Hitchcocks Forum

Hi everyone. I am looming for a paint colour for a 1953 Royal Enfield 350 Bullet. The colour is a metallic sky blue. I work for a paint company and have access to many colours so if anyone has matched this colour before or have a colour that is pretty close I would love to hear from you. Thanks Mudcrab

Simon may be able to help..

If it is an Enfield 'Polychromatic" finish, then you are looking at a coat of silver paint with about 3 coats of coloured lacquer on top.

The word "Enamel" popped up in their catalogues a lot too.

The colour is a metallic or candy in modern parlance, Enfield called it Polychromatic. This means a base layer then a lacquer. You can get the paint in cans from RS Bikepaint, they have a website where you can select model, year, colour etc. They are not particularly cheap but the quality is excellent. I have sprayed some of my 1955 350 Bullet (aka the Ebay Bullet) with this and was very happy with the results.

REgards, Mark

Sorry, I forgot to reply to the original question! There is a supposed colour match to Toyota Corolla Windsor Grey but this dates back so far I doubt you'll get the specs any more. I tried to self match from car colours when I painted my Works Replica which has the same colour and I just couldn't find the right grey-with-a-hint-of-blue match that I wanted. I'd be grateful if anyone has found something more recent?

REgards, Mark

Thanks Gwilly and Mark, you have both been a great help. I will follow this through.
Thanks again and great photo of the Royal Enfield.

I was talking to a guy a couple of years back who's opening line was "Super Meteor isn't it", here we go thought I, but it turns out he used to work for Royal Enfield building them and was a mine of information, I asked what he thought the colour was like compared with when new, his reply was that it was probably as close a match as could be obtained as the new ones leaving the factory varied in colour and metallic finish depending who did the painting, mine is Polychromatic Maroon and the base of coat was gold then depending on the painter a variable thickness of coloured lacquer. this variable thickness was down to the painters thoughts on what it should look like and how much thinners went in the mix.

"Hi everyone. I am looming for a paint colour... " Better than just aimlessly looming about...



Sorry, but that is one of the best typo's I've ever seen... Good luck with the paint job. Thanks for making me smile..

That particular colour is for a Toyoto Starlet and was imaginitively called Met Blue. It was the closest i could manage to the original colour as my older bro had a Bullet in original paint when I was very young and I remember being impressed with it. Getting the polychromatic look is quite tricky because as already stated it is a multi layer finish. My BSA was originally Candy Apple Red which started with a coat of gold paint with red tinted clear over the top. There are some pretty good facsimilies available in the new two pot poly paints but you needna friendly paint man to sort through the options.

In the Morini Riders Club we often get asked for the correct colour (ie what shade of red) for a model of a particular year. The correct answer is that it depended on which week that particular bike was finished and which paint suppliers Morini weren't in debt to at the time. And the answer always finishes: paint it whatever colour you like and then go out and enjoy riding it.