My apologies, I my single mindedness said Monaro Nationals, it is of course much broader than Monaro's

Blue motors (and black) had no clear coat... only glossy semi-gloss

I was told years ago, 60% gloss.

I'm back, with some interesting results 😊


The below 4 pictures are of my Sydney assembled 1967 Special Wagon.
They were taken with the Wagon outside, so plenty of natural light.

Taking into account 54 years of hot/cold/dirt/grime I would almost swear that Chevrolet Orange was the correct colour....if not, then extremely close.







These next 4 pictures, are of our friends Melbourne assembled 1966 Utility.
Unfortunately, it was tucked away inside the garage so only got the flash of my tablet.

In my opinion, it's almost certainly a different colour to the "Chevy Orange" thermo housing.
And therefore a different colour to my Special Wagon's engine...?






Perhaps the natural light gives my engine abit more "vibrancy", or the different assembly plant/assembly year make some sort of difference?

Both vehicles have between 100-110 thousand original miles, so reasonably even on that side of things.



Hopefully this provides abit of help 😎

Engines were painted when they got here and all local engines painted at Fisherman’s Bend. If there are colour variations it will come down to variations between drums or thinning ratio or the actual painter. Or even the quality of the thinners. Remember they were mass produced engines and GMH would have been happy with close enough.

I am going to attempt some form of summary and explanation.

Although I am waiting on some paint from KBS Coatings and also want to do some more comparisons on a mates original paint 186S, for me at all started with “what the &*^%$ is Holden X2 Engine Red”?

Because rightly or wrongly I was told that HK GTS 327 engines were painted Holden X2 Engine Red and also that X2 motors were painted this colour I went on a quest to find it, however no matter where I searched I could not find a paint company that could produce a code for this colour name.

KBS Coatings in Sydney is an example and Autolac Newcastle is the same, they don’t have any listings for Holden X2 Engine Red under this name.

The only thing I could find was a shaker can sold as X2 Red on Ebay which is nothing like my 327 or the original paint examples Dan has been kind enough to present, so the colour code for Holden X2 Engine Red and exact colour match is an on-going mystery.

Maybe that’s the way its going to stay, Dans has two differing shades of original paint examples and we know from other members input that there is probably many different shades based on issues such as painter mixing the paint, thinners, pigment, suppliers etc, not to mention the differing ageing of original paint example cars.

We went full circle with HK1837 providing invaluable information on the production line processes and company procedures here and in America giving insight into the difficulty of truly identifying exact colour shades. Like has been said before, we will never have certainty of the exact process these companies undertook in the 60’s, but we still do have original paint examples to compare.

For me it was always whether or not I could find an off the shelf product (shaker can) that would get me over the line should I decide to show my car. I for one didn’t want people saying nice car but the motor is the wrong colour, what triggered me was another thread on this forum some years ago where it was exactly that discussion, see the link below

https://www.fastlane.com...s-for-152-000-00.aspx?=

With this in mind, I went to the local Supercheap and picked up a can of Chevy Orange and to my amazement it was an all but exact match. That was where the mission started to find out if Chevy Orange was the same as Holden X2 Engine Red and here we are running this thread.

I am going to put it out there that based on the original paint example of my 327 and Dans 186 X2 that if anyone went down to their local Supercheap Auto and bought a can of Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange DE1620 and painted their engine then there would be no argument regarding the correct colour for their X2, HKGTS 327 and at this stage looks to be 186S.

I will some colour match comparison with KBS Coatings Rocket Red and Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange, get a few more examples of original paint motors and hopefully we will have some consensus.

I have now done some samples of the KBS Rocket Red and some comparisons of this paint to the Duplicolor Paint Cans and also my original paint 327 Engine. The outcome is no real surprise, I have tried to photograph all of these colour in the best light situation to show the shades, but from my point the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange still looks to be the closest match

Below is a sample board of the four colours, the two top colours are the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange at the top followed by the Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange Red underneath, then the third one down is the KBS Rocket Red which is the same colour as the Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange Red and then the bottom colour is what is advertised on ebay as X2 Red.



