50 Years Ago It was available in ........

[Broadacus]

ANTELOPE BROWN

GAZELLE BEIGE

LIZARD GREEN

PELICAN RED

TOUCAN BLACK

TROUT BLUE

[Deac]

Dang, lowlights look good in any color!

I especially like trout blue.^^^

[canbug]

Is that a bad picture of the Gazzelle Biege? My 56 is originaly that color, but maybe I'll go with the Trout Blue.
_________________
Water is for toilets.

Her 56 KG
His 56 KG
69 Single Cab, my new daily driver.

[Broadacus]

Canbug, I am sorry but I don't understand your comment. How can it be a bad picture? The picture posted of the Gazelle Beige car is an original paint car. I cannot remember to whom it belongs, but I have many pictures of the car's interior. These show the original honey color leatherette and brown cord.

The photograph is one of the most accurate pictures I have posted, some of the other cars have been restored ( Lizard Green, Trout Blue, Antelope Brown) These are all not factory paint jobs. The Toucan Black and Gazelle Beige are factory and I don't know about the Pelican red car.

The Gazelle Beige photo clearly shows the red wheel discs, which are shown in the 1955 color chip and on the cover of the 1956 Sales literature

[owokie]

Ha. Check it out, my car. The interior is indeed original, and while the majority of the paint is as well, the front right is the worst spot on the car and has had some touch up work done, as you can see by the slightly darker paint. The other side is a lot better, check out a more recent shot, this time with firestones.

[EdW]

[Broadacus]

Hi Owokie,

Thanks for backing me up!! Your car is one of the most original pictures that I posted.

Best Wishes.

[canbug]

OK, I think I may have been dazelled by the FLASH and the deep colors of the other cars posted. When it come down to the paint I have always said that I would keep my car as ogiginal as possable. It will be painted Gazzele Biege...
_________________
Water is for toilets.

Her 56 KG
His 56 KG
69 Single Cab, my new daily driver.

[GhiaNut]

This is an awesome post. Any interest in doing something similar year-by-year for the archives?

[KGCoupe]

I'll second the motion for doing a yeay-by-year "color" chart.

Unfortunately, I can only see a few of the photos - most of them show up as text (HTML language?) describing the photo (or the link to the photo). Any suggestions as to how I can fix this (change some setting in browser or security program?) would be appreciated.

[Broadacus]

From August 1956 the colors for coupes changed to the following,

Black remained as 1955, however six new colors took over

AREO SILVER

BAMBOO

BRILLANT RED

CARDINAL RED

COGNAC

DOLPHIN BLUE

I am not sure if this car is Dolphin Blue

These colors remained until July 1959, then this was the end of the Lowlight Ghia's. New colors started in August 1959 for the new shape Ghia.

The color charts never list a white Lowlight coupe, however I have seen many lowlights in white, also have seen lowlights in cream white with a toffee brown color top. Anyone have any idears??

[RockStock]

top post, broadacus
nice to liven up this snoozy ghia forum
lizard green ROCKS

can you do a similar thing for the convertibles, 58/59?
fancy setting up a lowlight website similar to www.barndoor.dk ??! come on

that aero silver coupe will be coming out to play, Osnabruck july 05
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-StockRocks-

[retrowagen]

Good post, Ian!

A couple of corrections from my research:

[Tonny_Larsen]

[RockStock]

hi tonny

i mean setting up a web page purely for registering pictures of pre-1960 ghias (nicknamed lowlights), with just the chassis number listed, no owners names, no forum.

you know pre 1960 ghias are nicknamed lowlights because after 1959 the headlights were raised up the wing to accommodate changes in US law?

i just think there is a gap to set up a nice web page, following a similar format to your own, for these pre 1960 ghias. hope this doesn't infringe.

best regards
RS
_________________
-StockRocks-

[Tonny_Larsen]

Thanks

[1958ghia]

Dave,
What do you mean that Aerosilver was the only color not available in body color and roof color? I was told by Richard Troy a while back that the white top was actually an option... I painted mine all Aerosilver because mine only had the whitewall option, but if the white top was not an option I might have to be having some paint applied to the roof... Thanks!

Kyle Kimball

[Broadacus]

Hi Kyle, Dave and everyone else tuning into this post.

Would like to thank Dave for the information above, and would agree, the only true Areo Silver cars came from the factory with a grey / white roof. This is shown on the Karmann Ghia literature of the day( see my posting) This is why I always believed Kyle car to be Trout Blue.

Kyle, the car looks great and I would not go to the length of re sraying the roof, but you can always count on Dave ( retrowagen ) to set the records straight.

Like others, I just love the colors of the early lowlight ( where are you Tan, are you on holiday? I need you to stick up for Toucan Black)

Why did they drop the animal names?

Lizard green has always been one of my favorite colors, with the deep green roof.

Thanks for the information Dave, this may explain why Lizard Green and Pelican Red never seem to be mentioned in Karmann Ghia books that state the color codes for the early Lowlight cars.

[Broadacus]

Hi Retrowagen (Dave),

I have just come across an article that was printed a long time ago in "Voksworld" magazine. It states the first Karmann Ghia coupe was built on 11th August 1955 with the chassis number 906 481. Also states the chassis was built in June 1955. The car pictured is from Czechoslovakia and has the chassis number 961 803, it states it was built in September 1955, also says it is owned by Jiri Hanak.
Jiri has totally stripped the car and the car was original painted red!!

Looking at a list I have of the Lowlight register, Jiri Hanak's car is number 3 on the list. There are 23 cars on the list built between 11th August 1955 and Dec 1955, should all these cars be Black or Gazelle Beige?

[retrowagen]

Ian,

I haven't seen that Volksworld article. I concur on the date and chassis number of the first Coupe build date (series production, of course) being 11 August 1955 at chassis 906 481. Noteworthy that this was almost one month after the Press introduction in Georgsmarienhuette (14 July 1955)!

Also quite true that the chassis was built over one month prior to the completion of the car. The chassis numbers were excerpted in series with the Beetle chassis, but shipping of the finished chassis from the Wolfsburg presses to the Osnabrueck Karosserie (and their warehousing until use) virtually always added at least one month to the build time, relative to a Beetle with a chassis number very near the Karmann Ghia's. And it must also be said that we have no hard evidence that Karmann assembled cars in perfect chassis number sequence!

As for the seeming pecularity of this particular early Karmann Ghia's color, I can only offer some educated guesses at why it might be outside of what the factory literature and records generally suggest for what was available for the early production. First: in the first calendar year of production (meaning, 11 August 1955 - 31 December 1955), Karmann tells us that they built 1,282 Karmann-Ghias. That's roughly 15 a day (6 day working week back then). The Coupe in question was built on 27 September 1955, but production got off to an exceptionally slow start in the first few months (body #280 leaving the factory on 8 October 1955, for a point of reference). At this retarded pace, it is concievable--yet unverifyable by me--that some experiments may have been occurring vis-a-vis the exterior color, a sort of "hey, how does this look?" that one might expect from a (then) limited series builder near the beginning of a model run of (then) unknown promise.

It could also be possible--and again, unverifyable by me--that the first owner of this particular example was a person of such prominence that (s)he not only made it near first in line to get a highly sought-after car, but exerted enough influence at Karmann to receive a special color. At this point in Karmann's history, they might have had the time to do a few of these as special "placements" with well known politicians and celebrities.
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David Ruby
President, Karmann-Ghia World Club