Paint colours

[Mick Hobday]

I am currently restoring my late 1932 AH Tourer which was originally "Auto Brown".  By the time I bought the car in 1966 it was cream,  but patches of original colour remained hidden behind the runninng boards, and unfortunately removed during restoration work in 1968.  I remember the colour as something like the that of the chummy pictured on page 20 in Rinsey Mills, or maybe the saloon on page 10.  Am I right in thinking that Austin offered both "Light Auto Brown" and "Dark Auto Brown" (possibly the colour of the chummy on page 22) at different periods?
Can anyone help with a correct colour match for Austin's Light Auto Brown, please?

[Mike Costigan]

Hello Mick! It must be almost fifty years since I last saw your brown tourer.

The Association Archive has a set of colour cards from 1936:

http://archive.a7ca.org/collections/pain...em/PC0007/?

From memory this seems to be a lighter colour than your car, but as far as I can tell Austin only produced one Auto Brown, although this may have changed shades over the years. In 1932 Auto Brown was a stock colour for the tourer mated to a Black waist-band:

http://archive.a7ca.org/collections/pain...em/PC0007/?

If your 1968 restoration matched the original traces you found, I would agree that the colour was more like the page 22 chummy than the page 10 saloon.

[Mick Hobday]

Hello Mick! It must be forty-five years since I last saw your brown tourer.

The Association Archive has a set of colour cards from 1936:

http://archive.a7ca.org/collections/pain...em/PC0007/?

From memory this seems to be a lighter colour than your car, but as far as I can tell Austin only produced one Auto Brown, although this may have changed shades over the years. In 1932 Auto Brown was a stock colour for the tourer mated to a Black waist-band:

http://archive.a7ca.org/collections/pain...em/PC0007/?

Hello Mike,
I think it's actually nearer 50 years!
Your're right in that when you saw my car it was dark brown, in fact it's still wearing the same, now very tatty, paint job.  It's the colour I gave it in 1968, which I knew at the time was much darker than the original but it was all I could easily get.  I think it was a 1960s Rover 2000 brown!
My tourer will very soon be getting a repaint, hopefully as near as possible to the original shade of (lighter) brown.  Hence my request for help with a correct colour match.
I had already seen the Archive colour cards.  I am certain that the 1936 brown is much darker than that which was on my 1932 Tourer.

[Hugh Barnes]

In case you're not aware, Mick, and it is of use, the 1936 colours are now available through Craftmaster Paints who worked with the Card set owner in an arrangement brokered by the Archive Project.

Hugh

[Mike Costigan]

Another thought: colours seen in isolation can look very different when combined with another colour. Do you remember my Austin Twelve, Mick? I painted that in Triumph Gunmetal; as a single colour on a Triumph that looked to be quite a dark grey, but on the Austin when combined with the black wings and upper body its appearance was more mid to light grey!