The Dodge Challenger Message Board

I have just found a set of rubber bumper fillers for my 73 B5 blue challenger. They are going to need to be cleand and painted before they can be installed. My question is, what is the correct color. I have seen some in argent and some in black. Did the color change from year to year or did it change because of the color of the car. I am trying to keep the car as close to original as possible. I have also got a set of chrome bumpers for the car to repalce the painted ones that are currently on the car. Thanks in advance for any information you can give me.

The rear filler pieces are argent to match the tail panel. I believe Rodger Gibson sells the correct argent that you can spray out of a gun but it's very expensive. A lot of people like to use the spray can argents. Totally Auto sells argent in a spray can but the color is not correct for the 73 Challenger tail panel and filler pieces. They sell a light and a dark argent. In order to get a color that is close to the factory finish, my painter sprayed the dark argent first...while it was still wet, he sprayed the light argent ontop of it. That resulted in a color in between the light and the dark.

Another option is to look for Krylon Fusion paint. I havn't tried it but people say there is a color in that line of paint that is very close to origonal. No spray can paint is going to have the same amount of texture as the factory paint. It just depends on how correct you want to get and how much money you want to spend on the paint.

As far as the front fillers are concerned. They aren't painted at all. They are just the natural grey of the rubber. Here is a picture that shows the front filler on my 73.


The front fillers strips clean up very well with just a light wet sanding. It depends on their condition of coarse. Mine were in good shape. They were just dirty. Here is a picture of how the center filler turned out. It looks brand new. The two end filler strips cleaned up just as well.

Looks sweet! The previous owner painted mine, dark argent. Which cracked. I was equally happy with some vinyl black spray paint. Not factory but, looks good with the yellow on my car and, will last a long time... without cracking! It would look good with your B5 Blue and, fit right in with your blackout hood and black vinyl top!

Thanks for the help. The fillers I have are from a 74 and have been painted black. Some of the paint has been scratched to show the grey / argent underneath. I have tried to keep the car as close to original as possible, but since my tail panel has been painted black with argent around the tail lights and the hood is blacked out, it may be a better match to have the fillers black also. Thanks for the help ( I also had a typo in the original post my car is a B3 Petty Blue. )

Your the first person I've heard of who has painted the rear light panel black and the surround a silver colour, I did mine like that years ago and keep wondering wether or not to change to all black

The 1972 Rallye cars were painted that way from the factory.(organisol black tail panel with argent around the lenses) The standard modle Challengers had a mirrored color scheme. All 73-74's had the argent tail panels with organisol around the lenses.

If you painted the back of the car in 72 colors, I'd just remove the fillers all together.(front and rear) The front bumper brackets can be redrilled to push it back into the 72 possition. You can either buy new rear brackets to push the bumper in or you can cut/overlap/reweld the original brackets.

burdar wrote:The 1972 Rallye cars were painted that way from the factory.(organisol black tail panel with argent around the lenses) The standard modle Challengers had a mirrored color scheme. All 73-74's had the argent tail panels with organisol around the lenses.

If you painted the back of the car in 72 colors, I'd just remove the fillers all together.(front and rear) The front bumper brackets can be redrilled to push it back into the 72 possition. You can either buy new rear brackets to push the bumper in or you can cut/overlap/reweld the original brackets.

interesting, I wondered why so many differant 72-74 challengers had mix matched tail panel colors.

I found a website that sells factory correct mopar colors is rattle cans, thay have all the textured argents and non textured, and so forth. even plum crazy in a can lol.

this is it http://www.totallyautoinc.com/