1979 Audi Touch Up Paint (16 OEM Colors)

The 1979 Audi Vibe

1979 was the year Audi decided to stop being the "other" German car and started throwing its weight around. Between the debut of the sleek Audi 5000 (the 100 for you purists) and the nimble 4000 (80), Ingolstadt was moving toward that "Vorsprung durch Technik" lifestyle. Now, our database shows a lone survivor from this era: Black. And honestly? That's all you needed. While the rest of the world was busy painting their cars the color of a moldy avocado or a burnt orange shag rug, the Audi guys knew that nothing says "I own the autobahn" like a deep, obsidian finish. It's the color of a midnight run through the Black Forest, and it's the only one that still looks sophisticated forty-plus years later.

Paint Health Check

If you're looking at an original '79, you aren't dealing with the "peeling skin" of a 90s clear coat. You're in the Single Stage Era, my friend. This paint is basically a thick, pigmented armor, but it has a weakness: it's a living thing that breathes, and right now, it's probably gasping for air. Without a clear coat to hide behind, this paint suffers from "The Chalk." Oxygen and UV rays have been chewing on that black pigment for decades, turning your deep gloss into a grey, powdery mess known as oxidation. 1979 was also a few years before Audi started the full-body galvanizing process, so if you see a bubble near the wheel wells, that's not a paint defect-that's the iron returning to the earth.

Restoration Tip

Here is the golden rule for 1979 steel: It needs wax or it dies. If your Audi looks like a chalkboard, don't panic. Since it's single-stage, you can actually "shave" off the dead layer to find the fresh pigment underneath. Grab a high-quality compound and a buffer, but don't freak out when your buffing pad turns jet black-that's just the top layer of dead paint coming off to reveal the glory below. Once you've brought back the shine, you have to seal it immediately. Think of wax as the clear coat the factory forgot to give you. If you leave that fresh pigment exposed to the sun without a barrier, you'll be back to a matte-grey ghost ship by next summer.