1979 Citroen Touch Up Paint (4 OEM Colors)

The 1979 Citroen Vibe

Welcome to 1979, the year Citroen decided the future should look like a spaceship parked in a forest. Whether you were floating over the pavement in a CX or clattering through a vineyard in a 2CV, the aesthetic was undeniably "French Avant-Garde." Our database has distilled this era down to the four colors that actually survived the disco decade: Green Metallic, Regate Blue Metallic, Scarabee Brown Metallic, and Volcan Gray Metallic. It was a time of moody, earthy metallics-colors designed to look as good under a Parisian streetlamp as they did covered in a fine layer of country dust.

Paint Health Check

You are squarely in the Single Stage Era. Back then, the factory didn't bother with the fancy "plastic wrap" clear coats we see today; they mixed the gloss and the pigment into one thick, honest soup and sprayed it on. The problem? This paint is "breathable," which is just a polite way of saying it's slowly dying of thirst. If your Citroen looks more like a chalkboard than a mirror, you're looking at Oxidation. The sun has literally cooked the oils out of the surface, leaving behind a chalky, dead layer of pigment. On those metallic finishes like Scarabee Brown, the metallic flakes can actually start to "ghost" or turn grey when the surface gets too dry.

Restoration Tip

Here's the deal: this paint needs wax or it dies. If you're dealing with a faded 1979 finish, don't just start sandblasting it. You need to "exfoliate" that dead oxidation first. Use a high-quality rubbing compound and a slow-speed buffer to peel back the chalk and find the "liquid gold" hiding underneath. Once you find that original shine, you have to seal it immediately. Since there's no modern clear coat to protect it, a heavy coat of carnauba wax is your only defense against the atmosphere. Think of it as moisturizer for your car-keep it waxed, or watch it turn back into a pumpkin by next summer.