In reality, the uniform of the armored reconnaissance in 1940 would have been the standard black wool Panzer uniform. The waffenfarbe for the piping in the 5th Panzer Division was pink.
Waffenfarben, or branch color, weren't universal... Tank crews wore the pink piping, others wore their particular branch's color and all those colors would be present in the division... For instance, the Artillery Battalion's gun crews would wear the red piping of the Field Artilley, not the pink piping of tank crews, and the Panzergrenadiers of the division would be wearing Reed Green, Engineers, Black, MPs- Orange, and so on and so forth... I didn't want to get down to the slice elements, just provide an overall picture, but this's about the size of it for 5.Panzer... Tank crews were quite possesive of their pink Waffenfarbe and even after they were ordered to go to the Lemon Yellow piping in 1944, most continued with the pink in outright defiance (REALLY rare in the Wehrmacht) of the regualtions...
The copper-brown Waffenfarben spoken of would be for Motorized recon elements, not the mechanized elements of the Division, from the 5. Panzer Order of Battle.
The 8th Reconnaissance Battalion, the organic Recon Element to the 5th Panzer, was made up of two Armored Car Platoons, (Copper-Brown in Wheeled Vehicles), a motorcycle Company (Grass Green) Heavy Cavalry Company (mechanized-GoldenYellow), one Signals (Funker) Platoon (Lemon Yellow), Light Reconnaissance Supply Column (Motorized-Light Blue), and Map & Arty Survey (White)...
No matter what source(s) you may use though, there are always exceptions to the rules... Everytime you take a "This is the bottom line about authenticity" stance, someone will be able to produce a period photo showing otherwise... For instance, it's a fact that the 2nd Armored Division wasn't at Medina Ridge during the Battle of 73 Easting during Operation Desert Storm... In fact, they never even deployed to S.A., with the exception of the 2 AD (Fwd), the "Tiger Brigade"... However, I have a photo of what appears tto be a 2 AD Soldier in that very battle, the 2nd AD patch quite visible... The explaination? Easy... One, It was me, and B, I was wearing a BDU jacket that I never got around to changing the patch on...
However, in this case, my statements stand as a general overview...