In 1941 Chrysler made only 5 Newport Phaeton duel cowl roadster. These cars pushed the envelope of design of the time. They toured the country showing design features that would be coming in the next five years. The war intervened and many of the design and styling features were not followed up on. The actress Lana Turner bought one and painted it red, the fifth was used as the 1941 the Indianapolis 500 Pace Car. Later repainted from the original gold to Walter Chrysler’s favorite color green and was kept by Walter P Chrysler Jr. as his personal car.







Ralph Roberts designed the car an aluminum body on a New Yorker frame at the LeBaron factory. The Newport and the smaller Thunderbolt introduced the envelope theory of design that is a single flowing surface from the front of the car to the rear. Before this fenders were bolted on to the body. The car also incorporated hideaway headlights an aircraft style cockpit, an electrically operated convertible top that folded automatically into a compartment behind the rear seat but in front of the trunk that also was electrically operated. It was powered by a 137 H.P. straight eight and a 3 speed manual transmission.

We made touch up paint for the car that was the lead car in Denver’s St Patrick’s Day parade. I would like to thank Karen Floyd for her photos of the parade.


I had a chance to see the car after the parade and it is one of the very most impressive cars I have ever seen

For more information and pictures see
The Imperial Club
The Walter P. Chrysler Museum
The Detroit News
and my Flickr page




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Anti Trust Settlements

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review has reported that Sherwin Williams and PPG have preliminary approval of their part of the class action price fixing lawsuit. PPG will reportable pay 23 million Sherwin Williams will pay 16 million. DuPont has already settled for 36 million and BASF for 12 million.
Visit Auto Paint Litigation for more information.



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Automotive Paint Code Locater needs your help

I am stating a new project and would like your help. The car companies have not made it easy to find the paint code. The paint code is not in your vin (vehicle identification number) the dealer can call up your paint code by entering it into their database but it is a pain for you and them.

So where is your paint code? Now it would be logical for the manufactures to get together and standardize where the paint codes are but they can't even standardize them selves. General Motors has at least 19 different places that they hide their paint codes.

So I'm starting to make a web page where you put in the year the make and the model and it will display the resulting location and photo of the tag or sticker that contains the code.

Now this is where I would like your help. First is there a web page out there that already does this, if there is I'll save myself all the work. Second I have pretty good access to where the paint codes are in cars from 2007 back to about 1996 before that the information is much more sketchy if you can contribute to the knowledge base please do. Third take a picture of the paint code of your car and send it to me. Include the make the model and I'll credit you for your help

So far I nominate Honda for the most sane paint code sticker it’s on the driver side door and it simply says color and the code. Volkswagen for the most illusive tag often in the well where the tire is stored and once you’ve found the tag you would never know which number you need.

So please e-mail me at jlyons47@ gmail.com if you can contribute or if you would like to see an advance look at the site.

Right now I have a design that is still a sketch on a napkin and allot of data that I am transcribing and am trying to get into a logical form.

Please send paint code locations you know of, criticism or photo to jlyons47@gmail.com.

Thank you

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