Where in this country can I get a 944S painted
 

The problem: 87 944S, Crimson, clearcoat has peeled to the point where it looks like complete dirt.

Problem is the engine is in perfect shape as is the drivetrain. AC even works well. I've owned it for 30+ years and 250k+ miles (and one head, and one broken timing belt, and one broken timing chain, etc)

So now I want to have it painted. Properly painted, all this clearcoat garbage stripped, sanded, and brought back to factory.

But who can do it? Here in MD all shops just want to do insurance work, and it was tough enough to get my 86 928S's hood stripped and repainted (bad previous paint-over).

Is there a magical place where this can be done in the US? Thoughts on finding a good place to do it?

Need to do something about this car, the chipped areas are starting to show surface rust, so it's either fix it or junk the girl.

Happy 4th. Junk a 944 because it needs paint? Sounds a bit extreme. The old girl could at least get a $50 Rust-Oleum paint job.
Anyhow back to your original question. Don't overlook the national wide paint chains. They can do outstanding work, but it won't be at the $999 ambassador paint service price. A friend of mine took his 1940 ford to one of those paint chains 10 years ago. The car needed a lot of body work also. $4000 and two weeks later he was presented with a straight as a arrow, amazingly shiny 1940 Ford. I was blown away by it too. The car still looks great today.

If you visit my webpage, you'll see that I paint my project cars myself. Avoids the "insurance work shops". The good news is that if the body is fairly straight (no major dents, etc.) your pending paint job is actually pretty straightforward. I actually would not recommend that you start out thinking about bare metal. You want to preserve the "E coat" (galvanized coating), which you will loose if you insist on a bare metal job. If you go to my website (www.newhillgarage.com) and search on Paint, there are several articles I wrote with the intention of educating folks, even if just to the point of being able to walk into a paint shop knowing the jargon and have a general idea of what is possible. Mark mentions Rustoleum and, yes, there is an article about how I painted my track car with $8 of Rustoleum. But I suspect you want better and a basecoat/clearcoat job will be the type of paint job that most shops will want to quote, and it will stand you in good stead.

I would suggest you google "Finishmasters", which is a jobber for paint products, go visit the one nearest you, ask for the manager, and explain your situation. I suspect they know a large percentage of the painters in their service area because they have the franchise for most of the good paint products like Dupont and BASF/Glasurit. BTW, Glasurit is what your car would have been painted with originally. They will be able to spec the exact color your car came with, if that is important to you. Glasurit is considered to be a high end paint, is very expensive, and probably worth the money from a quality and durability standpoint. I say probably because it may take 25 years to know for sure!

If you live in the DC area, I would suggest at least a phone call to the following places. They may be able to give you a good recommendation.

Monocoque Metalworks
Lippincotts Garage
Autobodystore.com (go to website, get the sales number, call them, ask for Len)

Quality paint jobs are not cheap. The materials cost to paint my 944R was around $2500. And there is a lot of hand labor. Spraying the paint is the easy part! But I think you will be thrilled to give your car a new outlook on life and get it ready for the next 30 years.

Don't worry, the good guys are out there. You just have to find them!

Call me if you like. 919-604-2188

Harvey

It really depends on the level of finish you are looking for.
There are folks who will say that a "proper" paint job will cost $10k.
Harvey says just the paint etc for his car was $2500.
I got my 944 color-changed and lots of dings fixed for ~$1500 years ago at MAACO.

In my case I wanted the car to be A) one color and B) shiny without orange peel.
It looked GREAT but probably wouldn't have won concours.

Miracle Auto Body... Their motto is, "If it looks good, it's a Miracle!"

Thanks for the starting pointers everyone. The big body problem is that the driver's side door hyperextended once when I was backing it off ramps with the door open and it hooked on my log rack. Tore out the door stay and crumpled the part where the door touches the frame. That and the sunroof edge being crunchy, I guess I could just get a new door and have it installed as well.

Otherwise it's a totally peeled mess. I would want it sanded smooth at least, as the CC is there in parts, not in others, and looks totally terrible. Don't need concours, just something that will remind me of when it was young and not wash off with the next rain....

