1937 Dodge Brothers help

[rdc5]

Hello All,

 I just bought a 1937 Dodge sedan, I believe a D7 model? I have never owned anything this old but my wife loves the old cars so I bought it for her. Although it has been sitting for a long time it is complete and very solid underneath, just some light surface rust. The original drivetrain is long gone, it was replaced with a 65 push button auto with a 225 slant six in the 70s. Any info and opinions you all can provide are welcome!

This is the tag on the fire wall:

Body #70

Paint Code 580

[Guest dhopkins254]

Hi There,

I have the exact car.  1937 D7 with paint code 580.  The car is currently blue but im wondering what the colour option was?

 

From what I can tell it was a Canadian built car.

[rdc5]

Yes my car was built in Windsor Ont. Your car is supposed to be blue with the 580 paint code as I found out thanks to people from this site, what shade of blue is correct I'm not sure yet. We plan down the road to paint ours blue again

[Chrycoman]

Codes 580 and 581 were used on 1937 Dodges for Dodge Blue.  It was a Canada-only colour and is a dark blue.   Code 580 had the body done in Dodge Blue with the fenders black and a wheel stripe in Packard Ivory.   Code 581 was the same but with the fenders in Dodge Blue.

 

The same shade of blue was available on Plymouths (Plymouth Blue), DeSotos (DeSoto Blue) and Chryslers (Chrysler Blue).   And the shade was available on Dodge and Fargo Trucks.  It was used again in 1938 and 1939.

 

Pre-war Chrysler of Canada cars were done in lacquer paint while the trucks were done in enamel.  After WW II Chrysler of Canada used enamel paints on all its cars and trucks.   General Motors of Canada also switched to enamel paint after the war, and switched back to lacquer after the Oshawa plant began building cars for the U.S. market in 1968-69.

 

Sherwin-Williams of Canada used code P-1193 for the lacquer version of Dodge Blue while the enamel was X-18111.  C.I.L. code for Dodge Blue, in lacquer, was 246-8629.   Sherwin-Williams of Canada had the following formula for Dodge Blue (using 1930's tints and paints) -

 

43½ parts Prussian Blue

5 Parts Bone Black

1½ parts White

 

Attached is the paint chip for the 1937 Dodge Blue from the Sherwin-Williams of Canada paint chip book for Canadian-built 1937 cars.  

 

By the way, the tag that you found the paint colour on should have the model number on the first line and the interior trim code as the bottom line.   Paint is line 3 and body number is line 2.   Thus the first line should tell you what you have.    D5 would be the US-style Dodge Custom Six, D6 the base, Plymouth-sized, Six and D7 the Plymouth-sized DeLuxe Six.    The D6 was also built in the U.S. for export markets.