2012 Aston-Martin Touch Up Paint (21 OEM Colors)

The 2012 Aston-Martin Vibe

By 2012, Aston-Martin was leaning hard into the "stealth wealth" look. We're talking about the year of the Virage, the DBS, and the Vantage-cars that looked like they were carved out of a solid block of mercury. Our database shows 21 colors for this year, and let's be honest, half of them are various ways to say "expensive silver." You've got the Quantum Silver Pearl and Casino Royale Pearl for the guys pretending they're on a mission in Montenegro, and then you've got the occasional Sunburst Yellow Pearl Tricoat for the person who actually wants to be seen. It was a sophisticated palette, but it marked a major shift in how the factory handled the spray gun.

Paint Health Check

Welcome to the Thin Paint Era. Around 2012, the factory brought in high-tech robots to handle the base and clear coats. While those robots are great for consistency, they're programmed for "efficiency"-which is just a fancy word for "thin." These cars left the shop with clear coats that are barely thick enough to sneeze on. If you look closely at a 2012 Vantage today, you're likely to see the dreaded "chip-rash" on the rear arches where road grit has sandblasted the finish. Even worse, this era is notorious for "pizza blistering"-small bubbles of corrosion creeping under the paint at the door handles and mirror stems because the factory coating was too thin to seal the edges of the aluminum panels properly.

Restoration Tip

When you're touching up these modern finishes, you have to respect the robot's precision. Because the factory layers are so lean, you can't just go in and slap on a heavy glob of paint to fill a chip. If you do, it'll stand out like a sore thumb against that tight, robotic finish. Build your layers slowly. Use thin, light passes to bring the level up gradually, letting it flash off in between. Don't blob it; you want to mimic that factory-thin profile so the repair sits flush and the metallic flakes in colors like Hammerhead Silver or Meteorite Silver lay down exactly the way they did in Gaydon.