Well...here we go. Don't get mad. As
@DirtDonk has said before regarding being an expert in paint colors..."You will be..."
First and foremost, no one knows what color IS Lunar Green. Your only hope is that someone can remember what color WAS Lunar Green. There are several factors that combine together to make a "color" look like a color.
0. Age of paint.
1. Pigments.
2. Gloss.
3. Ambient Light.
4. Base coat.
5. Solvents.
6. Surface Prep and color.
7. Surface material.
8. Environmental exposure.
9. Paint application processa and drying.
10. Top coats.
Therefore, the finished product is the result of raw materials, and a PROCESS.
History lesson: In 1969, Ford factories mixed their own paint. High Bake Acrylic Enamel. Their art studio would develop a palette of colors, and once the artists were happy with the colors, they would lock down the formula. Then Ford would collaborate with paint suppliers, (Ditzler, DuPont, Pittsburg Plate Glass, Rinshed-Mason, etc) to ensure that the colors could be reproduced in the aftermarket for repairs. As long as the supplier used the same pigments, and the same material types, in the same proportions, the colors would be acceptable.
Then the "shot clock" begins, and the paint immediately starts looking different. Age, fade, environment, all come into play. So matching colors to an original paint job becomes an art project in blending and fading and technique. And some people become very good at it. Fast forward 20 years. and the world changed. The High Bake Acrylic Enamel was no longer allowed, certain pigments became unavailable. So you need a re-formulation. Then Paint went to 2 stage. another re-formulation. Fast forward another 20 years, and even more pigments go away, solvents are eliminated, water based paints become prevalent, and someone has to re-formulate again. So now we are 50 years later, and computer cameras for color matching become available. But you have to take a picture of something. The ONLY real sample is now 50 years faded. So how do you get the "correct" sample to get the correct color?
If you are lucky, and you have a popular color on a popular car (Like a Candy Apple Red Mustang) The aftermarket paint suppliers did your homework for you. And they painted coupons with the original formulations and shot those colors with a computer camera and "locked down" the recipe. Then, if there is sufficient demand, they reformulated using existing available colors over the years, and the world is great. BUT, if you happen to have a more rare color, in a less popular model, that they didn't catalog in the database...you are left with fewer choices.
In my case, I needed Color Code 19, Moonstone, From the Rootes Motor Company for my 1965 Sunbeam Tiger. The ONLY way to get it was to take a sample, and color match it. So my blend of "moonstone" has 60 years of age built in to it. And yeah, I had to find a panel on a pristine car, that was out of the sun, and clone it. (Reds and Greens seem to be the worst.) There was a guy on the Internet that color matched as many Sunbeam colors as he could, and he sold coupons. Then the paint store could match the coupon. But reverse-engineering colors with modern pigments is very labor intensive. No one wants to do it to sell one gallon of base coat.
This is why so many paint catalogs get it wrong. It's basically a copy of a copy of a copy. And for some exotic colors, the actual recipe is lost and gone forever. It's not on purpose, and you can't win. But what you CAN do is find a Lunar Green Ford that you like, and color match it.
I know it's not what you want to hear...but hopefully it gives you some insight into the insane world of auto paint, and why NO one can get the colors right.
As an aside, if you look at the pic just posted by
@chuddy you will notice that his Lunar Green has a lot of "pop." and looks fantastic. I'm guessing it's two stage, and maybe has a couple of coats of clear? My guess is that it is the same RGB color as Lunar Green, but it's way nicer than anything the factory ever painted. Factory paint seems a little creamy and dull. If you can get his recipe...I'd use it.
