| Author | Message | ||
     Robinpeck |
I know the rest of the bike is painted Molten Orange but does anyone know the official Buell name for the frame color of this 1998 Buell Lightning S1? Is it Parkway Blue or maybe Blue Streak? I'm tired of calling it "blurple".  (Message edited by robinpeck on March 05, 2012) | ||
| Luftkoph |
nuclear blue I think it was called | ||
| Ratbuell |
Yep. Or "nuke blue" for short. | ||
| Operation_latte_thunder |
Riddle me this... I've been told that Nuclear Blue was a '98 only frame color. That said, I've verified my VIN against my title, and I have a '96 Nuclear Blue. Who's got an answer for that? The paint on both the frame and wheels appears original.  | ||
| 1313 |
Nuclear Blue first appeared as a frame color in 1998 with the Molten Orange bodywork. When I first heard that orange and blue were to be used together my gut instinct was to reach for a barf bag, but when I first saw the Molten Orange and Nuclear Blue it truly was BUELLTIFUL! However 1998 was not the only model year to use Nuclear Blue as a frame color. It was used on X1's, which debuted in 1999. The red bodywork of an X1 with a Nuclear Blue frame wasn't quite as nice as the Molten Orange, but still didn't look too bad. OLT, I'd have to believe that the frame of your '96 S1 was re-powdercoated in Nuclear Blue, as '96 and '97 only saw the color 'Titanium' for S1 frames. There's an easy way to check, but may not be totally conclusive. Look at the VIN stamped into the head tube of the frame. Does the Nuclear Blue cover the numbers or does it look like the numbers were stamped after the powdercoat (contrasting paint marker covering the stamped VIN)? It wasn't that difficult, back in the day, to get ones frame re-powdercoated at Classic Coatings - the supplier for Buell powdercoating back in the tuber days - or any powdercoater for that matter. I know I had my S2 frame re-powdercoated at least once. Another thing to check would be the labels that went over the powdercoating (VIN label, EPA label, brake label, etc.), but again, most of these were relatively easy to replace too. I got a replacement VIN label (with corrected month of manufacture) for my S2 when I had the frame re-powdercoated - but that may have been easier for me at the time. However - never say never... 1313 | ||
| Operation_latte_thunder |
1313: Upon further review, you've gotta be right. Then VIN is clearly under the powdercoat/paint, but there are no manufacture sitckers to be found anywhere. Must be a respray. I hope the absence of those stickers doesn't give me any trouble with my out of state inspection for my title... I live in Ohio and it's a Kentucky title. | ||
| Trojan |
Some early tube frame S1 and S3 models had terrible paint coverage on the frame. My new 98 S3 had a rusty frame under the headstock from new and had to be powder coated under warranty! This means that quite a few were either powder coated or repainted either under warranty or shortly afterwards, hence the profusion of different frame colours on bikes that in theory shouldn't have them. Some were a lot better than others in terms of both paint and welding quality, so I don't know if they were done 'in house' by Buell prior to the H-D takeover, or if they were sub contracted out? | ||
| Court |
>>> quite a few Just so there is no confusion . . . "quite a few" is less than 10 of 25,000. | ||
| Robinpeck |
Thanks for the info. Nuclear Blue it is. And yes, it is hard to understand why the combination of Molten Orange and Nuclear Blue looks so good...but it does! It may be because they might be close to being complementary colors (that is, colors opposite to one another on a standard color wheel...like red vs. green) | ||
| Hogluvr |
Operation_latte_thunder: I also live in Ohio and bought an XB out of state. It had about 8 coats of various colored paint on it, about 1/4" thick! I stripped it all down and repainted it, and in doing so removed the manufacture stickers. Got it inspected at a DMV in Ohio, absolutely no trouble at all. As long as the stamped numbers on the headstock are unaltered and match your VIN, you'll be fine.  | ||
| Pkforbes87 |
Definitely my favorite color combo found on a tuber. Followed closely by the orange frame and grey plastics found on M2s and I believe some S3s.   |
