One thing about Autrofest you don't get too many places is the number of first hand accounts and stories about how cars were built.
I admired a beautiful Imperial and had a great chat with the owner. Seems his colour combo was "not available" per all of the literature of the day yet his tag info confirmed the yellow and white.
This led to a true story about one of the members of his club who bought a similar car in a deep maroon colour from New York. Turns out that was not a factory offered colour either so he set to restoring it back to it's original white. When he got the car back from the restorer, he paid large to have it done, the restorer pointed out an interesting plaque inside the glove box which the owner had not seen. It indicated that the car was for the Metropolitan Square Corporation (Rockefeller Centre) in New York City. What a find ! so the owner proceeded to investigate this and wrote to the company. They were very intersted in the car and were able to search records and find some documents and photos of the car. To the owner's horror the photos were of a Deep Maroon car. They wanted the car in Maroon so a white one was pulled from the line and painted to customer order. The car was never delivered white, only the deep maroon.
This led to a true story about one of the members of his club who bought a similar car in a deep maroon colour from New York. Turns out that was not a factory offered colour either so he set to restoring it back to it's original white. When he got the car back from the restorer, he paid large to have it done, the restorer pointed out an interesting plaque inside the glove box which the owner had not seen. It indicated that the car was for the Metropolitan Square Corporation (Rockefeller Centre) in New York City. What a find ! so the owner proceeded to investigate this and wrote to the company. They were very intersted in the car and were able to search records and find some documents and photos of the car. To the owner's horror the photos were of a Deep Maroon car. They wanted the car in Maroon so a white one was pulled from the line and painted to customer order. The car was never delivered white, only the deep maroon.
Ouch. I wonder how many fleet/business cars went through the same process, even in more recent times. If that glove box plaque wasn't present who would have known different?
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Prince Edward Island
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
