Restoration for me is an exercise in creating a time machine, something that hearkens back to the day when that car was built–all people were kind, every day was sunny, gas was cheap and the roads were empty, yadda yadda yadda. For me that means returning the car to darn near exactly how it left the factory. But I don’t really think it affects value much to change the color, especially if you change it to another shade sold by the maker in that year. But still…I don’t know if that’s right for me.
For example, I think white cars look best with non-black interiors, red preferably. Yet my ’63 MGB was delivered in white with a black interior…and no one has ever strayed from that specification. Would I be changing the fundamental character of the car by changing the interior to red, introducing bad juju to the machine? My pickup, a wonderfully original old truck, was custom-ordered in the bronze metallic it wears now, still its original paint job almost 40 years later. I like it, but I think the classic look is a two-tone blue and white. But that’s probably too dramatic a change for me.
The ’64 MGB was originally white, and that one will almost certainly end up painted Iris Blue…though maybe not. The Mark I, the ’63 MGB and the ’64 MGB were all originally ivory, I could probably get a discount on buying it in a 55 gallon drum.