Sable Metallise (AC318)

In October last year I had a visit from Mr. Nigel Wild, he was in the area and had kindly said he'd come and see Celia to help with uncovering the mystery of the colour.

To recap, the paint code in the engine bay reads AC318 which is a sandy gold colour, see here , yet Celia is painted a non Citroen colour -  it's a chocolate brown as found on  MGs and Triumphs of the period which was called "Russet Brown". Prior to Nigel's proper inspection there was no hard evidence of any previous colour on the car and we therefore didn't know whether the car was painted that way from new or had a complete colour change. Initial thoughts prior to looking at the car was that that the paint tag in the engine bay may have been incorrect. Nigel was going to help me determine this and solve the mystery.

Nigel was able to quickly establish what had occurred, at some time in the car's life the body work was starting to get tired. The owner decided to fit brand new panels, so new doors, boot, bonnet were ordered and painted in his new brown colour choice. Nigel noticed that these panels still had transitory primer on them and the rear wings which had not been replaced were sand metallic under the brown paint. Nigel also lifted some  trim from the indicator trumpets and again you can see that the roof was also sand metallic.

Mystery solved! Thanks Nigel!

I will be respraying the car back to it's original sable metallise when the time comes.

I am hoping she will look like this: