Help me with color combinations for tunatruck

So I've learned my lesson a little, but I haven't learned very much. In my truck thread I showed everybody pictures of the potential colors, then I picked a totally different color. It all happened really fast, and I wasn't ready. 

Anyway it's yellow now. It looks pretty good but I'm not a huge fan actually. The point is that all of my interior stuff was going to be black with houndstooth. It turns out black with houndstooth looks pretty terrible on yellow I think. For some reason yellow screams out saddle and leather to me I don't really know why. I need someone with some history or some art knowledge to explain something to me.

I'm trying to decide what color to make everything on the inside, also some of the trim pieces on the outside. I really really hate Chrome, I'm thinking gunmetal and white for the trim pieces on the outside, but then the inside gets really complicated. Little things like the radio buttons and the steering wheel are going to be black obviously, but do they have to be? I kind of think I should incorporate gunmetal there too instead of black. But back to the seats, I think they sound better in some sort of saddle-like color.

I need thoughts and ideas, but not just telling me what should be on the truck because I will probably just do a bad job of incorporating that advice. Every Corvette I see from that era in yellow looks best with a saddle interior. Every Porsche I see in yellow from that era is the same. Pictures of the truck from that era are very seldomly seen in yellow so I don't have a lot of great examples.

Black and houndstooth looks good to me against yellow...

If you like saddle with yellow, then go saddle with yellow.   I think black would be fine, but this is your truck that you've worked so hard on, get whatever strikes your fancy.  
 

As an alternate, maybe a tan tweed kind of fabric, would be period appropriate and the right color too. 

Ok. So- I went and looked for the tunatruck tunathread to see what tunayellow we were talking about. Bumblebee tuna? No. More of a nice....tunaegg. 

Ok i'll stop. 

THAT BEING SAID. 

You've got a pretty specific color here and I wouldn't do black. I'm getting heavy 50's color vibes off it (despite the truck being a 72) and I would stick with the warmer tones. saddle/peanut with parchment inserts. if you could find a houndstooth pattern (or gingham, or tartan, or anything 50's diner appropriate...actually paisley would be pretty sick if you wanted to get weird)  that would REALLY set it off. If you're worried about the brightwork- get weird. Do brushed nickel. Burnish it some so there's a glint but no real shine. Make it look "aged" without it looking demolished. Think of how a well worn fork looks. It doesn't look bad, it looks used. Applied. 

That's how I'd play it. It looks like an old farm truck that's been cared for, might as well lean into that some.

I feel like saddle works in the same way that blue jeans work with most any color, regardless of the actual underlying color. It's a historical precedent thing.

 I'd wonder how a deep burgundy (deep! To avoid looking too splashy) or deep navy would look. Just pulling from complimentary area of the color wheel.

I have reservations about white trim, but that's probably significantly down to how I've seen it look rather than How It Has To Be. I like the gunmetal idea better, but I also don't hate chrome, so maybe my taste is suspect in how useful it is to you. I am loathe to critique Retropower, but I often find I'm put off by the finishes brought in as substitutes for chrome. I think we're back to the blue jeans thing; If it's unexpected and more specifically colorful, it's more critical.

Mndsm said:

Ok. So- I went and looked for the tunatruck tunathread to see what tunayellow we were talking about. Bumblebee tuna? No. More of a nice....tunaegg. 

 

Ok i'll stop. 

 

THAT BEING SAID. 

 

You've got a pretty specific color here and I wouldn't do black. I'm getting heavy 50's color vibes off it (despite the truck being a 72) and I would stick with the warmer tones. saddle/peanut with parchment inserts. if you could find a houndstooth pattern (or gingham, or tartan, or anything 50's diner appropriate...actually paisley would be pretty sick if you wanted to get weird)  that would REALLY set it off. If you're worried about the brightwork- get weird. Do brushed nickel. Burnish it some so there's a glint but no real shine. Make it look "aged" without it looking demolished. Think of how a well worn fork looks. It doesn't look bad, it looks used. Applied. 

 

That's how I'd play it. It looks like an old farm truck that's been cared for, might as well lean into that some.

I was secretly hoping you'd join the party. 

How can I possibly do seats like that without an industrial sewing machine or tons of dollars? 