Any other places between Baltimore and Washington would be good. I have thought about MACCO but I wouldn't mind spending ~5k to do it right. 10k is a bit high, 20-30k is kind of no....

Chris, at a minimum all of the clearcoat will have to be sanded off and as a consequence much of the color will be removed and even some primer will be exposed. Not a big deal. At that point, if it were me, I would spray the entire car with an epoxy based pimer/sealer, which will stick to anything and put a nice barrier between the 30 year old paint and your new paint. From there is is pretty straightforward.

Bummer about the door. This represents the kind of stuff that as you get into it, can drive the price up. Painters are good at sanding, masking, and spraying. Anything beyond that just starts to add up to serious money in labor, as you may get out of their comfort zone. There aren't many body shops out there that get to paint 944s and as a consequence, you may get to pay for their learning curve. As a consequence, you can save a lot of money if you can do a lot of the dis-assembly, prep, and re-assembly yourself. It's not a complicated car. You can probably get most of the mechanical prep work done by yourself. The only downside is at some point of no return you are doing things like removing license plates, lights, mirrors, maybe even glass and the car is suddenly not street legal. So it would be helpful if you either have access to a trailer when the time comes to deliver the car.and/or are close enough to flat tow it. But you will save a ton of money at typical paint shop labor rates for every pain in the ass thing that you do yourself to get the car ready for the part they are good at.

Prep items that I would consider doing are:
Remove hatch- detail the black parts, if needed, yourself with matte black rattle can paint
Remove the mirrors- they still might require paint but it is really nice if the new paint can run up under them.
Remove the bumpers- same as with the mirrors
Remove the door handles, door lock cylinders, rear lock cylinder at the hatch. Detail as required yourself.
Remove the Porsche hood ornament
Remove the sunroof seals- replace with new ones after the sunroof is painted
Remove the quarter windows- replace the seals if required
Remove the rear and all parking light assemblies
If it were me, I'd remove the windshield and treat myself to a new one after the paint job is complete. At a minimum, remove the windshield moldings, which are fragile. Repaint them yourself.
I'd remove the air dam and let them paint it separately. It's plastic so gets a slightly different paint treatment.

Get your new door, spend some time hanging it, and hope that the corresponding front fender hasn't also been scrunched. When your're done, make sure it doesn't scrape in any way as you open it or your new paint will be scraped right off.

Consider if you want to remove the rub strips, if you have them. They are just glued on but the painter will incur some time cleaning up the glued on area. So a judgement call on your part.

Assembly
All of the above.
Install the Porsche decals and various vinyl rock shield items yourself. Ask the painter to apply Gravitex or similar to the rockers, before applying color, to get that OEM look (see my 944R article).


You might also consider, if you can find an independent guy to do the job, to pay for all the paint materials yourself. You might want to upgrade the paint quality and/or you protect yourself from cheapo products.

My $2500 is for Glasurit and that should be an upper end number. I don't get any volume discount at the paint store. It can be done for less but if it's a lot less, you're playing with fire. Nason, acquired recently by Dupont, is the lowest grade I would go on paint. At some point, someone may ask you if you want to go single stage instead of clearcoat. Read my articles but in general I think this is an acceptable practice to save some cost. And most of the Porsche non-metallic colors in the 80's were single stage OEM.

It's been 10 years ago but I got a Jaguar XJ6 sedan painted black single stage by an independent guy in Charlotte for $2500 labor, I supplied the paint. It came out fine, very presentable, not concours. So those type of guys are out there.

Good luck.

Reading Harvey's post reminded me of a fact that greatly contributed to my lower cost and good quality job.
I did all the trim stripping myself. I pulled all the windows, rubber seals, lights, bumpers, etc. I actually drove the car to the paint shop without any windows, sunroof, bumpers, or lights...on a 50F morning :roflmao:

Where at in the MD area are you? If you don't mind traveling a bit more north to York county PA, there is a Maaco in Hanover that does a bunch of classic car paint.

