should I paint half my car Citrus Yellow?

[Armin]

The restauration work on my car after the accident is almost complete. Now I need to get the new parts painted. The new parts are: front right fender, front bumper and hood. So it's almost the entire front of the car. This got me thinking...

I always wanted a Citrus Yellow (or Space Alien Green) Insight! They just were impossible to get, so I have Silverstone. Now, since I have to paint the front half anyway, I could just paint it Citrus Yellow for the same price and be half-way there! Of course, my girlfriend thinks I'm nuts. Friends warned me that the resale value would drop (as if I'd ever sell it!)

I don't want to paint the entire car. Firstly, painting over the factory paint will most certainly not look as good as original, secondly, this would be much more expensive!

So, I figured I'd ask the group for opinions: what do you think? Should I paint the front of the car Alien Green or boring gray?

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

Hi Armin
Great to hear that your Insight will be back on the road again. It sounds to me like you have already decided what color you want to paint it, and just want some support. My Vote! Go for the Space alien green.
Mike

[ElectricTroy]

I've always wanted to see the Insight with a "natural" look. The white aluminum would look sweet.

Hi Armin:

___You may be inclined to keep your Insight forever and enjoy an alternate color from stock but if you were to ever sell or trade it, the alternate color vs. what the Car was sold at will kill you. Take an hour or two and read or post a question or two into the RW TIV thread over at Edmunds Townhall. Repainting a vehicle to an alternate color is a bad solution according to some of the used car pros I have read of in the past. Arizona Rick is involved with this as his family is in the business. Maybe he can add more detail to the discussion?

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:2cxkh8jc]Waynegerdes@earthlink.net[/email:2cxkh8jc]

[Yves M.]

Am I correct into thinking that what you want is this (a quick image of bad quality but shows the look):


If so, I would pay the painters the difference to get it all Citrus. Usually, there is a difference between the new and old paint color.

An all Citrus would look really nice, No?

[boogetyboogety]

Don't confuse the public!

Reminds me of the old joke about three statisticians on a train, visiting Scotland for the first time. They spot a black sheep in a field, and the first one says: "Aha! This proves that all sheep in Scotland are black." So the second one pipes in: "No, that only proves that in Scotland, there is at least one black sheep." To which the third declares: "No, all that proves is that in Scotland, there is at least one sheep that is black on one side."

[Chris]

If you are going to paint half of it Alien Green then why not just paint the whole thing Green, I think it would look odd driving it around half Silver, and half Green. But then again whatever suites you the best, then go with it.

[Rick]

Personally I'm not so keen about just painting some panels one color and the rest another. Frankly it would make people think you took two cars and made one usable one out of the two. I think the only way you could pull off a dual color scheme would be to blend the two (not easy to do, nor cheap). You could do the front citrus then half way back have it blend to silver, but that would mean going in to the roof and doors. You could also maybe just make the very front citrus and have it blended to silver by the time it gets back to the fenders and back of the hood, but I don't think this would look so appealing.

I was thinking a citrus to monte carlo blue would look pretty cool. Another cool option would be to two tone the car with silver and black like they did with the Chrysler Prowler:


Basically you do black down to the body line then silver from there on down. Yeah I'm talking doing more paint work here, but it creates a very very deffinted and really good looking body line.

[Hambone]

Now a blend that warps from the citrus in the front to silver in the rear, that kinda mixes the colors in the middle to make the paint job seem seamless (no pun intended there!), would be wicked. The middle might end up being kinda like DuPont's Chromalusion paint that looks like different colors depending on angle of the viewer and light conditions.

[Yves M.]

To be fare to Armin's idea, I replaced the image above for a better one. So that only the color becomes an issue, not the bad image color assembly I had done before

And offers this one wich is similar except that the mix is forward:


The original is still at:
http://yves.fungiart.com/images/misc/inscitrus.jpg