by abstamaria » 03 Oct 2019, 07:50
From the discussions and materials here, it appears:
1. In 1956, the new Ford Thunderbird debuted with a range of available colors, one of which was what Ford in its sales brochures called “Fiesta Red.” The paint was supplied by Dupont, but we do not know who coined the name. Considering the care with which automobile companies name the colors of their cars, it is very possible the name was chosen by Ford’s marketing department.
2. A story, repeated in Fender’s site, says George Fullerton created the hue at a local paintshop and named it “Fiesta Red.” Considering the use of the paint and the name for the 1956 Thunderbird and the fact that Fender tended to use Dupont paints, that story probably isn’t true.
3. Another story says that Leo Fender, who was close to Dupont, bought large stocks of Fiesta Red from Dupont, after GM’s Cadillac and other divisions rejected the color and before the paint was offered to Ford. That may be myth, but it probably is true that Leo Fender simply bought the paint from Dupont.
4. In the late 1950s, Fender did offer to paint a guitar in any Dupont color for an additional 5%. Fender states that Fiesta Red was its first “custom” color. We do not know if Fender offered the optional color by name or simply by reference to a Dupont color chart. Fender itself had no color selection chart until 1960..
5. In 1959, GM offered for the Corvette a Dupont paint that, in GM’s catalogs and material, was called “Roman Red.“ It appears close in hue and tone to Ford’s Fiesta Red, but the two colors have different Dupont color codes.
6. It is probably unlikely that the Fender catalog that Cliff and the Shadows pored over in1959 identified the color of the guitar they settled on. When Cliff ordered the Stratocaster, he simply wrote, “ we've decided to have the Stratocaster; please send us the red one with the gold-plated parts." It is also unlikely that Cliff and The Shadows learned (or cared) then what the name of the color was.
7. Dave Robinson noted that his original, untouched 1959 Strat, which is “a few digits away from 34346 , probably made during in the same week or month and it could well be the same paint batch ... is a perfect clone in colour to the Fiesta Red on the late 80s/early nineties AVRI Stratocasters.”
8. In 1960, Fender finally produced its (first) color chart, listing 14 custom colors. One of them was Fiesta Red.
All this leads me to the following conclusions:
A. The original color or 34346 was probably very close to “Fiesta Red,“ as we know it.
B. No one really knows whether the original color on 34346 carried a name and, if so, what the name was.
Now, I will try to go back to playing Shadows music.
Andy