marinmcgreevy

I have recently bought an 84 Carrera coupe. The car is very original and is excellent mechanically. The guards red paint does is not up to my standard (which means it is pretty bad). The car has had some panels resprayed over the years due to what I think are parking lot wars. The body is very, very straight with only one small door ding on the PS door and PS rocker has some jack damage.

The car looks great from ten feet and especially good when wet (it was raining when I bought the car: doh!). The paint has many water spots due to I think a non breathable cover kept on the car when wet. The paint did buff up nicely but the spots remain.

Questions to the group:
1. Should I paint the car?
2. Does the car need to be stripped to bare metal ?(It is always going to be a daily driver: I would like it to look good for 10yrs).
3. What type of paint do I want the paint shop to use?
4. Any idea what it would cost if I remove everything except the front and rear windows (side windows, door handles, grills, lights, etc...) to paint the car? How much would it save if I did not have the car stripped?
5. Any recommendations for paint shops in the SF Bay Area? I plan on getting a quote from Whitman's in San Rafeal.

I have attached a photo of what the car looks like now.

Thanks!

kenikh

Did you hand buff or did you have it professionally buffed by a detail/paint shop? There is a BIG difference.

I wouldn't repaint the car. I would take it to a body shop and have them retouch the thin/bad spots, then have them wet sand or buff the car where appropriate. It would be much cheaper than a respray and the results should be just as good, consdiering the decent paint your car already has.

Going to bare metal on factory paint just isn't worth it, either. You can have the painter sand the surface of the factory paint and spray right over it, if you so decide.

Crimson Nape Racing

kenikh is right, I got waterspots on my 71 GR 911 and could not buff them out myself, but a pro detailer got them out.

marinmcgreevy

I did get to spend the day doing a little polishing with my machine buffer. I did get the water spots out. I used a combination of Simichrome polish, Mothers aluminum polish, and Griot's polish (1, 2, &3). I followed up with Klasse cleaner (with a mild chemical cutting agent), and then Griot's best of Show wax. The results are pretty good. I will have the hood and engine cover resprayed. They were abviously done at a different time with a lower quality paint.

Check out the reflection on the roof. This was the area with the worst water spotting.

Thanks to all for the feedback.

SRL

Looks pretty good...wish my '87 didn't have a sunroof.