Moore_rb's 1962 Soft Top Patrol- L60-2-00504

[moore_rb]

YAY - one more minute little detail regarding my 62 has been settled, courtesy of our friends at Ratsun.net...

I think the Nissan paint code for the metallic green on my Patrol is #303 metallic green. Searching through the Paint codes thread on Ratsun, I found two examples of this color on Z cars:

303green.jpg

303green2.JPG

The top image is not the best quality photo, but I do think it is the same shade of green; while the lower image looks like another near perfect match with the earlier images of the pre-65 L320 truck images I found, plus the image of my Patrol's dash:

datsun320_green.jpg

green320doorjambs.jpg

green-zoom.jpg

So now I have an actual Datsun paint code I can take to the paint store along with my glove box door

There is only one mystery left regarding this Patrol's paint: Is my 1962 Patrol the only known example of a Patrol that left the Nissan factory wearing a metallic color?

[RiverPatrol]

Beats me. It certainly was uncommon. Was it a stock color on the Z? That's a long time for a car company to hang on to a particular color - the first Z was 7 years after your '62 Patrol.

[moore_rb]

Beats me. It certainly was uncommon. Was it a stock color on the Z? That's a long time for a car company to hang on to a particular color - the first Z was 7 years after your '62 Patrol.

The Ratsun thread says it was a very uncommon color on the early Z cars as well... Code 303 is not even listed on any of the Nissan/Datsun color cards I have found

Times like this make me wish Nissan had kept better manufacturing records in the early 1960's...

But, my modified Roy Rogers brochure photo suggests to me that my Patrol is going to look pretty cool wearing this color, so I'm going with it.

[Rolly]

There's a Ford green used on Falcons in the late nineties that is so very close to that green on the Patrol. The paint was called *SUPER?* CRYL 2000 from memory? Can't remember the colour name though pretty sure it began with a P

[moore_rb]

It's confirmed - The green on my 62 Patrol is indeed Nissan 303 green. This afternoon after work, I had to run to the paint store to grab some supplies, and while I was there I had them check to see if they had a formula for this color, and they did...

They didn't have any paint chips I could take with me, but It was only $14 to mix up 1/2 pint of it, so I took a small can home and shot a couple areas on the Patrol to see how well it would match the "mystery green" on the truck.

CAM00898_zpsvotn7g9x.jpg

CAM00900_zpswaa0ci57.jpg

So there it is - Interestingly, this color pretty much looks like like metallic 558 green (Oregon green, or Roy Rogers green) to me - they seem like very similar colors in both shade and hue.

Another interesting thing I heard about why 303 green is not listed on any of the Nissan paint color sample cards out there - One of the local Datsun Club guys I've been chatting with says that 303 green was a special-order color, available only to Datsun/Nissan employees, or for promotional-use vehicles. He said that's why the color is so rarely seen, and why its never listed on Nissan color chip cards. Not sure where he heard that, but it might explain the mystery of how it made it onto my Patrol- maybe this Patrol was delivered to a Nissan employee originally?

So, now all I have to do is decide if a metallic green Patrol is what I want...? It still seems kind of sacrilegious to me not to have a solid color on the truck... I did confirm that the paint store also had the formula for 558 green, so maybe I'll have them mix me another 1/2 paint of that, and I'll shoot some side by side tests of the two greens.

[zed]

Color code 303:
http://www.xenons30.com/Colorchart.html
Keith

[RMP&O]

It is all hearsay Rob and not provable really in anyway unless you somehow tracked the truck back to day one. I mean who is to say that some Datsun lover didn't own it at one time, take it down to bare metal and spray it back the way Nissan painted these trucks using the same type of primer and so forth? Highly unlikely, I know but certainly possible. I say you can claim or tell people that from what you know of the truck it may have had a special color on it, otherwise you don't know for sure. I would also say if you like the color and want to paint it the same because of what you know about it, by all means man, paint it the green metallic!

A lot of these kinds of oddities or rarities are extremely hard to prove. You can go on hunches, gather what you know and make an educated guess but that is about the best you can do. The Alaskan wagon for example, without some sort of proof it was sold up there originally a person can only guess, an educated guess but still a guess. Or the unique Japanese wagon, was it really a Nissan special order and body? With out Nissan archives or some kind of proof, like on Togo are original letters from original owner picking out color, you simply can only guess.

Cheers

[RiverPatrol]

Maybe your softie is the one that Datsun gave to Roy Rogers to compensate him for his promotion of the Patrol? That would explain why it was painted with a special employee only paint. Roy Rogers Patrol was a softie, not a hardtop. You got that Patrol out of CA, not too far from the old Roy Rogers ranch. Maybe he liked to go hunting down in that area, and left the Patrol there to use when he went down? His Patrol was an early one, like your softie.

Not too far fetched to consider. Of course, with no documentation there's no conclusion. But I think your softie has a better chance of being the Roy Rogers Patrol than Mike's does. I've seen the truck myself, and like Rob I highly doubt it's a repaint.

Nice paint match, BTW. I'd be interested in seeing it next to the 558.

[faux40]

I wonder if a FOIA request could be used to get vintage DMV records? Perhaps a search of old California Secretary of State records for the corporations where Roy Rogers was listed vs. the vehicles registered to those firms...

Just a thought...

[moore_rb]

It is all hearsay Rob and not provable really in anyway unless you somehow tracked the truck back to day one. I mean who is to say that some Datsun lover didn't own it at one time, take it down to bare metal and spray it back the way Nissan painted these trucks using the same type of primer and so forth? Highly unlikely, I know but certainly possible.

If this Patrol had been torn down and restored in the past, then it had a VERY rough life afterward But yeah, I totally agree. I've never heard the "employee only" story before, nor have I gotten any corroboration on it from any of the other sources- What I've gotten is the same "I've never heard that before" reply that I gave the dude (and it's the exact response I've gotten from 20+ year Nissan Employees when I have asked them about it )... Total hearsay.

Regarding the color itself, I'm still torn. There is really only one piece of evidence that that would indicate that it is a correct ( and possibly original) color; and that's the confirmed existence of it as a factory color on the pre-64 L320 trucks.

Is it going to make this Patrol more valuable or more collectible? Nope.
Is it going to make it stand out more in car shows and photographs? Nope. (it looks like Roy Rogers green in pictures )
Do I even like the color? I don't know. Green tones do have several advantages on a soft top Patrol. It will complement the OD green canvas, and green just "fits" with the boxy, old school styling on these trucks.

But metallic green? It just smacks of a throwback disco-age color.

Leslie - Didn't someone (was it you?) write to the RR foundation asking if they had the VIN number of Roy's Patrol documented anywhere? I thought that effort was a dead-end?

I am going to grab a half-pint of 558 green the next time I'm at the paint store, and I'm going to shoot the other side of that rear fender with it, and then I'm going to sit in a folding lawn chair, and stare at them both while I drink some beer.

Then, I'm going to decide to paint the Patrol blue.