Just south of Baltimore. I took it over to the local Maaco place in Jessup MD, and $1700ish will get the dent fixed, totally sanded, with the base/clearcoat job. Should I pull the rubber from the hatch seals/sunroof, remove the crest, and just let them fix all the other bits?

At this point it's a Why not, worst case it protects the chipping areas before they really start to rust. And it's still winter so they can spare some time to do it right.

It's possible to have good work done at Maaco, but it is definitely shop-dependent; look at all the Maacos within the furthest distance you're willing to drive, then check their ratings on Yelp, Google, etc. Some Maacos are actually pretty good, and the idea that Maaco's quality is significantly less than any other regular auto body shop is a misconception. Often the painters who work at Maacos will go the extra mile for an interesting car as it's a nice change of pace from the Civics and Altimas they do all day.

Baltimore Body Shop on Sisson Street does decent work. A few enthusiasts work there and always have an interesting project or 2 going on. They're not cheap but not concours restoration expensive either. As others have pointed out, the most important part is body work and prep, most places can shoot a decent paint job.

Ok. Aside from the door, there's not a lot of body work to do just really cruddy paint. And if they mess up the door I'll buy one on Ebay and have it resprayed.

Just pulled off the crest (man it is faded, but it's original and kind of the heart of the car) as well as the rear hatch gasket (need to replace anyway), I'll take it over and see what 2k can do :-)

My experience with the local Maaco was less than stellar. The Rabbit Ragtop needed deer collision repairs and decided to have all over paint re-spray so gave Maaco a shot. Buddy used to own a body shop and I've painted airplanes so I'm no stranger to body and paint work. I paid for extra ding repair and bumper prep, that was a joke. Paint was nice and glossy, should have been with all that runny clear coat. I had bigger fish to fry the time and just let it slide having seen the results of trying to fix runs and just making it look worse. Just chalked it up to a lesson learned. One local guy got a great job on his truck, however on a friend's 66 GTO the paint started showing sanding scratch marks from improperly cured primer shrinking. You can't hurry paint work, that said a poor paint job is better than none to save a car from rusting to death. YMMV

What do you want when it is done? A twenty footer? Right now it is a 50/50? Great at 50 feet going by at 50 mph?

The car is not a valuable car. Its intrinsic value exceeds its market value by a multiple. The metallic paint makes things more expensive, and to go solid will turn it into a Frankenstein. Maaco has a few grades of paint last time I checked. If you are going with them, I would see how much you can save by prepping the car as much as you can. pull the rubber off, take out the quarter windows, pull the side moldings off with dental floss. Take the wipers off, bumper pads off, and window sweepers. Door handles are a bitch. Then if you can, sand as much of the rust as you can so they just have to do the fine work. I doubt they will take the windshield out, so there will be overspray on that. However, if it is shot up with pockmarks, you may be able to work something out with a local safelite where they will replace it as soon as the paint is done, then have Maaco pull and toss it. They can do that easily. Notice how the job just got a lot trickier. You may also want to give them the bumpers off the car so they can spray them on a bench and give them back to you in the hatch.
The key to what I just posted is they are sanding and spraying the car. Like all above in the thread said, the details are in the prep. If you have a few small runs, you may be able to say OK. If you have overspray on the door rubber, globs of paint between the door moldings and the door, which leads to a run, and old paint showing through the bumper you will be upset.
With what I suggested (and others give your thoughts), the masking can be done by their intern and there wont be any damage, the assembly will be done by you, and that takes a lot of time. Pay them to do what you cant do, final sanding, and spraying. Use the better paint and get another 30 years out of it.

Another thing - If your dash is cracked, and you want to put one of the skins on it, it is a lot easier to get the part by the windshield down when the windshield is out. When I put the cap on my 89 NA, it warped by the windshield. When I had the safelite guy out to change the windshield I asked him for 15 minutes between the time the glass was out and the install. I had small stainless screws, he pushed the cap forward, and I drilled and screwed the cap into the old dash material right by where the dash meets the glass. then while he was gluing up the new glass I put dabs of black paint on the screws. The hard part was finding dead center. then I think I used piece of paper for spacing. It came out nice. Not perfect, but definitely better than the crack.

