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Have my heart set on Guards Red 991 GTS with NA engine and my long time search is unsuccessful, so far. Just found a 2016 with very low mileage (<10K) and optioned exactly what I am looking for ... except it is Carmine Red. Humbly requesting opinions about the wisdom of having such a car repainted to the desired Guards Red. If so, cost to do so is not an issue, so I would consider only the very best paint specialists in the US. (The car would be a keeper, so not concerned about impact to resale value resulting from non-original paint.) Thoughts? (Thanks, everyone.)
I don’t know a quicker way to ruin the resale value than repaint. I also rarely see paint jobs work out anywhere close to as good as the factory without spending $20k+, with price on some paint jobs being close to $50k because of the work required to take everything apart and prep it all correctly. I the engine, interior, glass, every last bit of the car needs to come apart, and even then still it won’t be as thorough as factory paint job. Would you be willing to spend the $ to do it right, or are you spending a couple of grand on some shoddy work hoping for the best? Repaint a car because it is the only choice to try and get it back on the road and then live with the worse than factory quality because there’s no choice. Choosing to repaint a perfectly good car, absolutely terrible idea. Not to mention, you’re proposing to repaint a car from red to a slightly darker shade of red. Seriously I can’t think of a more pointless repaint than perhaps repainting from Dolomite Silver to GT Silver.
I like Carmine red but if you want to change the color go for it if you can find the right shop. I know a guy who bought a new black BMW M5 and had the color changed to Dakar Yellow !
I personally was a guards red guy until I saw carmine red in person. Needless to say, the car we have coming next will be carmine red.
It's similar to chalk, in that the pics are misleading, but in person it has a different presence. I would recommend seeing them both in person. Go to a local cars and coffee or P-car event where you might get a chance to see some examples, even if not on a 991.
I don’t know a quicker way to ruin the resale value than repaint. I also rarely see paint jobs work out anywhere close to as good as the factory without spending $20k+, with price on some paint jobs being close to $50k because of the work required to take everything apart and prep it all correctly. I the engine, interior, glass, every last bit of the car needs to come apart, and even then still it won’t be as thorough as factory paint job. Would you be willing to spend the $ to do it right, or are you spending a couple of grand on some shoddy work hoping for the best? Repaint a car because it is the only choice to try and get it back on the road and then live with the worse than factory quality because there’s no choice. Choosing to repaint a perfectly good car, absolutely terrible idea. Not to mention, you’re proposing to repaint a car from red to a slightly darker shade of red. Seriously I can’t think of a more pointless repaint than perhaps repainting from Dolomite Silver to GT Silver.
I don’t know a quicker way to ruin the resale value than repaint. I also rarely see paint jobs work out anywhere close to as good as the factory without spending $20k+, with price on some paint jobs being close to $50k because of the work required to take everything apart and prep it all correctly. I the engine, interior, glass, every last bit of the car needs to come apart, and even then still it won’t be as thorough as factory paint job. Would you be willing to spend the $ to do it right, or are you spending a couple of grand on some shoddy work hoping for the best? Repaint a car because it is the only choice to try and get it back on the road and then live with the worse than factory quality because there’s no choice. Choosing to repaint a perfectly good car, absolutely terrible idea. Not to mention, you’re proposing to repaint a car from red to a slightly darker shade of red. Seriously I can’t think of a more pointless repaint than perhaps repainting from Dolomite Silver to GT Silver.
not to mention a Paint job worthy of a 991.1 GTS will be a 5-Figure proposition. Not worth the effort, $$$$ and hit on resale.
I prefer Carmine to the more orangey Guards and it's absolutely not worth repainting one. Again...value destroyed. If you're going to do a quality glass out repaint on a car, do something that is special and rare.
Carmine Red takes on different appearances based on the light the car is in. Such a unique color and far more interesting to me than Guards Red - which I think has been over-produced over all of the years.
Carmine red looks particularly great with black / blacked out trim I think. It is a color that Porsche has used historically - first used I believe in 1987 and 1988 on the G-Series Carrera.
My '87 has its original paint - Carmine Red. I've received so many comments from long-time Porsche owners about the car - particularly about the color.
First off all, let me preface by saying that I love Carmine red, so I’m probably a little biased. Carmine is one of my favorite Porsche colors, I find it to be a deep and rich red, compared to Guards (which I might note, is a color that I also love, but not as much) which I also find a little lighter and a bit orangy. Resale value aside, I agree with others that you should give the Carmine red a chance, you may find that you like it.
1. Much prefer Carmine to the extremely common GR.
2. Doing a repaint is not the best idea. Strongly suggest you look into liquid wrap. It's like a respray but you can remove it like a wrap. I'm getting my GR GT3 liquid wrapped as I type this to Slate Gray.
I love guards but for me carmine would be a 100% acceptable compromise. If it were me I would totally keep it carmine and never look back. It's still a red and a beautiful one at that.
If I were looking at the perfect car spec but in Funeral Gray or any other of the sad depressing colors, I'd do a wrap instead of a repaint. That way you can pull it off before selling and you haven't messed with the car's original identity.
If it were me, I’d keep looking. Guards red is not a rare color.
Is it not though? I don't have numbers but if I had to guess, more than half of all 991s are white, black, silver or gray, and the majority of the remaining ones are one of the blues
I was looking for a guards red 991.2 Cabrio after I fell in love with a 991.1 I rented in GR. I found a Carmine red and at first I was hesitant about it. But I decided to look at it in person and found it to be beautiful. For me it is a good sport red color without being a candy red type of color. It looks great with black, which naturally makes it a great GTS color. I have not regretted going with Carmine and not waiting to find the Guards red.