You’ve heard the old story about the beginnings of Henry Ford’s auto dynasty. When asked about the color options on his new, mass-produced Model T, he replied that you could get it in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.

100 Years of Innovation

Well, Ford wasn’t being stubborn about the color of his popular car. He would have loved to provide a full range of color choices. He was simply being practical. That’s because during those early days of the automobile, cars were painted much as their predecessor the carriage had been for years - painstakingly by hand in a process that could take up to a month to complete. The problem was that each coat had to air dry before the next could be applied, and the products used back then took forever to dry. Black lacquer paint was simply the color that dried the fastest. But, even using black paint didn’t speed things up all that much. Records show that in order for Ford to produce 1,000 cars a day, he had to set aside 20 acres of covered space to store the cars between coats of primer and paint. To make matters worse, these finishes were not very durable. An expensive and time-consuming paint job could weather in just a year. This was the environment of opportunity that two talented brothers found themselves in at the turn of the century.

Welcome to the DitzlerAutoPaint.com website.

Take a few moments to get the true history - and a colorful history it is - of Ditzler, The Oakland Auto, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, PPG Industries and the progressive evolution that brought about the PPG Refinish that we have today. Thanks for stopping by.