Pinstripe Question

[Mr. Anderson]

I have an odd question regarding the pinstripe on my 91. The car has what appears to be a white pinstripe, but the service codes say that it came with a slate pinstripe, which is option code 18A. Which one is the 'correct' one for the car? :confused: I know that the car has not ever been repainted before, so I'd really like to know where to go from here because I am close to being ready to prep this car for paint.

Here are a few pictures, and the service label.

[NCReatta]

The same question came up on our customer's '89 Sapphire Blue coupe that we restored last spring. The paint was badly faded and the strip looked white. The last thing I wanted to do was have Will paint a white stripe on the car because they stick out like a sore thumb. Especially on the darker sapphire blue.

Our customer went back and looked at pictures from when they first acquired the car and sure enough, just like the service label said, it had grey stripes. So grey it was.

Since then I've been watching for pinstripe colors on customers cars and parts cars. All the grey stripes tend to fade to white.

Grey would look better on your car than white in my opinion. Or you could do what my customer Tom did when he had his Maui Blue Reatta repainted, and not put them back on. I'm a fan of no stripe myself. My '91 convertible is stripe-less.

Are you planning on changing your mouldings to body color?

[Mr. Anderson]

The same question came up on our customer's '89 Sapphire Blue coupe that we restored last spring. The paint was badly faded and the strip looked white. The last thing I wanted to do was have Will paint a white stripe on the car because they stick out like a sore thumb. Especially on the darker sapphire blue.

Our customer went back and looked at pictures from when they first acquired the car and sure enough, just like the service label said, it had grey stripes. So grey it was.

Since then I've been watching for pinstripe colors on customers cars and parts cars. All the grey stripes tend to fade to white.

Grey would look better on your car than white in my opinion. Or you could do what my customer Tom did when he had his Maui Blue Reatta repainted, and not put them back on. I'm a fan of no stripe myself. My '91 convertible is stripe-less.

Are you planning on changing your mouldings to body color?

Well I guess that pretty much answers it, slate pinstripes it is then! I'm pretty sure that is the lighter grey color versus the dark gunmetal grey.

I am trying to get this restored to original, so I will be keeping the moulding color the same. They will be getting a nice coat of black paint while the car is in for its paint job.

It is also hard to guess what this car looked like in its prime by judging the condition of it now. Its getting better, but it isn't where I want it yet. I think the original owner lives about 20 minutes down the road from me, so I may be giving her a visit soon.

[NCReatta]

Just a tip, remove all the mouldings from the car, including the ones on the front fenders (you must remove the inter fender to get to the nuts) and the ones on the bumpers. Remove them completely from the car.

Then tell the paint shop to hold into them and put them in the paint booth when they have a black car going through for a base/clear paint job. Otherwise they'll use a rattle can and it'll look like crap.

Here is the aforementioned blue car with the mouldings that were painted gloss black. It took 2 weeks extra to wait for them to be done, but they payoff is worth it. Everything was reinstalled on a set of professionally polished bumpers.

Shiny shiny shiny!

[Barney Eaton]

I owned a 1991 Maui coupe with white pinstripe (40A) and agree it is a poor choice. There were 7 pinstripe color choices in 1991.... 75A was Red and 55A Gold were probably never ordered with Blue.

18A Slate

21A Dark Blue

41A Black

85A Dark Gray

Any of the four above would work with Maui Blue, just your preference. I would stick with the factory color

[Machiner 55]

My 1990 Maui Blue coupe has gold pin stripes. Haven't checked the trunk sticker to see if it's what came with the car.

John F.

[Barney Eaton]

John...... please check, there were no restrictions on ordering any of the stripe colors with any body color (except common sense)

I don't recall seeing a Maui Blue car with gold stripe, with that said, if a Maui blue car was special ordered with tan interior, then gold would be a good stripe choice.

We do know there were a few maui blue and sapphire blue cars ordered with tan but very few.

[Guest my3buicks]

I am not a fan of the blue interiors, either of the blues with tan interior would be nuce in my opinion.

[Barney Eaton]

There have been at least one 89 sapphire blue with tan interior at national shows and I wonder why Buick did not offer that as a standard combination.... looks great to me.

The combination I would like to see is a Driftwood exterior with the red/burgundy interior. My parents had a 62 chevy in a gold color with red interior and it was a great combination.

[Guest my3buicks]

I agree Barney, the saddle with the dark blue would be awesome. I agree even more that the dark red would be spectacular in a driftwood. I have a brand-new dash cover that I had bought when I have the white convertible, I put it in the Driftwood instead of buying one and a dark red looks really good.

[Machiner 55]

Barney,

Here's the trunk label from my from my 1990 Maui Blue w/blue interior and Gold pinstripe.

John F.