I like saddle with inserts. I saw tartan which I liked, even had a bit of yellow in it. Houndstooth comes in colors, one of which is always black, and I can't get into it like I could when the truck was going to be blue. 

I think you're right on the era, although I was thinking early 60s. I'm looking at convertible 356s and C1 or C2 corvettes for inspiration. 

Jesse Ransom said:

I feel like saddle works in the same way that blue jeans work with most any color, regardless of the actual underlying color. It's a historical precedent thing.

 I'd wonder how a deep burgundy (deep! To avoid looking too splashy) or deep navy would look. Just pulling from complimentary area of the color wheel.

I have reservations about white trim, but that's probably significantly down to how I've seen it look rather than How It Has To Be. I like the gunmetal idea better, but I also don't hate chrome, so maybe my taste is suspect in how useful it is to you. I am loathe to critique Retropower, but I often find I'm put off by the finishes brought in as substitutes for chrome. I think we're back to the blue jeans thing; If it's unexpected and more specifically colorful, it's more critical.

Interesting! 

The truck has lots of chrome, even without external trim stripes (which are removed), door handles, vent window pivots, mirrors, bumper, grill, radio, pedal surrounds, shifter shaft, and I think I want it all satin copper color. 

Sonic said:

If you like saddle with yellow, then go saddle with yellow.   I think black would be fine, but this is your truck that you've worked so hard on, get whatever strikes your fancy.  
 

As an alternate, maybe a tan tweed kind of fabric, would be period appropriate and the right color too. 

Thanks for that confirmation. I appreciate being reminded that this isn't design by committee. I do not have a good eye for imagining the finished product though. I hope I can find some good examples. 

Tan hounds tooth?

tuna55 said:

Mndsm said:

Ok. So- I went and looked for the tunatruck tunathread to see what tunayellow we were talking about. Bumblebee tuna? No. More of a nice....tunaegg. 

 

Ok i'll stop. 

 

THAT BEING SAID. 

 

You've got a pretty specific color here and I wouldn't do black. I'm getting heavy 50's color vibes off it (despite the truck being a 72) and I would stick with the warmer tones. saddle/peanut with parchment inserts. if you could find a houndstooth pattern (or gingham, or tartan, or anything 50's diner appropriate...actually paisley would be pretty sick if you wanted to get weird)  that would REALLY set it off. If you're worried about the brightwork- get weird. Do brushed nickel. Burnish it some so there's a glint but no real shine. Make it look "aged" without it looking demolished. Think of how a well worn fork looks. It doesn't look bad, it looks used. Applied. 

 

That's how I'd play it. It looks like an old farm truck that's been cared for, might as well lean into that some.

I was secretly hoping you'd join the party. 

 

How can I possibly do seats like that without an industrial sewing machine or tons of dollars? 

I like saddle with inserts. I saw tartan which I liked, even had a bit of yellow in it. Houndstooth comes in colors, one of which is always black, and I can't get into it like I could when the truck was going to be blue. 

 

I think you're right on the era, although I was thinking early 60s. I'm looking at convertible 356s and C1 or C2 corvettes for inspiration. 

 

DISCLAIMER- I am not a seamstress. I haven't even stayed at a Holiday Inn. Recently. The last time I operated a sewing machine was in the 8th grade. HOWEVER- 

I believe most sewing machines can do denim/ripstop/etc. Go that route. Think....Carhartt analog. The HARDEST part is going to be the piping if you choose to go that route- I have no idea how to do piping. Can't be that hard. Other than that- cloth is cloth. chevy seats are fortunately square, and you're just talking about making more squares, right? the houndstooth/tartan/pattern in the middle might be a *little* harder to find, but one odd duck you might try is combing thrift stores. Assuming you're not above repurposing something aka the mexican blanket routine- an old tablecloth of sufficiently heavy material could have a crazy pattern that could work for your needs. Bonus points, it's probably been scotch-garded and all manner of asbestos treated to avoid the red scare or whatever we were protecting ourselves from back then. 

I like the idea of copper plating the trim.

