basic black (was: 164 in nero met.)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Bill mentions the black metallic on his '93 164 as something new in his
experience.

On USA 164s black metallic shows up in the 1992, but not 1991, brochure color
chip charts as Mystic Black (the standard black being called Onyx Black).
Don't know its code number, but other recent black metallics on Fiat-Alfas
have included #632 Black Metallic on the Spiders, #814 Volcano Black Metallic
on the 166, #821 Fire Black Metallic on the 146, and some black metallic
without a specific name or number given as one of only two colors on the 164
V6 Turbo in a brochure I have. Prior black metallics on pre-Fiat Alfas
included AR 907 Black Metallic on the '82-'84 Spiders, AR 908 Black Metallic
on the '82-'84 GTV 6, and AR 909 Black Metallic on an undated "previous model
years" ARI list I have. D'Amico & Tabucchi say (p.843) that metallic black was
also used on the 33 from 1988, and that it was the only color available on the
Nuova Giulietta Turbodelta from '83 through '87.

The only "metallic black" Alfa I have is an '82 GTV 6 which looks neither
metallic nor black; it looks more like a faded dark chocolate brown,
presumably from the aging of either the metallic flakes or of a more
transparent base used to allow greater depth and some slight glitter. I wonder
if Bill's '93 164 will look better in 2013? There has probably been some
progress in paint technology.

In the recent past Alfas have used the term 'pastel' in a way which looks and
sounds strange to some of us raised thinking that pastel means a pale, light,
delicate and rather subtle color; in Alfa-speak it now seems to mean any color
which is neither metallic nor iridescent. My '87 Milano is, on the
color-identifying label in the trunk, pastel black; my 146 brochure lists nine
metallics and three pastels- Black, Polar White, and Alfa Red; my 166 brochure
lists two iridescents (Nivola Blue and Aurora), eight metallics, and two
pastels - Luxor Black and Alfa Red. Not just in Italian, but in polyglot
brochures: colori pastello, teintes pastel, pastel colours, pastellfarben,
colores pastel. I can't find anything in any bilingual dictionaries to suggest
that pastel means anything in other languages different from its normal
meaning in English, so it is not simply a false cognate. Not important, but
curious.

John H.

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