Temporary Fender & Valence Repaint (Part 1)

Four years ago, I grew tired of looking at the paint damage to the driver fender.  There was a section where the paint was simply flaking away near the front of the wheel arch.  Additionally, there was a section a little higher on the fender which looked to be Bondo.  After a little exploratory work with an angle grinder, I found most of the back half of the fender was Bondo!

I could not put the hacked up original fender back on so I picked up a new one at Mustang Mania in Houston.  I installed it and painted the replacement headlight bucket to match (it was formerly primer gray).  This is the way it has been for the four years since.  I really hate the black fender as it takes the car from a decent 10 footer to a 100 footer.

When I purchased the car, I was told it was painted a stock GM blue color from the 90's.  I found a 1993 PPG paint book for a few dollars on eBay and decided I'd see if I could match the color.  If they produce the color in an aerosol can, I could then paint the fender to better match the rest of the car.  It then would not look so bad while I save money to get the entire car painted.

At first glance, the color appeared to be Bahama Blue Metallic (B22).  As luck would have it, the local O'Reilly had some in a Duplicolor aerosol for $7.99.  I purchased a can and tried it out on a piece of spare metal and compared it to the current color on the car.  Ends up, it has a bit more of a teal color to it but it is really close.  Its actually a nice color and close to what I might end up painting the car later.

I went back to the color panel and checked everything again.  The color was also really close to Banzai Blue Metallic (PC3) which is a Dodge color.  I decided to buy an aerosol can of this paint of eBay.  Once it arrived, I performed the same test and found it was a little darker than the sample in the paint book.  It is actually very thin so I used it to top coat the Bahama Blue Metallic and surprisingly it matches fairly well.

I realize it is rather crazy to take two stock metallic colors and then put them together and expect it to match the current car color.  Additionally, the faded, oxidized look of the rest of the car can't be matched anyway.  I decided I'm just going to do it anyway and see how close I can get it.  If it doesn't match perfectly, that is fine as it at least will look better than the black fender which stands out from a mile away.