[Trivia] Paint Colours/Livery Descriptions

[DunsBus]

Edinburgh buses have never used cream in the bus livery but may have used cream on their old tour buses though. (Someone will correct me if I'm wrong!)

Mac Tour buses used cream, as did the Edinburgh Tour ones.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

Paint colours have weird names to stop customers or other companies finding the same shade elsewhere.

If I bought a tin of red paint from Dulux, but found it expensive, it would be difficult to match the shade from Wilko/Crown paint or vice versa.
For companies it helps build the case of ripping off a brand.

 

[150249]

What is the green in stagecoach's new livery called?

 

[XAM2175]

That sounds like something you'd suffer from the morning after!

The names in the German RAL colour standard are fantastically literal - there are also ones like 'pigeon blue', 'curry yellow', 'cement grey', and 'Claret violet'.

Paint colours have weird names to stop customers or other companies finding the same shade elsewhere.

It was never really a huge problem for anybody with the right swatch books and sufficient time, and even less so now with spectral analysers and custom tinting.

 

[Stan Drews]

What is the green in stagecoach's new livery called?

Its usually known as sh*te green!

 

[83G/84D]

NBC Green was called Leaf Green. Apparently it was a devil to match if the bus had a bump.

NBC red was poppy red. Were there any other standard NBC colours?

 

[Eyersey468]

NBC red was poppy red. Were there any other standard NBC colours?

There was also a dark blue/black colour in the early days of NBC, East Yorkshire used it for a short time before going onto Poppy Red. I say blue/Black as most sources say it was dark blue but I have seen it called black as well, as it was before my time I can't say for certain which it was.

 

[Pit_buzzer]

There was also a dark blue/black colour in the early days of NBC, East Yorkshire used it for a short time before going onto Poppy Red. I say blue/Black as most sources say it was dark blue but I have seen it called black as well, as it was before my time I can't say for certain which it was.

It definitely wasn't black, it was dark blue. I can remember new Park Royal Atlanteans being delivered in it. Sunderland & District got some as well in the same livery. No idea what the shade of blue was called though

 

[LiIo75]

NBC red was poppy red. Were there any other standard NBC colours?

Blue was used in Gloucester when the Bristol co was split. Don't know if the shade had an official name though?

 

[Eyersey468]

It definitely wasn't black, it was dark blue. I can remember new Park Royal Atlanteans being delivered in it. Sunderland & District got some as well in the same livery. No idea what the shade of blue was called though

Thank you

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

NBC red was poppy red. Were there any other standard NBC colours?

There was also a dark blue/black colour in the early days of NBC, East Yorkshire used it for a short time before going onto Poppy Red. I say blue/Black as most sources say it was dark blue but I have seen it called black as well, as it was before my time I can't say for certain which it was.

It definitely wasn't black, it was dark blue. I can remember new Park Royal Atlanteans being delivered in it. Sunderland & District got some as well in the same livery. No idea what the shade of blue was called though

Blue was used in Gloucester when the Bristol co was split. Don't know if the shade had an official name though?

Seem to recall the Gloucester blue was called…. Gloucester blue!

NBC used blue for SDO, Jones of Aberbeeg, East Yorkshire and Midland General until red or green were the only options

 

[Pit_buzzer]

Seem to recall the Gloucester blue was called…. Gloucester blue!

NBC used blue for SDO, Jones of Aberbeeg, East Yorkshire and Midland General until red or green were the only option

Seem to recall the Gloucester blue was called…. Gloucester blue!

NBC used blue for SDO, Jones of Aberbeeg, East Yorkshire and Midland General until red or green were the only options

This talk of the blue version of NBC livery got me digging through old photographs, I found one I took of the Sunderland district atlantean in NBC blue but the east yorkshire ones were actually the first buses delivered in poppy red. It was the DKH-L batch of VRs that were delivered in blue. As well as the dark blue on these some East Yorkshire single decks got a lighter version of blue applied in NBC style. The shades appeared to be the same as used in East Yorkshires old livery, the dark one being bus livery and the lighter one the coach livery

 

[83G/84D]

This talk of the blue version of NBC livery got me digging through old photographs, I found one I took of the Sunderland district atlantean in NBC blue but the east yorkshire ones were actually the first buses delivered in poppy red. It was the DKH-L batch of VRs that were delivered in blue. As well as the dark blue on these some East Yorkshire single decks got a lighter version of blue applied in NBC style. The shades appeared to be the same as used in East Yorkshires old livery, the dark one being bus livery and the lighter one the coach livery

Interesting, thanks for your insight.

 

[jammy36]

Seem to recall the Gloucester blue was called…. Gloucester blue!

NBC used blue for SDO, Jones of Aberbeeg, East Yorkshire and Midland General until red or green were the only options

Oddly, given the strictness of the NBC corporate identity manual the blue used by these various op-cos wasn't uniform.

I think Jones initially continued to use their own traditional shade, but this was replaced by a BS (British Standard) shade and was the same blue as NBC specified for the lettering on their white coaches.

Sunderland and East Yorkshire continued initially to use their existing shades, but in NBC layout (white relief band). The East Yorkshire blue was a deep 'indigo' shade and I think Sunderland's was known as 'midnight blue'.

Midland also used their own colour (Balfour Beatty blue) or an approximation of this.

The Gloucester blue was another variation and oddly not the NBC blue used by Jones, but a new shade (I've seen mention that this was the same as BS 'aircraft blue').

 

[tbtc]

Brilliant thread full of the kind of minor details that make enthusiasts so interesting, these nuggets of memory... fantastic!

Paint colours have weird names to stop customers or other companies finding the same shade elsewhere.

If I bought a tin of red paint from Dulux, but found it expensive, it would be difficult to match the shade from Wilko/Crown paint or vice versa.
For companies it helps build the case of ripping off a brand.

True - it's the same with football kits, you'll find your team's new away shirt is something like "cobalt and sunshine"

There was also a dark blue/black colour in the early days of NBC, East Yorkshire used it for a short time before going onto Poppy Red. I say blue/Black as most sources say it was dark blue but I have seen it called black as well, as it was before my time I can't say for certain which it was.

It definitely wasn't black, it was dark blue. I can remember new Park Royal Atlanteans being delivered in it. Sunderland & District got some as well in the same livery. No idea what the shade of blue was called though

Reminds me of the "priests socks" in Father Ted (only Priest socks were actually black, everyone else's socks were just very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue!)