Faded paint touch ups
 

I needed to touch up a few spots on a faded cream color '80 300D so, I removed the fuel door, had Lowes paint dept sample it and mix me a quart of Valspar oil base enamel. Perfect match!
Mixed with a little hardner it works great for faded paint.

If those optical colour spectrum analizers at hardware stores are that good I will try them out. Since our cars are base clear might even have them mix up a small amount of paint and clear coat it after making sure its a match. Once you have the color the clear would give it the durability I would hope. Great ideal.

I only used this for small nicks, chips. Not sure if its up to snuff when it comes to durability on a large, noticable area. These paints fade rather fast.
Looks better than the empty chip or wrong color specs.

I was real surprised by the color match.

Since clear coat seems to really extend the life of reds and maroons from fading it would make up for the perhaps lesser durability and colour stability of a basically cheaper than automotive paint I would think. It was less than a month ago that I talked to a fellow that sells house paints with a colour scanner service. Believe he quoted some colours seem to be an exact match to the sample while certain colours do not seem to read and formulate well. I was not thinking of auto application when talking with him though.

I have not used this stuff; but I bookmarked it a while ago....
Looks very interesting....for chips and smoothing new toch ups....

http://www.langka.com/index.cfm?page=products.cfm&product=206

Here's the same type of stuff