The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Black fenders???

I'm working on a 1939 Chev JD 3/4 pickup. Does anyone know if '39s came from the factory with black fenders, or were all the fenders the same color as the body??

welcome to the garage gg, check the gallery for some detail info on the '39s .... and get us up some pics in the welcome or dity forums, we all like pictures!

the standard back then was black fenders and running boards, but other colors could be special ordered, like for businesses

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for the response. I have perused the gallery, but so few are listed as complete restorations, it's hard to tell if paint schemes are original, or not. I know that black fenders were the norm in earlier years, but I was not sure if that continued thru '39.

I will post pics when I have more to post. As we speak, the truck is a pile of pieces down to the bare frame, and spread all over the place.

I have had the truck since about '61. When I bought it, it was still in it's original Jackson County yellow and black. In my younger days, I put on very poor paint jobs of red, and then green. I'm still not sure what the original factory color was, but I will dig into that...soon. There has to be some original chips someplace on the beast.

I will keep it relatively original, but with a fresh '58 235. Practicality, or farmer pragmatism, kicks in at some point.

Thanks,

Gary

The 1939 Truck Data Book makes no reference to exterior paint (standard or optional) that I can find.

There are however, several depictions/drawings/photos? of various sized trucks where the fender color was the same as the body/hood color. There are no depictions of a truck model that had fender that appeared to be a different shade from the body shade (these are gray-scale "colors" so a red or dark-green truck with black fenders would not be apparent from viewing this book). These depictions would be of "standard" exterior paint.

Try contacting Keith Salter with your question. As you probably know, Brewster Green was the standard exterior color in 1939.

Or, contact Whitney Haist (bottom of the above page-link). It looks like his truck was originally all red but it sure looks nice with black fenders.

Yes, 39's had black fenders with different body colors. In fact the black fenders were an option on the pickups up through the 55 first series. Many 41-46 came with black fenders and running boards with the red, blue, and green bodies being the ones I've seen the most of although other colors were offered.

It is correct that 41-46 trucks were available with body color fenders, running boards, and wheels for an extra cost. My truck is brewster green with green fenders and I can't for the life of me figure why the farmer who bought my truck would pay extra for such. Of course he did take great care of the truck from 1940 to 1979.

I have to suspect that Haist's truck was repainted before the "before" picture was taken considering the lack of the cab stripe.
Were AD trucks really available with black fenders? I've never heard of that. Or was it some special paint job for commercial or fleet use?

A-D trucks were supposedly available with any color combination - special order (not an RPO).

The 1941 and 1946 Chevrolet Truck Data Books have a photo for each model. None of the photos show black fenders (as in 1939).

My guess it that black fenders was a very common special order.

Often these special-order paint options were at no added cost (you just had to wait).

However, in 1941, the GMC truck documentation shows that painting any standard color truck with any other standard color fenders resulted in a optional color combination at a cost of $5.10 for most colors and $10.20 for lighter colors (due to bleed-through, no doubt).

To all,

I do appreciate all the responses. It seems that black or not is OK. I did establish that the factory color on the cab was the dark blue. I think it's the Export Blue...but I don't like it. Things will be different, and probably not original. We have dusty roads, and the darker colors show the dust. I'm leaning towards a buckskin or beige with some sort of burgandy highlights. I still haven't decided on the fenders.

I'm still at the stage of a pile of pieces with the freshly painted frame in the rain until I have the front and rear finished. That's about 70 percent, now.

Thanks,

Gary