When it is all done treat yourself to a Momo steering wheel, and replace the leather on the shift knob.

Thanks for the comments. The car is currently a disaster paint-wise, here let me post some pics. Mind you I have had this car since 89....


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...ef29dc71db.jpg
The badge is off, but the car is still there.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...e5c5d5f512.jpg
My the sunroof is made of.... something.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...601d714f6f.jpg
This will not end well.....
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...e58aa80c77.jpg
Side view. Wish the clearcoat had all fallen off instead of this mess.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...fbca370c73.jpg
Door stay broken+backing up with door open+wood pile=this.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...fa16130546.jpg
Sigh
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...fdf42771bf.jpg
Looks good from the rear.

Right now anything. It looks like total ass.
Yah. Truth be told I can pick up another 944S on Ebay for like 2k with much better paint and just fix the engine. But it's my little car, I got this thing when I was 20 wil 30k miles on it and now it's well over 200k.

It's not really a matter of "saving" every last dollar, it's doing it as right as possible without going overboard. If they are going to pull the lights, stuff and rubber then I have no problem letting them do that. I have to drive it there so taking off the hatch/bumpers/windows/everything would be complex. The glass is perfect, so not worth replacing at this point.

I'm going with the best paint package they got, along with fixes to the door and some rust on a panel. If they find other things (sure they will) I'll deal with it.

Basically I need the car protected from rusting away, look like something less than a total monster, and not become a concours model. The engine and drivetrain are fine, all electricals work, it's a fine little car for what it is. The professionals want 12-20k to properly do it, which is what my dad paid for his 68 911L, but that's.... a quarter million dollar car. Most places around here just want to do insurance work.

If it looks better than what it does now I'll be happy. Worst thing I'm out 2k and I turn the car into mulch. Which it will become anyway if I don't do something.

The key to what I just posted is they are sanding and spraying the car. Like all above in the thread said, the details are in the prep. If you have a few small runs, you may be able to say OK. If you have overspray on the door rubber, globs of paint between the door moldings and the door, which leads to a run, and old paint showing through the bumper you will be upset.
With what I suggested (and others give your thoughts), the masking can be done by their intern and there wont be any damage, the assembly will be done by you, and that takes a lot of time. Pay them to do what you cant do, final sanding, and spraying. Use the better paint and get another 30 years out of it.[/QUOTE]

Seriously, looks like you got your $'s worth. :rockon:

If you're going to go to the extent of a repaint in an effort to bring the car back to it's former glory, may as well go all in IMHO 'cause that's the only way you can justify the expense of a paint job (unless you DITY).

Um. You realize I haven't painted it yet.

That disaster is factory paint, 30 years on, and I have no clue why the clearcoat imploded.....

Oddly enough it may be a regional thing: Note the Sienna has the same basic problem....

What about a wrap or something like Plastidip? It should be cheap, and meet your requirements.

If the plan is to just wrap it/plastidip it, then you could possibly get away with just DIY cleaning the rust and spraying it with cans. The dents will probably be best left to a professional though.

Added bonus - the removable nature of those finishes means you can have fun with them.

Well, I took it over to Maaco today and will let them wham away on it. Should be ready in a couple of weeks, then we'll see what it looks like.

And of course while working on the 928S today I destroyed the window lift motor so that car is basically immobolized. If it's not one thing, it's another....

Hope you get a great job and many more years of enjoyment out your old girl in the new dress:cheers:

Well, been a few weeks, I think I'll drive over tomorrow and see how it looks. New crest is still on order, the old one is original and faded, I'll put it in the museum.

Hope it looks good. Miss seeing it in the driveway. Mice probably miss it too.....

Yes. They want to build nests right underneath the shifter, and sometimes eat the damn boot and the leather. I've replaced it twice......

Stopped by this morning to check in. Will take another 2 weeks, but they are busy. Lot of little dimples on the hood of the car, bit of a crunch on the side of the car, and of course they are fixing the spoiler and a bunch of other stuff....