It's not uncommon for home sewing machines to be able to handle leather - or for used industrial sewing machines to turn up for sale at reasonable prices. So if you want brown leather, don't rule it out.

tuna55 said:

So I've learned my lesson a little, but I haven't learned very much. In my truck thread I showed everybody pictures of the potential colors, then I picked a totally different color. ...

 

 

Thank you for posting that. I have been combing through the main thread looking for the color switch from turquoise to yellow. Up until you confirmed it, I thought the yellowish color was some kind of primer or sealer anticipating a color coat.

Love to hear how that sudden change  to pale yellow came about. It would seem that whatever decision tree was followed did not address the interior colors?

Primrose Yellow is pretty common in the MGB world and yet they all seem to have black interiors with white seat piping. Looks OK to me?

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

I'm surprised how much that bothers you. There really isn't much of a story. I wanted that Sea mist color but he couldn't make it, and I know I was running out of time. I closed my office door during lunch and opened up all of the colors on actual cars and didn't like any of them, so I roughly and quickly went through a bunch of other colors and picked one. There is a little bit of poetry here but not much. When I was a kid, something like 7 years old, my dad restored a GTO. . According to him he drove the GTO once, from the garage to the trailer, to pay for the divorce lawyer. It was the same yellow that I ended up picking for the truck. Of course in my situation, the difference is that my kids have been heavily involved and that my family has always come first. But that's not really why I picked it. It was pretty random. It looks okay, I'm not a huge fan, but I really wasn't a huge fan of any of the other options. The second choice, after Sea mist was unavailable, was actually grapefruit yellow, but he couldn't make that either. Anyway that's where it is!

In reply to tuna55 :

See, there was a good story. I kind of appreciate the irony for what it is worth. Tunakids seen to have scored on the Dad thing front. 

Now back to our regular truck painting schedule.....

On the outside, I think a smoked chrome or black chrome (same thing?) trim would look good on that truck. That or a satin black. 

Checking online, I found various ways people have addressed the grill. Some paint the whole thing, outer trim and all. This makes it look too big to me..

Others paint the outer trim body color, which looks much better. It shrinks the grill and looks more integrated. This one looks like they actually removed the sides and painted the top trim body color, but it gives you the idea...

This looks amazing but I'm not sure what extra body work is involved removing all of the outer trim. In a matte or satin black for your truck...

This is the only one I saw that looks like some kind of a matte black. Something like this but with the outer trim body color or removed would look good with your yellow...

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Part of me if this is a duplicate I'm having trouble with my phone. I did remove the side trim and the trim around the grill already, because I also think it is ugly. Right now the only bits on the outside I have are the grill and the bumper, the door handles and the mirrors. 

I liked white for the grill but I can't decide if the rest works that way. 

But I could also see gunmetal working well. 

Some other combinations

Just posting some that I've found for consideration. Not specifically endorsing any of them.

Chevy, but a decent idea of how white/chrome combo can work with the yellow

I know you love your family so much, what do your kids think about the color choice for the interior and trim?  I bet they will remember you asking for their input when they still have this truck after you have moved to the next plain. 

In reply to STM317 :

I like the white if the cab roof is white, and with white rims. Stock is style with hubcaps but larger diameter and wider. Something like this...

I really like this, I think the yellow would look nice similar to this...

Sonic said:

I know you love your family so much, what do your kids think about the color choice for the interior and trim?  I bet they will remember you asking for their input when they still have this truck after you have moved to the next plain. 

I love this. Stay tuned. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to STM317 :

I like the white if the cab roof is white, and with white rims. Stock is style with hubcaps but larger diameter and wider. Something like this...

 

I really like this, I think the yellow would look nice similar to this...

 

I wanted the white roof for a long time, but I changed my mind. I want a hip stripe. It could be white or gunmetal. 

tuna55 said:

For some reason yellow screams out saddle and leather to me I don't really know why.

Oooooooh, not to me.  I personally dislike yellow and tan together.  They are both on the warm, yellow / orange / red end of the spectrum, but not the same hue / color family.  To me that makes them clash rather than compliment.

With yellow paint, I would go with something cool neutral, like grey.  Black is fine too but I understand not liking the strong contrast there.

But it is absolutely your truck, so do what looks good to you.

Black with gold trim and a screaming chicken on the hood.

Extra points if you actually put a Pontiac engine IN the truck.