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     Has anyone used Zero paints? They have a few I would like to get as they are supposed to be color matched.
Starsky & Hutch Gran Torino Red, General Lee Orange, and Christine Plymouth Red to name a few.
     When I first looked them up I found them on Hiroboy's website in England. Then I saw the shipping, yikes!
I have since seen them for sale here in the States at Hobbyworld USA.

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They're re-bottled automotive acrylic lacquers - DuPont, IIRC - which means they have a matte finish, so you'll need a gloss coat for them.  Zero have a gloss lacquer and Tamiya's gloss spray can works well, though a lot of 'serious' auto modellers would use a two-part urethane (either Zero's 2k gloss or one sourced from an auto paint store).

 

They spray nicely and dry quickly, though it's best to exercise some caution over bare plastic, as they're pretty hot.  I have seen some complaints over accuracy, but that's mostly limited to colours matched to race cars, where there aren't really specs to go by.  And it shouldn't be an issue for the subjects you're looking at, since there should be an OEM spec for them to go by.

 

And FWIW, Gravity Colors do very similar paint to Zero, and are based in the US.  I'm not sure about Christine, but they do have paint for the Gran Torino and General Lee, along with a few other movie cars (Eleanor, Herbie, the Bullitt car)  http://www.gravitycolors.com

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  • 1 year later...

Just a note about Gravity Colors. They have excellent paint that appears to be the same as the Zero paints MoFo describes. The USA and Spain branches of Gravity apparently had some kind of falling out a couple of years ago and are two separate companies fighting over the same name. The Spanish site (www.gravity-colors.com, with a hyphen) has a good reputation for fast shipping and excellent communication. The US version, linked above (without the hyphen), does not. My own experience with Gravity USA matches the criticism I've read on multiple car modeling forums. I would recommend purchasing from the Spanish site.

 

I've read good things about Zero Paint. There is also Splash-Paints (LINK), but I haven't seen any reviews of their products. They're in the US.

 

Ben

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Yeah, the situation with Gravity has become... silly... in the past year.  Apparently Splash are the new iteration of the 'official' Gravity in the US and I've read positive things about them, but YMMV.

 

The short version now is, Zero is good everywhere (if you can get it), Gravity in Europe/from Spain is good; Splash from the US is probably good; Gravity in the US should probably be avoided.  And if all else fails, you should be able to get an automotive paint store to mix you a touch-up jar of most paints, as long as you've got an official colour spec.

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