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...d8c3550758.jpg
Doing pretty good...
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...395d477672.jpg
Damn they may have fixed the dent!

They did mention that it was dripping a bit of oil from the engine or transmission, I said it was probably just all excited and happy and couldn't control itself.

:roflmao:

Checking in again, car is taped and prepped. Told then again no rush, one of the benefits of no rush is they can take the time to prep it right.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...1993d4d888.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...9b0d92878f.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...48083ed781.jpg

I'll give them this, they are doing a *lot* of work on this old beast. The little tiny dings, divots, and such as well as the crunched things like the spoiler.

We'll see in a week or two...

Very cool! Do you know how they're going to deal with the sunroof seal? Removed or taped? I'm looking forward to hearing your impression about the quality of their tape work, because I think if it's done really well, these cars should be able to get a quality paint job without doing glass out. At least that's what I'm hoping when it comes time to do mine!

Also, when it's all done and cleaned up, you might consider a new hood liner from 944online (I think they're the ones that sell it). Not too expensive and will really spruce up the look of your engine bay.:cheers:

I asked them today if they wanted me to pull the sunroof and the seal and they said it would be easier to get everything level with it in. So we'll see how it looks. If stupid I'll just pop off the sunroof, take it apart, and have them redo it. Still, the amount of filling and cleaning up of said sunroof was impressive (it was falling to bits from age).

Frankly I'll be impressed with anything at this point, as the car looked so bad it was an embarrassment. We'll see what we get and for how much, and I'll be sure to post pics.

Drove by the Maaco today and the car was out in the lot. They're in the process of wet sanding it, it's getting there.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...9db7e9c49c.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...4d8df2f565.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...39ecb766f6.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...0c14ea98b7.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...41d6e2d41e.jpg


They said they would probably redo the hood as there are still a few small dents they want to get out. My guess is it was 30 years of acorns falling on the car, need to think about that. But progress.

To be honest if this wind up costing what they quoted me I will be stunned. It's a *LOT* of work to do.

Hmm, that is scary. How could they proceed to paint without thoroughly checking the entire body for imperfections? The only time you should need to "redo the hood" is if there was a problem with the paint applied to the hood, not for more bodywork. This "miss" costs them and you money and time.

I think they did a pretty good job in finding imperfections, given the before and during I can see a lot of work done. Maybe they just want to make it perfect as possible.

Should be interesting to see the final cost. I haven't approved any extensions to the original estimate, although I think they've done a lot more than what I originally was expecting. If you look at the before pictures we can agree it was a basket case (and I pretty much ignored things like a million acorn divots).

C

I once had a Datsun Roadster painted at a Maaco and they stuck with the original quote even though they really went above and beyond with the bodywork, prep and color matching. Maybe they're just happy to do something other than another tweaked Camry fender. Anyway, I'm excited for you and I look forward to seeing the finished results of your rejuvenated old friend.

I would have to agree with the above comment. They are probably happy to be working on something with a little class... And I agree that they’re probably sticking to their original quote. Doing your car up right is good advertisement for them. There’s not a lot of shops that will touch a paint job on a 944. Just a shame that they didn’t correct the hood before painting it.
Good luck and keep updating us.

The operative in that is "little" not much class, just a little. I would guess the class is limited to the only Porsche part in the car, the motor - which they are not working on. The rest of the car is VW/Audi and we know those two have no class. None at all.

The Lexus SC next to the 944 - that's high class. High society high class. Just look at the little tree hanging. First class high class.

The Boxster - Meh! More Toyota than the Lexus. No class. OK, a little class. But not 991 class.

That's pretty much it: When I look at the in-between pictures and see how much work they did with the rust in the stone chip areas, the endless sanding of that junk factory paint, the rebuild of the sunroof, not to mention filling dozens of dents from acorns I have to think that this is getting my $2500 or so worth. The longer they spend on it, the better it will look.

