 29 Graham Paige, possibly in an expensive magazine ad? That would show you exactly where and how the factory divided the color.

Different factories did things differently. For example in the late 20s - early 30s a lot of cars had a raised moulding around the bottom of the body, some painted body color, some painted fender color, some painted a contrasting color.

Pinstriping was also used at that time and may not be called out in the color cards.

Be a little careful with original color ads, these are often artist's misconceptions of how a car should be painted. The purpose of a nice color ad was to help sell cars, not necessarily to reflect reality. Compare how long and low some sedans look in such illustrations, for example....

Thus, an ad illustration may be correct, or it may be fantasy....

Packard's definition of "Lower", at least in 1932 was "areas of the body and bonnet below mouldings". Fenders and splash aprons were considered "standard black chassis parts". This isn't speculation. This is right from an original Packard Service Letter announcing the new color schemes for 1932.

I sit corrected on the "lower" definition....I'd stand corrected but it's harder to type on keyboard that way!

I found it interesting that these colors were specifically identified as being for the 900, Packard's least expensive car and the Twin Six, Packard's most expensive. It is reported that Ernest Hemingway did most of his writing standing up due to a bad back but then who would ever correct him?

I did some more digging this weekend looking at Graham-Paige color charts. The first part I was missing is all 1929 Graham-Paige cars had black fenders (no need for color codes). I took pictures of known "original paint" G-P cars and compared them with the color charts. Looks like the winner is "Lower" being the side, "Upper" being above the moulding including the hood, "Moulding" being the raised sections of the bodywork around the windows and hood. The car I am trying to decipher the code for is a 1929 Graham-Paige Cabriolet. I was unable to find any remaining Graham-Paige cars with original looking color combinations and all the listed combination are extremely unusual color combinations. Interesting note was that all the G-P paint combinations were offered across the lines of sixes and eight cylinder cars.

Here is a great example of a advertisement with all the wrong colors on a 1929 Graham-Paige cabriolet (same car as I am working on), these colors were never offered....

This magazine artists example would be Lowers - Yellow, Uppers - Yellow, Mouldings - Green, and of course, the ever popular red wheels, not offered in any color combination on the cabriolet.

Another possible complication could be changes in the offered combinations DURING the model year. I got the build sheet from Cadillac for my '31 and the particular color blue listed on the sheet is not even mentioned as a choice in the May 1931 factory color combo chart that I have. Some have told me that they changed their offerings almost monthly, while others have opined that you could supposedly get a Cadillac painted almost any color you requested during that Depression era. Pure speculation on my part, but perhaps frequent changes in the offerings also occurred at Graham-Paige.

The problem I have always had with the entire "special factory color" argument is manufacturing. Even today the production car companies start with light colors and work their way to dark colors through the day in 55 gallon drums or larger and clean the paint system on off shifts. So with any "special color" car they would almost have to pull it off the line and move it to a special paint booth, this would disrupt production and increase the price of all the cars they produce, so in a manufacturing environment most likely not an option. More likely is, if you made a fuss about your new car color, the dealership would paint your new car any color you wanted (or sent it out, more cost effective), as long as they could make a few bucks. Again my guess is the customer never knew it was a local shop doing the work... When I helped my Uncle out at his body shop in the 80's we got this type of business all the time from the local car dealers because they did not want the customer to see the car in their shop.

WOW a build sheet on your 1931 Cadillac! something us Graham owners only dream of....

I found it interesting that these colors were specifically identified as being for the 900, Packard's least expensive car and the Twin Six, Packard's most expensive. It is reported that Ernest Hemingway did most of his writing standing up due to a bad back but then who would ever correct him?

Gregory Clark. Canadian newspaperman Greg Clark knew Hemingway when they both worked on The Toronto Star in the early twenties. He recalls telling Hemingway "you are never going to get anywhere with those short choppy little sentences" lol.

Hemingway used to show Clark his short stories. If Clark liked them, he tore them up. The ones he hated, he sent to the Paris Review.

This according to Clark himself, a guy known for his humorous stories.