What is the name of the black color on the tgp? is it just called black? Does it say somewhere on the vehicle how it was painted originally? I have reason to believe my tgp may have been a red/tan leather originally and is now black but i'm not sure. Anyway to look that info up?
This is from Shawn Lin's w-body pages...
Thanks Shawn
http://www.w-body.com/rpo.html
RPO (Request Production Order) codes are located on the Service Parts IDentification label (SPID). The SPID is usually located either on the spare tire cover, or on the inside of the trunk lid. All of the 3-digit codes on the SPID are the RPO codes.
The SPID also has the VIN on the upper left hand corner, and the body style on the upper right hand corner. At the bottom of the SPID, are the paint and interior color codes. In the example above, "BASE COAT-CLEAR COAT" means the car has a base color coat with a top coat of clear. The next 3 sets of numbers are the paint codes. The prefix "L" stands for Lower, and is the color of the lower half of the car. "U" stands for Upper, and "A" stands for Applique, which is the color of any pinstriping. In the example above, the Lower half of the car is color 9021, Upper half is color 9348, and any appliques or pinstriping is color 9021. The last code, is the interior color and trim. The example shows "78D", which means the color is 78, and the interior style is "D".
One easy way to tell on 95% of the cars that have been painted is to look under the hood and in the door jams. If it's red you know for sure it was originally red. Most people don't want to pay the money to get a good enough paint job where those areas are covered. Even if it's been painted the original color you can sometimes see signs of overspray or masking lines.
A telltale sign is the black cars have metal flake in them. It's not just plain black. Most people don't want to spend the money to have the flake put in as well, as it's not cheap, and it can be a pain in the ass to paint with.