Big #1 reason why I tell them no hurry and not to rush. If I wanted it in a week they would have probably done it quickly. For now they seem to be trying to do a good job and given the basket case condition of the thing it's not bad. Jeff Shaw was saying it would cost 12-14k for him to paint. Fair enough, my dad spent that on his 68 1 owner 911L. But that car is worth well north of 100k, and the job is flawless. This 944S is worth about $50 bucks so anything will be an improvement :-)

I'll give them another two weeks and drop by again. If nothing else this is entertaining and it's much better than looking at the wreck it was in my driveway.

The guys there seem to love it. They really also like the 928S when I bring that over to check on things, it's a pretty unusual car but of course it's also not a real Porsche :-)

Now a 914 (ducks)

We got $400 for our 944S with the blown motor. The near new track pads and S2 sway bars were probably worth $350 to the buyer.

That's about it. For some reason people are weird about the 944S and I don't quite understand why: It's almost as fast as a Turbo without the extra wear and tear on the engine, takes off like a rocket at 3k RPM, and if you keep the timing belt in good shape will last until the chain tensioner pads break at which point the head explodes.... And that's just a simple head rebuild, but belts don't really break anymore since they went to the -02 style...

So what did in your car?

I got to ask, what happened to the gas cap door? It was in the before pictures, but not in the most recent ones. Are they doing that off on the side since it is plastic?

They're doing it on the side.

Sometimes a tiny ding that didn't show up in the dull or sanded paint or primer will stand out like a sore thumb in fresh paint. I have laid paint on motorcycles, cars and airplanes, airbrush to electro-static so I know a little bit about paint and putty. After you think it's ready spray a light guide coat of black lacquer over the primer and then block sand thru it to the primer below. Any remaining black surrounded by primer is low spot or pit that needs attention. These guys by not hurrying allow primer to properly dry or cure. Primer coats hurriedly laid down and sanded inevitably shrink under the new paint revealing sanding marks or even worse cheese grater marks in the filler. Time is your friend here. Hope she turns out nice for you :cheers: YMMV

Which Maaco did you take it to? I'm in a nearly-identical boat - 944S with dings, faded paint, chipping clear coat, in MD. Only difference is mine is more maroon, almost purple in some light. And there is some rust repair I need to do on the sills. Curious to see how this turns out for you...

Jessup MD, right off 175. Ah, you have the deep crimson color, that was a really neat one and I almost bought it back in the day. I'll be updating this thread probably every other week as I wander by to check on things, will keep you posted.

C

I had the wife's Rabbit Ragtop done at Maaco in Hagerstown MD. The results were less than stellar. YRMV (Your Re-spray May Vary)

The odometer had something like `188k and it didnt work. We used it on the track. It had a newer tensioner, etc. It just gave up. Went down in a blaze of smoke. body was straight but paint was shot, interior was clean but dash cracks. I was using the 128i on the track, and my co owner just didnt feel like going through the process, cost of a motor, clutch, etc. so he bought a boxster and put $$ into it that gave him second thoughts.

Mmmm... That's about the time the timing chain pads finally break. At speed it must have been glorious, mine blew in a parking lot and still took out the cam shafts, ripped the tensioner off the head, and made a general mess. Took a year to rebuild the top end. Thanks for the data point, they only made something like 2500 of them, so they will eventually become unusual. I'll keep mine going as I'm able.

Boxsters.... There's a reason they are inexpensive/disposable.

Head was good. scored the cylinder. Not sure what killed it. Plenty of parts from spec boxsters we can use.

great info here, i'm thinking about getting my car repainted this year. Kind of in the same boat of "it's not technically worth the money, but it is to me." my paint is not nearly as bad as yours was overall, but i've got a fender with a huge rust spot that i'm replacing and there's so many little chips and dings that i'm probably going to get the whole car done. if i get a good job for $2500 i'll be pretty excited honestly.

I'm beginning to think Hint #1 is to take it in after Christmas. Work is kind of slow then and they can spend the winter/spring prepping the thing and getting it all figured out between other jobs. I'm going to check back next Monday, but at this point I'd like the car by June 1.

