MO Buy-it-Now, $50 grand: '77 Chalet #1426 repainted to look like a '76 … sorta

[a77blazerchalet]

https://evergreendigitalshowroom.com/vehicle/1977-chevrolet-blazer-chalet/

Spotted this yesterday on the Facebook page for this collector car 'portfolio' sales site. Long story really short, I first spotted it at the page for the restoration shop that was working on it several months back, where the shop owner was asking if anybody knew if reproduction stripes were available anywhere. Then he mentioned his bosses were directing him to paint the side accent areas burnt orange. Took me a while to figure out which rig this was since it looked just a little different than when one of the founding members of our old Yahoo Autos Groups Chalet forum owned it more than a decade ago. The correct factory original color for this was is all-tan, including the side accent areas, and its proper '77 camper stripe colors were the brownish yellow / yellow / tannish yellow tricolors.

But my advice for the proper colors along with offering the vector art to recreate the back door decal in vinyl fell on deaf ears. I was told that the billionaire owner of this outfit mandated that it be pained this way because "he saw a promo" of one of these rigs in this color combo. Well, I did all I could for this one … 2nd photo below from the Yahoo forum member dating back to around 2005-'06 in its factory original color. Ya'd think the car 'portfolio' sales site owner guy would have noticed that '76s should also have the burnt orange roof. But, oh, well ...

 

[ZooMad75]

Nothing surprises me when it comes to idiots with too much money. There's no convincing some folks when they are set for a specific idea. The problem is some other rich dude is going to buy it and propagate the idea that the paint/trim colors are correct because the PO said it was.

 

[a77blazerchalet]

... problem is some other rich dude is going to buy it and propagate the idea that the paint/trim colors are correct because the PO said it was.

Exactly, with one additional wrinkle - quote: "My owner is a billionaire with a portfolio of over 450 classic vehicles that includes eight Pebble Beach class winners." Ergo, the billionaire owner has a reputation of restoring cars to deadnuts accurate levels, thus he must have done up this rig correctly. The guy would be technically spreading misinformation about what '77s look like without uttering a word about them. But if one of his super collector pals spots this blunder, wouldn't that cause the pal to wonder if one of his Pebble Beach award winners was painted in some wrong color, too? Big time car restorers can wipe out reputations overnight when they make blunders like this.

 

[ZooMad75]

Exactly, with one additional wrinkle - quote: "My owner is a billionaire with a portfolio of over 450 classic vehicles that includes eight Pebble Beach class winners." Ergo, the billionaire owner has a reputation of restoring cars to deadnuts accurate levels, thus he must have done up this rig correctly. The guy would be technically spreading misinformation about what '77s look like without uttering a word about them. But if one of his super collector pals spots this blunder, wouldn't that cause the pal to wonder if one of his Pebble Beach award winners was painted in some wrong color, too? Big time car restorers can wipe out reputations overnight when they make blunders like this.

Or they throw a hissy fit because they didn't win the top award at a show over a blunder like that. Funny story, the founder of the Mr. Gasket line of parts restored a '57 Nomad to an over the top level. However during the judging at the National Nomad Club convention in Indy back in 1977 he missed the top restored win due to a change in color from what the cowl tag had it called for. He had a factory color on the car, but it wasn't the color it was sprayed at the factory. As such, he was docked points for the error and lost the top spot due to it. At the award banquet, he threw a fit when he was given the 2nd place trophy.

The guy invested way more than anybody did in restoring a Nomad at the time in the seventies. Given the lack of records kept at the factory level all he had to do was reproduce the cowl tag with the correct codes and nobody would have questioned it. But it goes to show just because someone has all the money to have a car restored to a high level don't always mean it's perfect.