Great information Robin. Thanks.
For Guardsman Blue Fans: Making comparison between any two cars painted by different people with different materials and different equipment is going to be frustrating. I have had my experience with the finish on one of my old cars long ago and while trying to help others figure out what went wrong.
The base formula is more translucent than many and is high in the tiny flakes that give it the sparkle. Everything can make or break your day. Make of gun, size of gun, type of gun (old 1960s style or modern high solids low solvent type), size orifices in the gun tip, type of paint, "speed" of your reducer, brand of paint, factory pack or mixed at a dealer's shop, air line pressure, Zhan cup viscosity, degree of agitation before and during painting, ambient conditions of temperature and humidity, distance from work piece, angle to work piece, primer/sealer color, dried film thickness, so on and so forth.
Case in point. A company in town here manufactured their version of a 427 Cobra "replica" in the 1990s. A customer wanted a Guardsman Blue car. One night after diner I took a frantic call from the shop owner. The car had just been painted minutes before and it came out SILVER with a tint of blue. He wanted me to bring my color panel that I had matched to some Shelby American applied finish. I dug my panel out and head to his shop. The car was silver. We looked at the car, checked out the paint in the can, and checked out the specifications. Everything looked good except for a silver-blue car instead of blue. I looked at his equipment and suggested that his gun tip and air pressure weren't appropriate. He wanted to know what to do. I said go home, get some sleep, and call the paint manufacturer in the morning. Tell them you need somebody to come see their paint booth and equipment. I told the business owner that he need a technical representative from the paint company and not a salesman. My final advise, do whatever the manfacturer says exactly. The paint company did send in somebody, they did make a set of recommedations, and the second time the car was painted FROM THE SAME BATCH OF PAINT(they bought enough for several cars) it was a fantastic looking blue car with sparkle. The business had painted all kinds of cars, and painted several replicas with all kinds of finishes and never had trouble until they got to Guardsman Blue.
My point, what final product looks like is extremely dependent on the way it was applied. Makes comparison between different cars/eras/countries less than satisfying usually.
Dan