Drove over today to see how it was doing. They were sanding and polishing when I pulled in, man it looks beautiful. Took a bunch of pictures, it looks like they took off the sunroof and seals before painting. Darn it's looking good.

Pics in a bit. Another month and it should be ready to go....

Ok, some pictures as of today.... They are just working on this when they have nothing to do, this has been a lot of work on their part. Got to give these Maaco guys credit, this was not a spray and go job.....

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...7a69150d83.jpg
Still waiting for the gas cap door. $20 bucks on Ebay.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...b6a04895e7.jpg
Ah they are working away dilligently.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3bda22c0af.jpg
Under that dust is beauty.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...6f2dfd6d4e.jpg
Yes the motor is dusty.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...b978f660dc.jpg
I cannot see the problems with the hood, but they can and are reshooting it once the cap door comes in. It's not hail, it's acorns from the trees....
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...c7a3acba1e.jpg
Yep, they pulled the sunroof seals. Good for them!

I'm glad to see you are getting respectable results for a reasonable price. Places like Maaco generally have a reputation along the lines of "leave the windows down and we'll paint the inside for free". I embarked on a similar journey several years ago looking to get my turbo Ranger painted. Most places wouldn't touch it and those that would wanted a fortune. Turns out the service manager at one of the places I got a quote from understood what I was looking for. He told me one of his employees did side work and gave me his contact info. I rang him up and he painted my truck for $2k. Turned out nice and I was happy with the result.

Now on to the business of you DC metro area "S" owners. Who's going to the German car show at Nottaway Park in Vienna tomorrow? I was going to bring mine to sleaze the place up a little.
Cheers,
-seth

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...428786a4d2.jpg

Family responsibilities have me busy tomorrow afternoon :( If it rained there like here (50 miles west) it will be squishy. Try to get on the field early before the entrance gets churned up into a muddy mess and you can probably leave by the gravel lane running along the tree line that should be behind where they will direct you to park. You can avoid the mud on the way out :) Good luck, you might be a shoo in, I earned 1st place there in 2014 against some stiff completion but got a hollow victory when returning in 2016 being the only entered 924/928/944 there :(

Any updates on the S paint job? I've been driving mine the past few days and as usual I forget how much I like that car until I drive it. It is, however, badly in need of a cosmetic makeover.

Have to go over and check on it today. Oddly enough I don't want to pay for it until the next Amex billing cycle which starts on the 19th or so. But I'll drive over and see what's up.

Well no progress two weeks ago so I asked them to get it done.

Went over today and HOLY SMOKES IT'S ALMOST READY! They were cleaning up the engine and had redone the hood because of the hail damage.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...057d154bb1.jpg
They even replaced the hatch seal!
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...757f60a748.jpg
Mmmmmm.... Need to bring over my new crest.....

The car is looking great! Is a new hoodliner in the works?

Maybe. The old one disintegrated over 30 years, I can put that on the list once I get a round tuit.

Big question is should I take it to the Autocross on Saturday instead of the 928S. Need to fix the AC on this one......

+2!:rockon:

Yes

Here is a link for a round tuit https://www.etsy.com/listing/2376608...RoCJ0IQAvD_BwE

I'm excited for them to finish it up and you to bring it home and snap some proper pics, but thus far, that looks pretty damn good. Certainly a huge improvement.

Looking good! Can't wait to see it in the real world.

I'll go over this afternoon and see if I can pick it up. Currently I'm driving a Honda Insight, which is like a go-kart with a small engine. :-)

Oh look, it has a friend there!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...94c022ead9.jpg

The battery is shot so I need to bring over a starter battery. And I do need to fix the door stay as soon as it gets home. But it will come home today, then I spend the weekend fixing everything else that's wrong....

Price: Despite the fact that they spent 6 months working on it, and did an exceptional amount of bodywork to fix the rust and the dents it still came to the quoted cost of $1800 or so. I would say they have done an amazing job and it was worth the money.

More pics this weekend....

Really nice!
Keep the pics coming!
Mine will be painted within a year.