Last week I was approached by someone who wanted to have more
detail about the colors used on the Ferrari 400 as he wanted to respray his car. This was something I had not looked into before so a nice
opportunity to do a little more investigation and write up a blog for future
reference.
My own car does still have the original color code decal
which is located in the trunk, this is shown in the manual as
well:
And the actual paint label itself:
From this you will learn the paint is made by PPG. More about
this company can be found here:
As known, the 400 bodywork was done by Pininfarina, the other
Ferrari coachbuilder was Carrozzeria Scaglietti and both used different paint
manufacturers. Scaglietti used Glidden Salchi and changed later to Glasurit.
Eventually also Pininfarina switched to Glasurit, I was informed this happened in 1984.
Scaglietti by Glidden Salchi samples:
Glidden Salchi seems like to have been split up in the past into two
different companies. It was originally an Italian based company located in
Burago di Molgora nearby Milan.
And as already pointed out, the other well known paint company used is
Glasurit:
To be correct, the paint used by Pininfarina is by
PPG-Italver. It was originally an Italian company called Italver SPA (via Priv. Bolla 27
Milano) which merged into PPG. I found this paper snippet from 6 jan 1965 of the Pittsburgh Press:
Now I started digging into this a little more it appears that
Pininfarina has been using some fancy names for their coloring scheme. Apparently
they have been adding racing horses names to the color scheme. More about this
can be read in this article:
While I’m typing and doing some searching I stumbled upon this website
with a Pininfarina Glasurit color sample. And to my surprise I see they are using Glasurit already in 1976.
So my guess now is that Pininfarina used PPG/Italver paint for the Ferrari
models up to 1984 while other brands by Pininfarina, ie Peugeot, might have been using Glasurit paint in the seventies,
this is just my guess. I'm unsure when Carrozzeria Scaglieti started using Glasurit. Find hereby a sample of Glasurit used by Pininfarina (1976)
A very good overview of the paint colors used can be found on this link:
(as can be read, it's based on a Quattroruote article printed in 1964)
In any case I found these photo's of the Ferrari Pininfarina paint chip fob. This one must be early seventies as it does contain the "racing horse names". These horse names dropped off the list later on. I'm unsure when exactly but my guess would be 1976.
FERRARI PININFARINA paint chip colour fob (campionario tinte per vetture Ferrari). Italver-Pittsburgh Paint spa Milano Italy & Montecatini Edison Italy. 18 Colours in total:
1- Blu Ortis
2- Rosso Sir Ivor
3- Arancio Vaguely Noble
4- Giallo My Swallow
5- Avorio The Tetrarch
6- Verde Seabird
7- Azzurro Gladiateur
8- Rosso Nearco
9- Nero Dark Donald
10- Grigio Argento Le Sancy
11- Grigio Mahmoud
12- Oro Kelso
13- Marrone Colorado
14- Celeste Gainsborough
15- Azzurro Hyperion
16- Blu Ribot
17- Verde Pino Blenheim
18- Verde Medio Niyinsky
And additionally another set but from late seventies without the horse names:
1 Bruno Acajou Met. - code nr: 20299608
2 Marrone Met.
3 Gold Poly Met.
4 Verde Medio Met.
5 Verde Pino Met.
6 Blu Ribbot Met.
7 Azzurro Met. - code nr: 8044169
8 Grigio Scuro Met.
9 Grigio Argento Met.
10 Blu Scuro
11 Verde Scuro
12 Nero Tropicale
13 Avorio Safari
14 Rosso Cherry
15 Rosso Nearco
I was unable to find the color codes for each of them (except for 2), so if someone has these I'm interested to hear from you so I can have this updated. I'm unsure what color options were available for the 412?
I guess a similar exercise can be done for the carpets and leather color choices. I welcome any contribution on this matter.
