[Dantera]

Has anyone heard of "S" for the paint code on a 65 GTO? I had the one I'm purchasing come back from PHS with it. Actually, Jim (I think) called from PHS and stated that he got together with the PHS "think tank" and the only thing they could think was that it may have been ordered by someone/dealer who wanted to paint it himself and that the "S" could be primer? Jim stated while he had always heard that this code existed he had never seen one. Any ideas? Thanks,

Dan

[Dantera]

Has anyone heard of "S" for the paint code on a 65 GTO? I had the one I'm purchasing come back from PHS with it. Actually, Jim (I think) called from PHS and stated that he got together with the PHS "think tank" and the only thing they could think was that it may have been ordered by someone/dealer who wanted to paint it himself and that the "S" could be primer? Jim stated while he had always heard that this code existed he had never seen one. Any ideas? Thanks,

Dan

[Dantera]

Forgot to add car appears to have been originally painted Tiger Gold. I plan on scraping under the trunk lid and having it matched @ a paint store

[eric65]

did you buy that from the Black-Tie-Classics???

to check data plates look at this site

http://www.gtoalley.com/sixfive.html

[Dantera]

Yes (although not for the price listed). I checked the link you provided a couple weeks ago and it too does not show an "S" listed?? Not a big deal but have kicked around the idea of , if "S" is primer, then why not resto it to that. Always thought primer gray looked pretty tough. lol

[bigpop]

That is pretty strange.The first thing that occured to me was I have seen Tiger Gold cars with SPEC for special in the paint area.Maybe the worker who made the trim tags was just doing something contrary do to boredom or.drinking? Post what you find as far as original paint. bigpop

[Dantera]

hopefully he wasn't drinking and painting. I'll let you know what I find.

[Goatoligst]

My guess S is for Special. I have seen it before in some Chevrolets. I saw a 1975 Impala that was gold. The color was not in that years chips. After digging, found the customer ordered the car with a 60's Corvette gold.

[supcarbob]

I would think the 'S' is for Sahara Mist which was a Buick exclusive color in 1965. It used paint code 'S'and possibly would explain the upc code and not the usual markings for special paint.I have seen one other car (1964 GTO which was special paint ordered in a current(for 1964) yellow color that was only available on Chevrolet models that had the Chevy upc sales code on the firewall and not slashes or numbers for special paint.

[Goatoligst]

I just thought of something. Hurst gold was a special option color in 1965. Could it be?

[gtoric]

Hurst Gold was a special order color in 1965, but it did not receive a regular paint code letter. As bigpop stated, Hurst Gold paint was designated by SPEC or 2 or ** in 1965. I checked out a 1966 Gold GTO convertible last weekend, and it had 1-2 for its paint code. It looked close to Tiger Gold, but may have been a different, non-Pontiac, GM gold.

BTTT, it's most likely that the "S" code on the '65 GTO in question is a non-Pontiac GM color for '65, as Supcarbob has suggested.

[Terry M. Hunt]

I think the hunch about this being another GM division paint code makes sense and seems to agree with other such stories I have heard over the past 28 years. Seems strange to me that PHS didn't seem to think of this as a possible explanation. I thought this outfit was supposed to be the "experts". In addition, I would guess that, although not common, having your GTO painted a Chevy or Olds or whatever color was a request that happened often enough that PHS would have run into this by now and researched it.

[RamAirBirds]

I own a 65 Tiger Gold GTO Hdtp. It has the only paint code I have seen for this car. 2-2. ALso, "Hurst Gold" IS tiger gold for 1965. Hope this helps.

[Pecosbill]

S was the paint code for Saddle Bronze Metallic for the 1964 Lemans/GTO. What is the production date of your car? Perhaps they used some leftover paint from 64 on the early 65's?

[loadedgoat65]

I also have a Tiger Gold 65 GTO Hdtp with the paint code 2-2.

loadedgoat65

[Dantera]

Originally Posted by Pecosbill

S was the paint code for Saddle Bronze Metallic for the 1964 Lemans/GTO. What is the production date of your car? Perhaps they used some leftover paint from 64 on the early 65's?

That would make sense as the build date is 11-64. As a matter of fact the rear-end came back with a 64 date as well. I was told not to be alarmed as the early 65's were built using the leftover 64 rear-ends.

[johnta1]

Your rear has the removable 3rd member? (64)

[Pecosbill]

According to the Auto Color Library, in 1965 Tiger Gold had no paint code. If that's the case that could indeed be why they used the S, since S was not taken on the color chart, or because it could be interpreted as "special." See:
http://autocolorlibrary.com/cgi-bin/...ntiac-pg01.jpg

[bdk1976]

From the little bit of research I have done on paint codes, there were 24 'standard' colors available across the Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile lines in 1965. Each of these colors were identified by single letter code across the lines ( 'I' and 'O' were unused) and were the same color for each, although they were referred to be different 'descriptive' names by each division.

Paint code 'S' was a standard color available on Chevrolet (what they called Sierra Tan Poly) and Buick (referred to as Sahara Mist Poly) in 1965. It would have been an extra cost option for Pontiac and Olds.

As I understand it, the information on the body tag was used by Fisher Body during the manufacturing process (grouping/sequencing) before the cars were sent to final assembly at their respective plants. It makes sense that the coding system used was 'cross-divisional' in nature.

Since the cars (sans front end) were painted by Fisher Body before being sent to the final assembly plants, a car with code S would have been sprayed with the corresponding color mixture, regardless of which division it was going to.

Special paint cars (including Tiger Gold in '65) would have had different characters in the color location on the body tag in order to differentiate it from the standard colors (--, 22, etc.).

[Dantera]

Well now I'm throughly confussed (easliy done). Sorry for the poor quality of the attached pic but its from my phone. Anyway, if I'm reading it right it says S-6.