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However, in Ghana lately the most popular colour for the rebuilds coming out of Opere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shop seems to be white.\u00c2\u00a0 That may well have been inspired by my colleague Stephane who had his Defender done that colour last year and it generated a great deal of positive comment.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It makes for a very pretty truck.\u00c2\u00a0 However, we are looking for something a bit less pretty, more truckish.\u00c2\u00a0 Somehow the idea of touring the Sahel region of Africa in a bright white truck that stands out from everything else does not quite seem appropriate.<\/p>\n
<\/a>A great many of Opere’s rebuilds end up white<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n After\u00c2\u00a0 looking at lots of choices, reviewing colours on-line and going by paint shops to see what they offer\u00c2\u00a0 we\u00c2\u00a0 shifted our preference a few times.\u00c2\u00a0 We hovered on white for a fair bit, shifted to burgundy for a short bit, and then finally settled on\u00c2\u00a0 what the Land Rover official colour scheme calls NATO Lightstone.\u00c2\u00a0 Right in the military tradition.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In more common terms one might call it Tan, or Caramel.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Some chips we have seen call this Sand, but that is misleading.\u00c2\u00a0 The vehicle already seems pretty sand-coloured.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We have chosen, or at least we hope we have chosen,\u00c2\u00a0 something darker and more vivid.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 This choice was inspired because we saw one drive by (without our camera in hand).\u00c2\u00a0 With a white roof and white wheels it will look very sharp, but not so sharp it will look terribly out of place in Ougaudougou or Timbuctu. \u00c2\u00a0 We have no photos yet, but here is a neat site that we used to test colours.\u00c2\u00a0 Try the Desert Sands in the bottom left-hand corner of the chart, on the 90\/110.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 https:\/\/paintman.co.uk\/shop\/nato-light-stone-satin\/\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 That is the only way you get to see the colour now because we do not have any examples<\/p>\n Every tow truck one sees in Ghana is an old Series Land Rover <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Picking a colour is the easy part.\u00c2\u00a0 In Ghana even getting a vehicle painted comes equiped with its own socio-cultural nuances.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153welder\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who does the body work and who is responsible for getting the vehicle ready, but only up to a point.\u00c2\u00a0 The “sprayer” does more than just paint, but it is really tricky to figure out where the welder’s responsibility ends and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sprayer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d responsibility begins.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 During the bodywork the welder (Paani \u00e2\u20ac\u201c see separate post) went through the vehicle and straightened crooked pieces, replaced rusted parts, punched out and filled dents and sealed any unwanted screw holes.\u00c2\u00a0 But when he finished he left the fill sections a bit rough on purpose.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 That,\u00c2\u00a0 I learn has to be done by the sprayer just before the paint goes on, so it is clean and there is no water that has penetrated the filler.\u00c2\u00a0 That makes sense once you learn it, but you have to learn it.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a lot to learn, I have never had a vehicle fully painted before and that fact that it is a fixer-upper truck that I want to convert to something comfortable and attractive means I cannot count on everyone else to bring the attention to detail, I have to do that myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Defenders are basically trucks and usually coloured appropriately truckish.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it is the military origins honed by years of utilitarian uses.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 That is reflected in the LRs one sees around Accra.\u00c2\u00a0 Dark Grey, Dark Blue. Dark Green. \u00c2\u00a0 However, in Ghana lately the most popular colour for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[16,25,13,24,20,14,15,22,21,23],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning","category-restoration-and-outfitting-technical-and-cultural-exploration-and-discovery","tag-4x4","tag-africa","tag-defender","tag-expedition","tag-ghana","tag-land-rover","tag-overland","tag-overlanding","tag-west-africa","tag-wheatcroft","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n