Below is the paint can from KBS known as Rocket Red



I have added below a few pictures of my bellhousing, the first picture shows a KBS Rocket Red and Duplicolor Chevrolet Orange Comparison



The rest of these photographs are of my oil pump housing, various angles and colours, but looking at it in person the chevrolet Orange is the closest.



The final photo below is of the head, again Chevy orange vs Rocket Red



I would say that if anyone painted their GTS 327 engines Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange, Duplicolour Chevrolet Orange Red, or KBS Rocket Red averyone would have a hard time seeing the difference, unless they were side by side.

I went through all of this a year or two back.

Saginaw gearboxes were supplied to GMH in bare metal and each plant did their own thing with them.
Dandenong left theirs bare metal while other plants used Rocket Red and others may have used X2 or whatever they had laying about.

The engine paint.
GM called it Red Engine Enamel from the late 1950's through to the mid 70's.
The US paint code for a very long time was PPG/Ditzler 60339 and Ditzlers description was red/orange.
In the early 70's PPG started to called it Orange Engine Enamel, same code.
Everyone else calls it Chevy Orange.

Apparently one of the Duplicolor engine enamels either DE1607 or DE1620 is a very close match to GM Red Engine Enamel (Chevy orange)
I cant remember which one but looks like you're onto it.

The original paint on my engine is so thin its transparent in many areas and those thin areas have turned as orange as a carrot.
The areas where the paint is thickest and received less heat (top of the bell housing) the paint is still red and in very good condition.
Its all the same paint job but the heat has turned most of it bright orange so the engine block is the worst place to get an accurate sample.
The bellhousing is the only place.

I decided a while ago GM Red Engine Enamel PPG/Ditzler 60339 (Chevy Orange) is exactly the same as GMH X2 Engine Red.
Others will disagree but I think you'll come to the same conclusion.
I just got my bell housing colour matched in an oil based enamel.

Hi Rigpig, thank you for the information and pics of your bellhousing.

That X2 swatch shown in your pics, which publication is that from? Would be interesting to do some comparisons on that colour code. The Duplicolour 1620 Chevrolet Orange is the closest I can find for a colour match to my engine, and it is similar if not the same in multiple areas or my engine, bellhousing and gearbox, it also seems based on my engine that Holden was matching gearbox paint quite well at Pagewood.

The most interesting comment you make is that parts of your engine turned carrot orange after time, this is consistent with a mates 186S engine, not so sure if modern paints would do the same (fade). Red pigment does not like UV, and quite possibly heat depending on what was used as a pigment to create the red. On the 186S the water pump pulley has turned almost pink.

It would be great to come to a conclusion or at least some ballpark. I would say that we would have to treat 327 separately as I am assuming now they were all painted in America. After that it would be great to have colour codes for the other engines based on a timeline and possibly plant locations, although it is said most Holden engines were manufactured/assembled at Fishermans Bend.

Yes all 327 engines fitted to Holden or Statesman were 100% painted in America, North America to be exact. The bulk of SBC design engines used in these cars, probably in the ballpark of 95% of them were assembled and painted in Canada. Only a small amount came from the USA from a Chevrolet engine plant, and that is the approx 750 GTS327 engines, the few hundred auto HT-HG 350 engines and maybe the first 700 or so manual HT-HG 350. All of the rest of the tens of thousands of 307 in HK-HG, 350 in HQ and the final batches of HK 327 plus HG 350 manual were Canadian engines. If you add in the GMH 1968 full size vehicles that is another few thousand Chevrolet (USA) engines. Prior to 1968 they are somewhat odd but appear to be generally Canadian engine plant assembled engines but with some parts sourced from Chevrolet engines plants in the USA and others from the Canadian foundry.

My guess is if there were colour variations along the way it will simply come down to a combination of different paint suppliers, different care factor of the painter and the fact they were just an engine.